You’re intelligent. You’re ambitious.

You combine charisma and character, and command respect, all in your four inch stilettos. You can deflect bullshit off your magic bracelets, leap tall douche-bags in a single bound, and never lose your femininity. You’re a SuperWoman, you’re spectacular, and you’re single.

Okay, maybe that part about the magic bracelets only really exists in the comics. But just because you don’t have super powers doesn’t mean you can’t date like a hero.

Here are five steps to help you date like a SuperWoman—mere mortals, please shield your eyes.

Never Go Shopping When You’re Hungry
If you shop for food when you’re stomach is rumbling, everything in the supermarket looks good. Everything is appetizing when you’re dying of starvation. If you’re hungry enough, you will eat junk; things that are entirely devoid of nutritional content. Dating is similar, in that when you’re unhappy with who you are, you’re more likely to date junk, and conduct entire relationships that are devoid of emotional content.

We all make better decisions about who to love when we aren’t starved for affection. Liking yourself is the start to being liked by someone, and being happy with who you are is the only way to become part of a happy couple. So before you go love someone else, fill up on love for yourself!

Pick Strawberries
It’s important to live and love with as little fear as possible. Life is short, and often painful. You can’t predict the future and you can’t change the past. Try not to allow past pain or future uncertainty to keep you from enjoying the present. Ideal circumstances rarely happen to people, but ideal people can happen to circumstances.

Say and do the things that really matter to you today without hesitation, because you never know if you’re going to get another chance. Your life is now. When strawberries present themselves, pick them.

Recognize Your Teachers
The Universe has a twisted sense of humor. Whatever blessing you ask of it, it will present you with the appropriate tools needed to develop in you the qualities you require to attain that which you seek. Ask for love and The Universe will laugh, and whisper ‘Are you ready?’, knowing full well that you are not. It will scrape away your preconceptions, strip you down to your bare essence, and then it will point, and laugh.

The Universe wants you to become an individual worthy of it’s greatest gifts, so it will send you teachers. When relationships don’t work out, try to learn the lessons well enough not to repeat your mistakes, and then forget it all just enough to be open to making new mistakes. Remember, the Universe is preparing you to be part of something delicious.

Don’t Settle For Less than You Deserve
You accept only the highest standards for your job, your friends, your home. Why enforce a lower standard for your love life? Not everyone can afford a BMW, and not every man can be with you. Be reasonable, be realistic, but never underestimate your intrinsic worth. The second you settle for less than you deserve, you deserve what you settled for.

Great Sex Reinforces Love
Great sex is to a relationship as oxygen is to air, in that it is a necessary, but not dominant component. Prolonged exposure to pure oxygen causes brain damage, but deprive the body of oxygen for even a few minutes and you’d die. Similarly, a relationship comprised of nothing but sex is ultimately toxic, but without it, relationships lose their fire and begin to die.

Sexual chemistry is a powerful thing, so try to only form those kinds of bonds with someone you genuinely care for. The best sex in the world will isn’t reason enough to become romantically involved with someone who’s not right for you. Remember, it’s not what’s between your legs, it’s what’s between your ears.

© Jackie Summers 2011

* This post originally appeared on I Am A Super Woman, featuring Alexis Tirado.