“Go ahead, shit on me, I don’t mind, I’m the Cool Girl”.

This line in Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl captures a cultural attitude that in my experience seems to be pervasive: that it is cool not to care. I can’t count how many women, including myself, who have declared themselves ‘such a psycho’ – simply for feeling emotions.

How many of us haven’t stared at our phone waiting for the person we like to text us back? How many of us haven’t feared cardiac arrest upon seeing the three little ‘typing’ dots pop up on our screen? I don’t feel that same kind of panic when I see that my mum is typing a message (sorry, Mum), before frantically notifying my best mate that ‘OH MY GOD SHE’S SEEN IT’. I don’t get my best mate to proofread the texts I send to my mum.

Again, sorry, Mum.

It would be slightly weird if I felt like this during any given communication, right? Except that it’s not weird, if you’re wading through the murky waters of an undefined relationship, to feel at least a tiny bit anxious about it. Not feeling anxious suggests that the outcome doesn’t scare you much. That you’re not really too bothered what happens. To feel like this is okay, but it’s also okay to care.

It is okay to feel.

In current pop-culture, the giddiness felt at new relationships (or flirtationships) is largely confined to the trope of a naïve, giggling schoolgirl. Think Taylor Swift’s nauseating lyrics in ‘Teardrops On My Guitar’: “Drew talks, to me…I laugh ‘cause it’s just so funny”. I’d love to know what ‘Drew’ said that was "so funny". Taylor doesn’t even think it worth mentioning what words ‘Drew’ used. Apparently making indeterminable noises with his mouth is enough to make any woman piss herself.

But the fact that the dominant expression of this manifestation of interest is portrayed through young ‘feminine’ characters seems to make it deeply uncool to feel this way. In the social context of misogyny as a permeating attitude, it is shamefully embarrassing to be compared to a ‘little girl’. When being excited about relationships is captured by the mental imagery of schoolgirls screeching ‘OMG, BOYS!’ the implication is that if you want to maintain social dignity you can’t let on that someone has affected you emotionally. No, you’re too ‘cool’ for that.

In my cultural experience, the equation of ‘femininity’ to emotionality and ‘masculinity’ to objective rationality has made it shameful for those labelled as ‘men’ to cry. Through the reductionism of binary categories that are portrayed as polar opposites, it is implied that to be emotional is to be irrational. If irrationality is associated with craziness, what this is saying is that to be emotional is to be insane. To be emotional is to be ‘such a psycho’.

This explains the stereotype of the ‘crazy feminine’ pursuer. No one wants to be the woman from the ‘overly attached girlfriend’ meme. That’s why most girls are taught that they should receive ‘you’re not like most girls’ as a compliment. That’s probably why, ironically, most girls will claim that they’re ‘not like most girls’ – that they’re ‘just one of the guys’. What’s wrong with the former? What’s wrong with being a ‘girl’? 

Pop culture would have you believe that, in heterosexual, gender-normative relationships, being hysterical is the feminine pathology. This explains me or my friends arrogantly claiming that we’re ‘such fuck boys’ for not wanting to pursue a relationship with casual sexual partner X, Y or Z. I’m supposed to feel the same as Taylor Swift…aren’t I? This cultural conditioning makes women feel like freaks of nature for failing to be suitably infatuated with people they’ve slept with.

Then the rock alternative to this hard place is the shame women have been conditioned to attach to ‘caring’ as a gendered expression. My friend being upset that her boyfriend ignored her text is not grounds for diagnosing her with psychopathy. Doing so, even facetiously, normalises emotional manipulation and makes it harder for us to spot non-physical abuse – particularly when men are the victims. We need to stop gendering the idea of ‘craziness’ and challenge the notion that, as a woman, you should equate caring with ‘being a psycho’.

A declining Poland needs to find its identity

Possibly, my friend's boyfriend ignoring her was an inconsiderate thing to do. Not pointing this out to him for fear of being labelled ‘crazy’ echoes Flynn: “Go ahead, shit on me, I don’t mind, I’m the Cool Girl.” The unspoken consensus seems to be that as a woman, ‘being chill’ means accepting being treated like shit. Being ‘cool’ is to ‘like every fucking thing he likes’ – another Gone Girl line – and not ever complain.

‘Crazy’ is a term thrown disproportionately at women when their express feelings become too inconvenient, or too uncomfortable. With guys being told that talking about their feelings is not okay, and women being stigmatised as ‘crazy’ for doing so, relationships between them have a tendency to become a competition: whoever cares the least wins.

But when this attitude prevails, everyone loses.

I believe that most who claim that they don’t care what anyone thinks of them are lying. Generally, people are at least a tiny bit insecure, craving the validation from someone else that they are an okay human: that they qualify to be loved. I take some comfort from the impression that my friends like me, even just a little bit. In his song ‘All Falls Down’, Kanye West says: “we’re all self-conscious, I’m just the first to admit it.” If this holds true, I’ll be the second to admit it.

We’re all tiny little people in a big, confusing world. Sometimes we need a pat on the head and to be told that we’re okay. Embrace it.