The Worth of Cool

How do you measure coolness? For most of my life, I thought cool was quantified by how many attractive friends you could sit with during lunch or how many designer jeans your adoring parents provided. Me? I never had any of that. I was too quiet to have lots of friends, and my parents only acknowledged my existence with criticisms and constant putdowns. So needless to say, I didn’t get too many fancy clothes.  

   

As I aged, my circle of girlfriends grew smaller and smaller as I grew closer and closer with sci-fi, documentaries, and video games. Cool girls couldn’t be nerdy. Or at least that’s what I thought up till now.

No, they were trendy, witty, and had hair extensions. I was awkward, shy, and my virgin hair only knew the experience of my mother’s clumsy hands. For years, I longed, no ached, to be a different person. A better person I thought.

I didn’t think being a nerdy spaz yielded any worth. I mean, who cared that I knew the sun’s distance from the earth or that Shakespeare invented over 1500 words. Nah, that kind of trivial knowledge becomes useless in a sea of girly sleepovers and football games. Neither of which I participated during high school or even now in my last year of college undergrad.

And romance? I did not receive my first kiss until I was 19, and that was only because I found some random dude from the internet, met him the next day, and allowed him to take me to his apartment alone for the most unrefined make out session in the course of recorded history.

Not proud of that moment for a plethora of reasons, so no need to admonish me in the comments.

Perhaps I wasn’t as smart as I thought. Perhaps I allowed my perceived intelligence to blind me from what was really going on. I didn’t have friends because I was a nerd, I didn’t have friends because I thought I was uncool.

Yes, I make up words like “awesomesauce”. Yes, I am a total spaz who trips over flat surfaces. Yes, social interactions scare the Dickens out of me unless I’m in an academic setting or strongly inebriated. But that’s who I am; I just have to deal with it.

Dealing with the coolness skeletons in my closet is still a challenge. I see girls all the time who seem to float through life carefree and bubbly, and they attract friends like moth to a shallow flame. However, I couldn’t be like that if I tried, and believe me, I have tried.

This post is not a pity party; it is a reflection of how far I have come from loathing everything about me to now loving all of those differences and realizing how they make me an individual.

Am I a super social butterfly? Do I have a closet full of designer clothes? Are my parents still distant and moody as a  pre-teen? None of that really matters in the symphony that is me. I am learning to accept and move on.

So how to I rank myself on the “coolness factor”? Well…quirky sense of humor? Check. A brain that is as big as my overwhelming heart? Check. An imagination that most people can’t handle? Check. A pair of awesome boobs? Double check.

It’s Thanksgiving, so while you are with friends, family, or your expansive collection of cats, don’t forget to be thankful of what really matters. You. Cool or uncool.