The problem with conditional relationships is that they inherently prioritize something else above the relationship. They never let go of the belief that love and acceptance are contingent on some benefit they’re providing to people, some condition that they must fulfill. The manipulation gets more sophisticated but the same games are there. Many people, for whatever reason, get stuck in the coolness economy and continue to play the game well into adulthood. Sadly, not everyone grows out of these conditional relationships. Getting Stuck on Conditional Relationships You start just enjoying people for who they are, not because they play football well or use the same brand of toilet paper as you. You have to participate in all of the bullshit in order to learn to rise above it.īecause at some point, you grow out of this tit-for-tat approach to life. Trading in the coolness economy is part of growing up and figuring out who you are. And pretty much the entire reason why nobody misses high school or wants to go back.Īnd this is fine. They’re relationships where the same person who is your best friend one year because you both like the same DJ is your worst enemy a year later because they made fun of you in biology class. They are relationships of I’ll-do-this-for-you-if-you-do-this-for-me. These high-school-level relationships are conditional by nature. Conditional relationships are all smoke and mirrors where you never actually know who the other person is. They fuck with each other’s heads and brag about shit they didn’t do and think they love people they actually hate and think they hate people they actually love because it makes them appear cooler than they are and it gets them more Snapchat followers and a blowjob from their prom date. Most of the bullshit and stupid mind games teenagers play are a result of this coolness economy. In this way, high school is a constant arms race to cultivate as much coolness as possible. If you’re awesome at playing the guitar and guitars are cool, then your coolness stock will rise appropriately and people will like you again.
If you suck at sports and sports are cool, then there will be less demand for your friendship.
Your coolness balance determines the level of demand for a relationship with you. You accumulate as much coolness as possible and then you find other kids with a lot of coolness and you bargain to share that coolness to make each other even cooler.Īnd if at any point you come across a kid with far less coolness than you, you tell that nerd to fuck off and stop being such a loser and dragging your coolness level down because the other cool kids might see you, like, actually talking to each other. When you’re a teenager, being “cool” is traded like a currency.
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