Ice Cold.

After watching Gone Girl yesterday I finally got to read what other people had to say about it.  The discussion on the “Cool Girl” in particular hasn’t been sitting right with me.  The below quote is taken from a Buzzfeed piece that quotes the original Gone Girl text that is mirrored in the movie.

Men always say that as the defining compliment, don’t they? She’s a cool girl. Being the Cool Girl means I am a 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.

If the argument here is that no one should pretend to be someone they aren’t to attract a mate, I agree.  If the argument is that many women struggle with trying to fit into the perfect box of their gender, I agree with that as well.

Maybe what irks me the most are the examples.  Because while I may not be a size 2, I find this Cool Girl infinitely relatable.  I genuinely enjoy these things.  I’ve woken up at  four in the morning to watch sports by myself, with no prompting.  I like dirty jokes.  And messy foods.  When I drank beer I drank beer.  I swear like a sailor.  From Boston.  People tell me I’m both funny and smart.  I don’t mind if a guy I’m dating goes to a strip club.  

And none of those things makes me any less female, or any less feminist.  And if they’re making me any more attractive to men I haven’t noticed.  But overall they don’t make me cool.  

They just make me, Me.