My friends seem to think so. They mention it from time to time. A couple of days ago we were talking. One friend mentioned something, and I said that I had one of those. (I don’t remember what it was.) She said, ‘You are so cool!’ My other friend laughed and followed up with something like, ‘He’s got the best toys!’
Sometimes a subject will come up, and I have some information about it. Some bit of trivia, or an amusing anecdote about something I did or saw. I guess I know a little about a lot of things.
I ride a motorcycle, drive a zodiac boat, can sail, SCUBA dive sometimes, and hold a Private Pilot’s Certificate. (Okay, I’ll say myself that I think having a PPL is ) But for the most part, in the immortal words of Popeye the Sailor, ‘I yam what I yam.’ I tend to do things I like because I like them, and have little consciousness of what other people think. (If I paid attention to what other people thought, maybe I’d actually have a girlfriend or wife by now.)
I don’t feel cool. I feel boring. I mean, I’m way non-current in the helicopter. I don’t ride as much as I used to, since the weather up here often does not cooperate. The boat is for catching the elusive dungeness crab (season opens in this area next month). I spend more time reading non-fiction aeronautical histories than I do reading fiction. (Awaiting my Harry Potter delivery though, which should arrive by the end of next week.) What’s cool about that?
So, am I ? Or do my friends have a boring concept of what is?
I tend to slip into ‘characters’. Peter Lorre is a favourite, and a lower-middle-class Brit (think, often, ‘Vyvyan’ from The Young Ones, or some yobbo who thinks he’s smart – [You’ll need the accent] 'Me? I got brines! Why, I’ve got more brines in me lit’le finger than I 'ave in me 'ole ‘ead!’) is another. Yesterday I was mocking cheapo-products infomercials using my very un-PC ‘retardo’ character. My friends had never seen that one, and thought it was funny. I do like obscure references.
I could say something really nasty about giving you crabs! (I haven’t any, BTW.)
I think you sound fun too. And what’s cool about you to me is that you always seem to be doing something, not just sitting around on the couch watching TV. Active is very cool.
Not a censure of you, JohnBoy, but different things are cool to different people. I like some of the same things you like but others would see those things as geeky or weird. Some things you post about I don’t read because i don’t care. I don’t know you in real life, so all I can comment on is what I see on this website.
Do I think you’re likeable? Sure. Well, mostly anyways. Are you cool? I don’t know. Ask yourself, man. Even the geekiest A/V nerd from school thought his stuff was way too cool for school, you know? I think Naconas, DeWalt, old cameras, pick ups, and Star Trek are cool. Others could care less or even take offense at that (which I think is not cool and stupid).
Bottom line: You are who you are. Cliche, but it fits.
I dunno about “cool” but I’ve always liked your posts, too. You strike me as honest, witty, and - the MOST important thing in my book - quite willing to laugh at oneself.
I played with Estes, too.
When you said this in the OP, " I tend to do things I like because I like them, and have little consciousness of what other people think," you pretty much summed up for me what I think about you, me, or nearly anyone else I know.
There’s your definition of “cool” right there. Even if you don’t do the things a certain social circle thinks of as “cool”, you’d still qualify overall on attitude alone.
(Just don’t go around asking this question a lot, okay?)
Oh, I’m not sweating it. As I said, I don’t really care. It’s just that my friends keep saying it, and I’ve been wondering what the hell I’ve been doing to make them think that.
) But for the most part, in the immortal words of Popeye the Sailor, ‘I yam what I yam.’ I tend to do things I like because I like them, and have little consciousness of what other people think. (If I paid attention to what other people thought, maybe I’d actually have a girlfriend or wife by now.)
(I haven’t any, BTW.)