maybe i am cool girl, maybe we all are.

because we're fucking tired.

I am so very unimpressed with my options.

There is a calmness that comes with being in situations of constant disappointment and so when you enter into spaces that naturally give birth to these levels of disappointment, and you lack either the ability or the willpower to react to it, you are considered cool girl.

My first knowledge of cool girl came from Gone Girl. Amy Dunne talks about all the little ways she made herself smaller and more digestible for a man. The beers, the cold pizza, the waxing, pretending not to care, pretending to be effortless. She carved pieces off herself until she became a version that could fit comfortably into somebody else’s fantasy. She became adaptable, digestible, non-confrontational—easy.

And then he cheated on her.

Which feels important.

Not because every woman who performs cool girl gets cheated on, but because there is something funny about the promise buried underneath it all. The promise that if you’re easy enough, understanding enough, accommodating enough, then somehow you’ll be rewarded for it.

As if men are sitting around handing out gold stars for being low maintenance.

Beyond that version, there are other cool girls.

There is the cool girl we see on screen and in real life, the one who lets everything slide. The cool girls who are in relationships with men who obviously hate them, but they play off the disrespect and embarrassment as the normal and mutually accepted dynamic of their relationships.

Additionally, there is the “cool girl” that is effortless. It seems that this jurisdiction is her natural habitat. Maybe due to how she was raised or strong belief systems that empower her to go against the grain and ironically that often becomes part of her appeal.

There are more examples and nuances than I can name. I don’t know them all.

From my perspective, the cool girl concept circles around adopting certain characteristics that have been labeled masculine but are considered socially acceptable—even desirable—for women to have. Traits that make a woman seem relatable, easygoing, uncomplicated to potential mates (can’t believe I said mates).

There is also an issue with how cool girl gets raised up as the ideal. Sometimes I genuinely think a lot of men want to date their homeboys and they simply do not know how to communicate that in a way that feels safe to them. So instead they look for women who mirror the things they already understand and value in other men and then call it compatibility.

But really what I want to touch on—and try to catch my drift here—is that there is an aspect of cool girl that has very little to do with performance and a lot more to do with perception.

The cool girl I’m thinking about is the woman who is seen as chill and unbothered.

She is not easily offended. She is like a Love Island connection that lets you explore your options while keeping the door open. She does not react to your incompetence nor make you feel bad about the wrongs you do. She seems understanding. She seems patient. She seems above it all.

Sometimes this is viewed as admirable.

From my perspective, it could signify a couple of things.

The first thing being that maybe she is just tired.

When one is consistently unimpressed and disappointed in one’s options, the emotional investment becomes low and then they cannot—we cannot—help but not care.

There is simply nothing left to give.

We seem cool and unoffendable because we no longer view you as someone with the ability to offend us. You lose the power to do that because in order to be let down, one has to have been held up first. You have to expect something. You have to believe they are capable of something.

At a certain point disappointment stops being disappointing because it becomes predictable.

It’s like getting mad at a baby for spilling milk. They do not have the mental capacity to have steady hands with the milk.

The difference is that these are not babies.

They are adults.

And that’s just...

Anyways.

There is something about not wanting to explain yourself because you know that person either does not understand or they would rather not understand. There is a difference between confusion and refusal, and after a while you learn how to recognize both.

You stop wanting to put in the effort because it feels pointless. You have already had the conversation in your head. You have already imagined how it ends. You already know which parts they will ignore and which parts they will deliberately misunderstand. Eventually silence becomes less exhausting than explanation.

The other possibility is having an emotionally regulated nervous system.

I reckon I have become so stable and whole in myself that it seems uncanny to some people that I don’t need the people I love in the ways that were expected.

Which makes me wonder if one must love only when they are incomplete. Maybe we’ve become so accustomed to seeing love emerge from lack, from longing, from wounds, that wholeness looks detached in comparison.

Or maybe the sharing of wholeness is where things are actually supposed to begin.

Maybe that just seems boring.

I don’t know.

What I do know is that I choose not to fight or tussle. I care so much about the things that matter that I don’t have the budget for the things that don’t.

So it isn’t a matter of being nonchalant.

It’s about knowing what is important and what isn’t.

Having the ability to care deeply requires that you know how to filter through it all. Some things may fall by the wayside. Some people too.

That isn’t indifference.

That is discernment.

The last possibility is that maybe you actually do like beers and cold pizza.

Maybe some of the things that seem synonymous with masculinity are simply enjoyable human experiences that have somehow been categorized incorrectly. Maybe ease does not belong to men. Maybe simplicity does not belong to men. Maybe low maintenance does not belong to men.

A lot of the activities associated with femininity are either common sense, basic hygiene, or genuine forms of self-expression. Some women genuinely enjoy going the extra mile because it aligns with who they want to be.

But I also think a portion of it comes from things we were taught to care about for the sake of those who perceive us. Things we were taught would matter to the people evaluating us. More often than not, men.

For this woman, these qualities do not exist solely to make life easier for a man. They exist because they make life easier for her too.

Her qualities are not masculine. They are not feminine. They are human.

Easy does not always have to be associated with men.

And I think it is for this reason that we teach women to put tremendous effort into the things that matter the least for the most menial return, while teaching men to put the least effort into the things that matter the most. The things of actual importance. The things that sustain relationships, friendships, families, communities.

I realize a lot of women are cool girl not because they are trying to preserve the ego of whoever they are dealing with, but because there is a tiredness there. There is a lack of expectancy. There is an acceptance of what certain people are capable of emotionally and what they are not.

We are cool because we choose not to engage with nonsense.

Not because we don’t recognize it.

Not because it doesn’t bother us.

But because we do.

It’s just a thing, I suppose.

But after learning to regulate your own nervous system and detach from things that no longer serve you, they call you “cool girl” like you didn’t have to lose your mind to get this calm.

Like this peace arrived naturally.

Like this version of yourself didn’t cost anything.

You work so hard to grow out of bad habits, unhealthy patterns, old mindsets, and somehow the result is treated as though it was effortless.

I think we should celebrate it.

I think you should celebrate yourself.

So yeah.

Maybe I am cool girl.

Maybe we all are.

Because we’re all so fucking tired.