Take it from me, being cool isn’t all it’s cracked up to be

ELIF GABB Opinion Editor

I walk with a swagger.

I swing my shoulders with purpose, looking like I own the place.

I talk loudly and proudly.

I am the center of attention in nearly every room I find myself in. I socialize with ease — unafraid of talking to anyone I meet.

I am cool. I am cool. I am cool.

I have never been cool.

As a child, I never fit in anywhere. I was too clever and too fat; either too quiet or too loud; too boyish for the girls, but too girly for the boys.

Up until college, I had very few friends. 

Home-schooled from 11 years old, I had limited social interactions with people my own age. I spent the majority of my time talking to adults — in all honesty, people my own age bored me. 

Perhaps that’s what changed everything for me at college.

I hadn’t behaved like a child in years. I hadn’t felt like a teenager in a long time. During freshman year, I acted older than my peers, garnering a certain amount of respect from other freshmen I met. 

The English accent at a small-town college didn’t hurt either. 

Suddenly, everybody wanted to be friends with me.

The girl who didn’t have any friends for a long time was now wanted. Mostly as the token British friend, but still wanted.

I knew everybody. Or, more aptly put, everybody knew me.

And over the past two years, nothing much has really changed about that. Everyone still knows me — I have a reputation that follows me around campus. 

And yet, I still don’t feel cool.

I still feel like that little girl without friends. 

What I’ve come to realize is that “being cool” is merely an appearance.

I am the master of faking cool, so that’s what I’m known as. 

And to those of you who wish you were cool, let me tell you that I’ve been there, and none of it is real. 

If you don’t feel cool now, you won’t feel cool when you finally get there. You might fake it, but you’ll never actually make it.

And that’s nothing to do with you. It’s simply because this general idea of what constitutes a “cool” person isn’t real. 

Everyone can think you’re the “cat’s pajamas,” but if you don’t think it about yourself, you’ve failed at your job.

But what is there to gain from being “cool?” I’ve been there, (as conceited as that sounds), but what have I gained from being “cool?”

Not much. 

It really isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

The close friends I’ve made here, the ones who really know me, all know I’m definitely not cool. They’ve seen my stupid dance moves, my ridiculous laugh and my awful cry face. And they stayed put.

They know that little girl who didn’t have any friends. And those are the people that are going to last after my time at SDSU is said and done — not the people who think I’m cool, but the people who think precisely the opposite.

So, don’t try to become something you’re not when at college. 

Really, don’t bother. 

It won’t last.

 

Elif Gabb is the Opinion Editor for The Collegian and can be reached at [email protected]