Being cool is something that has always confused me.
I don't understand how we all collectively decide when someone is cool, or when they're cooler than us, or when they just definitively are not cool.
I'm not even really sure what cool means, but I've boiled it down to being charismatic in some sense, and being good at something, whether it's communicating, doing, creating, or dressing well.
Looking back at my childhood it all seems to get more confusing.
There were children at my school who everyone knew without a doubt were the cool kids.
I don't know why they were the cool kids; at the time it seemed like it was because they played sport after school and they all had the cool kind of coloured polar fleece that everyone wanted.
Maybe they were more confident and authoritative than the rest of us?
Or maybe it was just the polar fleeces.
In any case, I was not a cool child.
I wasn't the nerdiest of the nerds, but I wasn't cool by a long shot, even if I was occasionally allowed to sit with the cool girls when I was in the midst of dispute with my other friends.
Now that I'm in my 20s I feel like I have more of an idea of what cool means, though my grasp on the concept is tenuous.
I know people who everyone admires because they never seem to try at anything, their personality just happens, they're naturally charismatic and stylish, they're good at things, and people want to be around them.
Then, on the other hand, I know people who obviously try very, very hard and people want to be around them too.
But, trying and not trying doesn't seem to be what does it.
There are people who are bullied at school for not trying and for trying too hard.
In my first year of university I was worried, for the first time in my life, about being cool.
It was the most miserable year.
I was afraid to listen to music that I genuinely liked because I was worried about those around me thinking I wasn't hip enough to be a musician.
To make matters worse, I didn't drink and so being out was excruciating.
I stopped going out because it was cooler not being seen than being seen doing the wrong thing.
Since then I have fortunately grown up enough to realise doing what you actually like and behaving in ways comfortable to you is the better option.
Those I know still anxious about being on trend are some of the unhappiest people in my social circle.
American television gets a lot of things wrong, but it isn't far off when it comes to the dangers of seeking popularity.
Being cool by its very nature requires exclusion, and encourages weird, intangible social hierarchies.
As soon as you start enforcing those hierarchies on yourself, you've started enforcing them on others too.
It almost seems as though being considered cool is totally arbitrary to the social circles you move in, and that ultimately thinking about it too much is going to make you at least a little bit unhappy.
And, of course, it almost goes without saying that there are enough unhappy things out there already.
So, while I still don't know what it really means to be a cool kid, I don't think I really need to know, because it probably doesn't mean very much at all.
●Millie Lovelock is a Dunedin student.
