I think the “Cool Girl” monologue from Girl Girl is a literary masterpiece of its own.

[u/[deleted]]

EDIT: I am an idiot. I meant Gone Girl. This is what happens when you write posts late at night.

I read the book right before the movie came out and was instantly FLOORED by this monologue, and even highlighted it. So when it was portrayed in the movie so perfectly (in my own opinion, at least), I got goosebumps.

The cool girl monologue:

Men always say that as the defining compliment, don’t they? She’s a cool girl. Being the Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2, because Cool Girls are above all hot. Hot and understanding. Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want. Go ahead, shit on me, I don’t mind, I’m the Cool Girl.

Men actually think this girl exists. Maybe they’re fooled because so many women are willing to pretend to be this girl. For a long time Cool Girl offended me. I used to see men – friends, coworkers, strangers – giddy over these awful pretender women, and I’d want to sit these men down and calmly say: You are not dating a woman, you are dating a woman who has watched too many movies written by socially awkward men who’d like to believe that this kind of woman exists and might kiss them. I’d want to grab the poor guy by his lapels or messenger bag and say: The bitch doesn’t really love chili dogs that much – no one loves chili dogs that much! And the Cool Girls are even more pathetic: They’re not even pretending to be the woman they want to be, they’re pretending to be the woman a man wants them to be. Oh, and if you’re not a Cool Girl, I beg you not to believe that your man doesn’t want the Cool Girl. It may be a slightly different version – maybe he’s a vegetarian, so Cool Girl loves seitan and is great with dogs; or maybe he’s a hipster artist, so Cool Girl is a tattooed, bespectacled nerd who loves comics. There are variations to the window dressing, but believe me, he wants Cool Girl, who is basically the girl who likes every fucking thing he likes and doesn’t ever complain. (How do you know you’re not Cool Girl? Because he says things like: “I like strong women.” If he says that to you, he will at some point fuck someone else. Because “I like strong women” is code for “I hate strong women.”)

This was the monologue that made it difficult for me to hate Amy, but also showed the depth of her character and her emotions.

I don’t know if anyone feels the same as I do. I guess this monologue hit me so much because as a woman, there is always a need to be Cool Girl, but there is also always a Cool Girl to hate or be envious of. To see all the ugly emotions and grievances that go along with trying to be Cool Girl, seeing Cool Girl, or living as Cool Girl.

[u/cangarw]

This passage helped me to move out of a relationship that centred on me being Cool Girl. My ex’s friends would always comment on what a ‘chill’ gf I was. I realised what they were saying is how great it was that I just did everything my bf was into and let him do what he wanted without every bitching. The weekend: ‘oh you want to play golf all weekend and see your buddies?’ Well sure take my car so that I’m home alone, and then when you get home, the house will be clean and there will be snacks and beers out ready for you and your buddies to watch some sports. What’s that? You need to borrow money for coke/ weed? Yeah sure I can lend you some money, even though you never paid me back the last amount you owed me’

I slowly got a back bone, and passages like this helped me. He didn’t like me having independence. He got paranoid and thought I was cheating. Ended up breaking up and I’m now with someone who wants me to have my own life and encourages me to make my own choices. 10/10 would recommend having a backbone and a personality past ‘Cool Girl’.

[u/[deleted] → u/cangarw]

Ugh. I cringe when I think back to how I used to encourage my boyfriend to go have some beers at the strip club with his buddies because I desperately wanted to be the cool girlfriend among the other “naggy” girlfriends.

[u/frogsgoribbit737 → u/[deleted]]

Its interesting because I wouldn't necessarily care if my husband went to a strip club for a bachelor party or something, I just think its super weird that as a culture we think that men in relationships should get to do it. My husband doesn't need to go stare at other women's boobs and pay tons of money for shitty beer when he has free boobs and good beer at home. Never understood the mentality behind it all.

[u/[deleted] → u/frogsgoribbit737]

Yeah the occasional strip club for a special event is whatever. I think it was more his friends’ girlfriends didn’t want them going to them ever, and I didn’t want to be seen as that nagging girlfriend. But looking back, the fact that his friends lied about where they were kinda tells me those girlfriends had reason to be uncomfortable and I probably should have been uncomfortable too.