Hey guys, it’s cool. I’m cool. The floppy maroon hat on my head is one most people can’t pull off but I totally make it look cool. My hair has messy-perfect waves that make it just-rolled-out-of-bed cool. I’m sitting in a coffee shop in the West Village, pleading my Cool Case on my MacBook Air (too cool for an iPad, duh). In an hour I’ll be off to a concert in a penthouse venue in Chelsea. I’m on the press list. Whatever, NBD, just cool.

Cool Girl right? Cool as fuck?? Have I convinced you I’m totally cool???

Well, I wish I could convince myself. Alas, I know the truth. I’m am trying so fucking hard to be cool. If you could look my eyes you’d see I’m anything but cool.

I want to be cool. So badly. Like, even more than I did when I was in 7th grade and still had braces.

“I wish that I could be like the cool kids”, I think I finally understand that song.

Tears started welling up in my eyes as I put the cream in my coffee. I couldn’t help but wonder: is crying in a coffee shop better or worse than crying on the subway? I don’t know. I do know neither are cool. I didn’t completely dissolve into tears, didn’t completely loose my cool. I’m still clutching on to it like tourists clutch their bags on the subway when the SHOWTIME kids enter the car. Be cool, be cool.

“Play it cool.” That’s what my friends said. That’s what every single one of the 26 articles I read from the Google search “why men pull away” said. So here I am playing it cool. I haven’t texted him in seven days. He hasn’t texted me in nine. I could tell you how many hours, but I hate math. After the sixty or so days where we texted all day, every day, the silence is suffocating. I know, I know, suffocating is soooo not cool.

I’m at a Keanu Reeves level of playing it cool. The goal, of course, is Daniel Day Lewis. The lines will blur between what I’m playing and what I actually am. I’ll talk like I’m cool, I’ll sleep like I’m cool. When I finally stop playing, it’ll take me months to completely return to my uncool self.

“Fake it til you make it”, goes the cliché. I’m faking my ass off. I’m a big old phony, Holden Caufield. Honestly? Cool is not my style. I wear my heart on my sleeve and my face- right under my eyes where the running mascara enhances my dark circles. The texts I’m stopping myself from sending DO NOT say I miss you! and Why don’t you like me!?

No.

“I don’t think you understand how much it hurts to be ignored.” That’s a text I’d love to send.

“Pretending I don’t exist is DISRESPECTFUL AS FUCK” is another.

And of course the old reliable no one thinks women really mean, “I would literally rather you tell me to FUCK OFF in all caps than say nothing.”

Please, please tell me to fuck off. Then at least I could stop this exhausting cool charade.