The Truth About ‘Cool Girls’

“You’re such a cool girl, that’s why I like you”

“Wow you seem really chill. You’re such a bro”

“Tequila shots? No? But I thought you were a cool girl!”

“You’re not like the other girls, you’re a cool girl”

If I had a dollar for every time a guy called me a “cool girl” –

Actually, I’d honestly only have like five bucks because men don’t give me that much attention.

When they do, I’m the “cool girl.” Maybe it’s my cherry-red hair that screams wild chick, or the way I pretend to know my beers. Maybe it’s the way I’m not afraid to make vulgar jokes. Maybe they’re just mistaken.

The cool girl double-fists Jägerbombs and somehow still manages to walk straight whilst teetering on the border of wild but not crazy.

The cool girl is always down for Burger King at 3 am but miraculously stays a size 0. The cool girl sits on the edge of your bed cheering for your favourite football team in nothing but a T-shirt and cheeky underwear (which she obviously seems totally comfortable in).

The cool girl might have a couple of tasteful tattoos, just enough to show that she’s adventurous with her body, but nothing too self-expressive that will take away from her generic hotness.

The cool girl will never get angry at you, but if you get angry at her, she would understand.

The cool girl is relaxed but exciting, engages in vices but suffers no consequences, is endlessly empathetic but harbours no emotion of her own, and is above all, effortlessly hot.

I am not a cool girl. No, really, I have no chill whatsoever. During the twenty-two years of my life I’ve just gathered enough observation to learn how to look like a cool girl, walk like a cool girl, talk like a cool girl, and burp like a cool girl.

But I repeat, I am not a cool girl.

I am not a cool girl because I can’t shotgun a beer without it ending up in my hair, t-shirt, and the bar floor. The only time I’d been able to have fries at midnight and stay a size 0 is when I was on the two-finger diet. And that’s not cool. I’ve tried to get into basketball so that my ex would think I’m cool but honestly I can’t last the first quarter without itching to go on Instagram. My tattoos are meticulously designed emblems of the trials I’ve conquered in life, and they should be regarded as no less.

I am not a cool girl because I have to take literal chill pills to get me through the day without a humiliating breakdown in the bathroom at work (though even with the pills, it sometimes still happens). I get hurt, angry, disappointed, and desperate towards those I love because I care about them so much. I will call you (yes, an actual phone call) rather than text you because I want to hear your voice. 

I am not a cool girl because I want love more than anything else in the world.

I think the climax of intimacy is a passionate kiss. I think people are the most attractive when they laugh with abandon. To me, the best Valentine’s Day gift is a thoughtful letter. My ideal Friday night is staying home and reading my favourite book aloud to someone I love so I can watch them drift asleep in comfort (and more likely, boredom). I want a perfect nuclear family with a baby Golden Retriever in a seaside town. I want to one day find home in someone’s arms.

Perhaps cool girls are mythical creatures.

A flat character like Mila Kunis in Friends With Benefits. A bro-d out Manic Pixie Dream Girl.

The archetype of a cool girl is made to be perfectly palatable to the opposite sex: low-maintenance, entertaining, and attractive. But this archetype isn’t congruent with the essence of what it means to be human. We cry, fight, and beg because we are human and we just love really hard sometimes.

We have stories engraved in our skin. We have insecurities from being reminded every day that we should be smart, empathetic, successful, attractive, and cool. So we laugh louder, joke harder, and stay thinner.

And finally, we are scared.

We are scared that once we become vulnerable, we won’t be liked anymore.