Frank Kogan

Around the age of 8 I was determined to be 'cool', however my interpretation of this was terribly skewed into 'having everyone like me'. I say terribly, because I had no idea how to go about this, and as soon as I started trying to be cool, everyone started HATING me (beforehand I had always received either genuine friendship or indifference). I lost what few friends I had and became thoroughly miserable for most of that school year until I stopped caring so much. My method of achieving coolness was deeply flawed: never showing enthusiasm, trying to appear as though nothing affected me for better or worse - this mutated into being highly defensive at all times & not trusting my own judgement. Arrrrrgh. I look back and think of all the grief I could have saved myself. It sounds cliched but as soon as I relaxed and stopped worrying whether people thought I was cool or not, I became much happier.

I don't think I could actively try to be 'cool', and be happy at the same time.