Cool.

At the end of our dinner party this weekend, Steve and I both felt a bit deflated. The food turned out beautifully (my pie crust, normally one of my secret baking weapons, was oddly stretchy in the making but turned out fine, and Ina Garten's recipes worked their usual magic). The wine flowed freely, and for the most part, so did the conversation. We were playing host to dear, close, longtime friends. Yet somehow, when it was over, we each acknowledged that we hadn't really enjoyed ourselves.

As Steve put it, he didn't feel cool enough to be at the table. I had felt the same way, but hadn't been able to label the disconcerting sensation until he did it for me. When we tried to process the feeling, we both found it difficult to describe and to identify specific moments during the evening that had engendered it. But it was there, and we both felt it, and it made us sad.

I don't think either of us was upset about not being cool. We like each other and ourselves, and "cool" seems to take more time, effort, money, and cool detachment  than we can muster. Rather, for me, at least, the sadness was twofold. First, I was sad that my dinner party never quite filled our little dining room with the warm glow of full bellies and easy conversation. And second, I was sad that both Steve and I felt so much distance and (I want to say disdain, but that's not quite right) from such beloved friends. 

I'm still mulling over the experience. I hesitated to write about it, because I've talked to all these friends since (not about our feelings of marginalization, but simply in the normal course of things) and our relationships seem fine, normal, and unaffected. I love all of these friends and would hate for them to read this and think that they'd hurt or offended us somehow. Yet I'm still carrying around some unresolved angst about the evening, and I need to plod through it in print to truly process it.

The feeling of being not-cool was not rooted in cars or clothes or jobs or any such trappings of young professional status. No, it was far more subtle, a heightened and mostly intangible awareness of being of "out of it" that I associate with the awkward insecurity of my younger years. At times during the evening, I felt that I was ridiculously uncool to want or care about something or other, and at other moments, I felt like a huge dork for not caring or knowing about whatever it was we were discussing.

Mostly, I continue to wonder, what does it mean, at this age and life-stage, to be "cool"? Do you know? Are you cool? Why (or why not)?

Comments

[Shara]

for what it is worth, you have always seemed dynamic and interesting to me and if that isn't cool then I don't know what is

[rebecca]

Hey,
I'm not sure it's so much about being "cool" as it is feeling like you've connected. For the most part, connecting with someone is about who they are, and who you are. But other times our ability to connect with each other affected by less personal, more extrinsic factors - your expectations for a particular occasion, things weighing on your mind that make your priorities differ for awhile, etc. It sounds like you had really high expectations for your dinner date - cooking a meal for friends is always special, hosting people in your brand new home is a big deal, it's one of your first joint efforts as a married couple, etc. Basically sometimes things click and sometimes they don't. I wouldn't take it too seriously unless it happens consistently. If it does, then I'd take a step back and ask if (a) my expectations are off, (b) there's something more serious goingon with the friendship or (c) there's something I'm battling that is independent of the friendship and my friends altogether, but is affecting the way I approach it. Just some thoughts. That's the nice part about a good marriage though - you and Steve can explore it together, so that it becomes about discovery rather than the two of you, bolstering against the outside, so to speak. It's all process, and that process inevitably involves ups and downs . . . :-)
xo

I sometimes have that sensation of uncoolness when I get together with friends from NYC. Since I now live in a location that NYC residents consider "the sticks" and since there aren't any little cool bistros etc. around the corner from where I live, I sometimes feel a little self conscious about my situation. And then I get mad at myself for being childish. There is no reason I should have to justify to my old friends my choice to live in a less hip area than I used to -- but there is part of me that still feels the need to prove my coolness.