The definition of the Cool Girl.
From the book Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn – Amazing I had to share it!
That night at the Brooklyn party. I was playing the girl who was in style, the girl a man like Nick wants the Cool Girl. Men always say that as the defining compliment, don’t they? She’s a cool girl. Being the Cool Girl means I am hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2, because Cool Girls are above all hot. Hot and understanding. Cool girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want. Go ahead, shit on me. I don’t mind. I’m the Cool Girl.
Men actually think this girl exits. Maybe they’re fooled because so many women are willing to pretend to be this girl. For a long time Cool Girl offended me. I used to see men, friends, coworkers, strangers – giddy over these awful pretender women, and I’d want to sit these men down and calmly say: You are not dating a woman, you are dating a woman who has watched too many movies written by socially awkward men who’d like to believe that this kind of woman exits and might kiss them. I’d want to grab the poor guy by his lapels or messenger bag and say: The bitch doesn’t really like chili dogs that much – no one loves chili dogs that much! And the Cool Girls are even more pathetic: They’re not even pretending to be the woman they want to be, they’re pretending to be the woman a man wants to be. Oh, and if you’re not a Cool Girl. I beg you not to believe that your man doesn’t want to the Cool Girl, it may be a slightly different version – maybe he’s vegetarian, so Cool Girl loves seitan and is great with dogs: or maybe he’s a hipster artist, so Cool Girl is a tattooed, bespectacled nerd who loves comics. There are variations to the window dressing, but believe me, he wants Cool Girl, who is basically the girl who likes every fucking thing he likes and doesn’t even complain. (How do you know you’re not Cool Girl? Because he says things like: “I like strong women”, If he says that to you, he will at some point fuck someone else. Because “I like strong women” is code for “I hate strong women.”)
I waited patiently – years – for the pendulum to swing the other way, for men to start reading Jane Austen, learn how to knit, pretend to love cosmos, organize scrapbook parties, and make out with each other while we leer. And then we’d say, Yeah, he’s a Cool Guy.
But it never happened. Instead, women across the nation colluded in our degradation! Pretty soon Cool Girl became the standard girl. Men believed she existed – she wasn’t just a dream girl one in a million. Every girl was supposed to this girl, and if you weren’t, then there was something wrong with you.
But it’s tempting to be Cool Girl. For someone like me, who likes to win, it’s tempting to want to be the girl every guy wants. When I met Nick. I knew immediately that was what he wanted, and for him, I guess I was willing to try.
I was living the moment, and I could feel myself getting shallower and dumber. But also happy. I was probably happier for those years – pretending to be someone else – than I ever have been before or after. I can’t decide what that means. But then it had to stop, because it wasn’t real, it wasn’t me. I thought it was a bit of a game. I tried so hard to be easy. But it was unsustainable. It turned out he couldn’t sustain his side either: the witty banter, the clever games, the romance, and the wooing. It all started collapsing on itself. I hated Nick for being surprised when I became me. I hated him for not knowing it had end, for truly believing he had married this creature, this figment of the imagination of a million masturbatory men, semen-fingered and self-satisfied. He truly seemed astonish when I asked him to listen to me. He couldn’t believe I didn’t love wax-stripping my pussy raw and blowing him on request. That I did mind when he didn’t show up for drinks with my friends. That was pure, dumb Cool Girl bullshit.
I don’t get it: If you let a man cancel plans or decline to do things for you, you lose. You don’t get what you want. It’s pretty clear. Sure, he may be happy, he may say you are the coolest girl ever, but he’s saying it because he got his way. He’s calling you a Cool Girl to fool you! That’s what men do: They try to make it sound like you are the cool girl so you will bow to their wishes. Like a car salesman saying, How much do you want to pay for this beauty? when you didn’t agree to buy it yet. That awful phrase men use: “I mean, I know you wouldn’t mind if I… Yes, I do mind. Just say it. Don’t lose, you dumb little twat.
So it had to stop. Committing to Nick, feeling safe with Nick, being happy with Nick, made me realize that there was a Real Amy in there, and she was much better, more interesting and complicated and challenging, than Cool Amy. Nick wanted Cool Amy anyway. Con you imagine, finally showing your true self to your spouse, your soul mate, and having him not like you? So that’s how hating first began. I’ve thought about this a lot, and that’s where it started. I think.
Side note: What you learned from this? BE YOU, ALWAYS!
xoxo,
Cristina
