P.S.

Hey Kid,

I realized that last letter presupposes two huge things. 1) That you have a BASIC level of social confidence, and 2) that you know who you are.

Since you start wanting to be cool when you're too young to have much social experience, the first thing you need is the confidence that you do, in fact, have basic social skills. You want to know that you're not accidentally doing something inexcusable. Being home schooled, I had neither confidence nor social skills. I was a bit of a wreck, actually. I'd like to suggest that the only noteworthy social gaffes are those which cause other people annoyance or discomfort (this is the point of learning etiquette), but in high school, almost any kind of abnormality or eccentricity is considered inexcusable--if people don't like you. What you want to know is how to make yourself likable, rather than how to avoid being obnoxious.

The best guide for that I know is Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People. I read it when I was twelve and it changed my life.

Here is the basic information in the first half of that book:

Fundamental Techniques for Handling People:

• Don't criticize, condemn or complain.
• Give people a feeling of importance; praise the good parts of them.
• Get the other person to want to do what you want them to by arousing their desires.

Six Ways to Make People Like You:

• Be genuinely interested in other people.
• Smile.
• Remember and use people's names.
• Encourage others to talk about themselves and listen to them.
• Discuss what the other person is interested in.
• Make the other person feel important.

I'm not saying I'm great at any of these all the time, but what reading this did was give me a checklist. I treated it like a checklist. As dorky as it sounds, when I was twelve I printed all of these out onto a card that I carried with me everywhere. Any time I went into a social situation, I would look them over again beforehand to make sure I had them solid.

Because I had this external authority, plus enough know-how not to, say, fart in public, I could say with certainty that I was at least "okay" while I fine-tuned... and fine-tuning can go on forever. It was like those yearly academic standardized test. Maybe I didn't have any friends when I got into high school, and maybe I'd never been able to compare my education with other kids', but at least I knew for a fact I wasn't retarded.

The second thing you need to know is also crucial: who you are. As long as you behave like someone you're not, you're always going to be a little awkward, a little less confident than you could be, and it will show. You have to know who you are so you can confidently be that person. As far as I know, this is where cold, hard trial and error comes in.

One of the things a lot of people don't seem to realize about overcoming their fears of being socially inadequate is that you can PRACTICE social confidence. But, like all kinds of practice, you begin by failing. I value bravery, so I can spur myself to take social risks that might involve falling on my face, if I remind myself that it's brave to be willing to fail in the service of something better. Fortunately, the more you practice, and the more you fail, the more you'll end up succeeding in the end, not least because you'll stop fearing social failure quite so much.

We learn who we are in relationship with other people. The only way you can figure out who you are is by putting yourself into situations with other people and trying new things. Try everything. If an action fills you with fear or guilt or shame, ask yourself if those feelings are reasonable and, if they are, consider not doing it again. If the feelings AREN'T reasonable, it's probably because I (or someone) taught you false values, and you should fight those feelings with all your might.

For instance, my parents taught me to feel fear when going into New Age shops, because there were supposed to be demons in them. Observation says that's a ridiculous thing to fear, so I decided not to let that fear control me. If I, on the other hand, were to teach you that everyone who claims to love God is a fool and you're a fool to befriend them, then you might want to look at the feelings of shame you'd have around deists and tell me to fuck off.

It's risks like these that show us who we really are. Choosing to fight shows us what we really value and what we really believe. The pain we feel in fighting for what we believe is how we know that the fight is worth it. That's what is meant when people say that pain "builds character."

God, kid, it's New Year's Day 2007, and I'm spending my whole day writing letters to you. I tell you I love you at the end of every one of these letters, but I've got tears in my eyes telling you this now. Who or what is this future I'm really writing to? Why does writing to you make me so passionate I cry? You don't even exist.

But, oh, I love you,



C.

This Entry is About How to Be Cool

Hey Kid,

It's something to realize that you no longer care about being "cool." Priorities change. I buy meat thermometers now, not leg warmers. I get EXCITED about it, too. As in, "Let me show you my new meat thermometer!"

And so doesn't it just figure that now, FINALLY, people think I'm cool? How did this happen? There's no good reason why anyone should think I'm cooler than anyone else (especially, I imagine, you). I BLOG for one thing. Plus, everyone knows cool is about confidence, but I've never been confident about being cool because, due to being home schooled, for years I couldn't even say what "cool" was. I think what I have, instead, is confidence in everyone else's sense of un-coolness. I know that everyone feels socially inept and that even the nicest people come off as assholes sometimes. And I understand that almost everyone is secretly wondering if they're DOING OKAY.

If you understand that almost everyone secretly worries that they're the lamest person at the party, you can use the situation to your advantage by:

A) Demonstrating that lame is irrelevant to you. Exhibiting enviable qualities makes you cool by default, and everyone wishes lame were irrelevant to them. This is the more practical way of saying what everyone says: Be yourself. Good ways to demonstrate this include anything which makes it obvious that you're not taking yourself seriously, i.e. dancing around for the fun of it, un-self-consciously wearing something silly, making jokes, and seeking people out to talk--about themselves. (Not focusing on yourself is a good way to avoid thinking about how lame you are.) In other words, do whatever it is you really want to do, and enjoy it. Then:

B) From your self-verified position as Not-Lame, you pull other people into your reality. Helping other people stop feeling lame is cool. For me, this has required actively learning about things other people can relate to. As much as everyone claims to hate ABBA, everyone in my generation can relate to it, and by relating with someone I can pull them into my reality. Learning the words to all the major dance hits of the last twenty years can improve your social standing DRASTICALLY.

Improving socially has been a major preoccupation of my life. Coming to social interaction as late as I did means that I've been a lot more conscious about the process of shaping my social self. Last night one of my friends said, "Haven't you EVER been shy?" I explained that, as a product of home schooling, I missed eight years of primary social programming. As much as I might WISH to be inhibited, I simply don't know how it's done. I AM shy, I just lack the means to express it.

The reason she said that is because it is an under-reported fact that I am the person you invite if you want to make sure there is dancing at your party. I attribute my success to home schooling and an absolute lack of shame about appreciating ABBA. As a home schooler I spent my entire childhood with no friends, no MTV, and endless time alone in my room perfecting homegrown dance moves to Amy Grant. When people say they wish they could dance like me, I understand it is because they don't realize that THE GOOD DANCERS ARE MAKING IT UP. And coolness, too, is about knowing that EVERYONE is making it up.

Obviously, that's not to say you can't be uncool, or a bad dancer. Sometimes when I watch people dance, I realize that it's probably never occurred to them that the point of dancing is to FEEL GOOD. It turns out it doesn't matter how good-looking you are, if you look like you feel good in your body, you will be attractive. Likewise, if you feel good in your soul, you will be cool.

Knowing these things, I believe, is what occasionally brings on a tidal wave of strangers insisting that I'm "cool" and that they wish they were like me. Believe me, this is as embarrassing for me to relate as it is for you to read. Very little in life can make me feel more insipid than thanking someone for thinking I'm cool... but sometimes, (like last night), that's the only thing left to say.

At any rate, if that's any kind of proof of coolness, then maybe my "secrets" of coolness will be of use to you. It took me until after I stopped caring to figure out how to win that war. But you, kid, probably have some more years in the trenches.

I love you (and, having said all this to you, feel totally uncool),


C.