Let's Hear It For The Beta Male

"EVERYWHERE there's someone better than you," said Steven Tsapelas, 26, over a cheeseburger deluxe at Mike's Diner in Astoria. "Everywhere you go, if you're talking to a girl there's five other guys right in their immediate vicinity blowing you away."

So goes the refrain of the New York City beta male -- that gentle, endearingly awkward, self-conscious soul for whom love is a battlefield. For the last year or so the bungled seductions and everyday fears of such men have been laid bare in "We Need Girlfriends," a no-budget Web series based on the ups and downs of Mr. Tsapelas and his former college roommates, Brian Amyot, 26, and Angel Acevedo, 25.

A cult hit among the under-30 set, the series chronicles the lives of three postcollegiate guys (Henry, Tom and Rod) who live on the cheap in Queens and routinely demonstrate that while they are suitors with hearts of gold, the only game they have is Taboo.

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