Not for Everyone

A few weeks ago, we officially declared the performative Cool Girl dead.

After examining her behavior in our relationships, careers, and Friendships, we concluded that pretending not to care, struggle, strive, get angry or experience anything in the neighborhood of feeling is exhausting. To recap: Having needs doesn’t make you difficult. Trying doesn’t make you desperate. And the coolest thing you can possibly be is honest about who you are and what you want.

But honesty comes with a clause we didn’t fully address: Once you stop editing yourself into someone everyone’s conditioned to find universally agreeable, some people might like you less...

Oddly enough, I don’t want to be liked by everyone.

When I was younger, I had one very important and impossible-to-achieve goal: to be liked by everyone. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized that’s no longer something I’m chasing. And let me tell you why.

To a girl in high school or college, being liked can mean so much more than being easygoing, Friendly, or agreeable. Those can all be positive traits. But for me, it meant drowning out my own thoughts and opinions until I became a replica of my Friend group. It meant adapting myself to fit structurally into someone else’s idea of who I should be.

When I felt wronged, I wouldn’t speak up for myself. When my interests clashed with the group’s, they were quietly forgotten. I wasn’t becoming easier to love. I was becoming harder to find.

Turns out, I had been making myself smaller to keep my Friends long before we officially identified it as Cool Girl behavior. Fortunately, I had someone at home showing me another way. My mom used to tell me, “I don’t need you to like me. I need you to respect me.” Before you gasp too loudly, I grew up with a Latina Scorpio mother, so let’s move on.

But it took me growing up just a little more to embody that same energy. Now, my Friends call on me to navigate those awkward social nuances when something needs to be said. Like when the waiter hasn’t come by in 50 minutes. When the guy at the bar mutters something rude under his breath to my kindest girlFriend. They call me in, and I happily address the issue. I started to realize it wasn’t necessarily because I was more strong-willed or opinionated than they were (well…). Fine. It was mostly because I didn’t care whether these people liked me. I didn’t need to be liked by them. I only needed to be respected. And I understand their hesitation because I recognize it. These specific Friends are mostly younger, and at their age, I would have done exactly the same thing.

Younger me would be stunned—and slightly intimidated—by the woman I’ve become. And the best part is that I like her much more.

Which brings us back to our dearly departed Cool Girl (RIP)...

Once you stop pretending to be fine with everything, you start saying what you think, asking for what you need, and speaking up when something doesn’t feel right. And not everyone will appreciate that change... especially the people who benefited from you never making things uncomfortable for them.

And because we may never be too cool not to care about the inevitable uproar in the comments section: that doesn’t mean we should stop caring about how we affect other people. “This is just who I am” is not a free pass to be cruel. Obviously, we should care when we hurt someone. We should listen when people we trust tell us we were wrong. We should always try to be kind.

But someone disliking you doesn’t automatically mean you were unkind. Sometimes it means you disagreed. Sometimes it means you set a boundary. Sometimes it means you stopped being the version of yourself they found easiest to deal with.

And sometimes, two perfectly decent people just aren’t each other’s people.

That used to feel like a personal failure. Now, it feels like proof that I’ve become an actual person. With specific opinions, values, interests, boundaries, and a personality distinct enough that it won’t appeal to every person I meet.

AKA: I’m not for everyone.

I actually like that I’m not for everyone. Being for everyone sounds exhausting—which, if you remember, is exactly how the Cool Girl died.

The older I get, the less interested I am in earning universal approval and the more interested I am in deciding whose opinion should actually count.

I care whether the people I love feel loved by me. I care whether my Friends trust me (which can only be earned through consistent honesty). Whether I treat people well. And whether I’m proud of the person I bring into every room.

But the stranger at the bar? The casual Friend committed to misunderstanding me? The person who only likes me when I agree with them?

Their voting privileges have been revoked.

I’d rather be disliked for being my authentic self than liked for the version of myself I adopted to earn everyone else’s approval.

So, for our younger Friends reading this: It comes with time, experience, confidence, learning your values, trusting your voice, and finally growing into yourself. But one day, you’ll feel the shift. You’ll realize that being liked by everyone was never the same as being known—and becoming easier for everyone else to accept was slowly making it harder for you to recognize yourself.

The right people can only truly know, love and appreciate you when you give them someone real to know.
—Your Friend