To "cool" or "not to cool"

I am confused. You may be forgiven for the retort of “what’s new? ” but tell me, should I aspire to be “cool” ? Or “warm”. Or else “hot” ; Or what ?

Over the last few weeks, I was given to understand that I wasn’t “cool”. It all started with a stupid question I asked – Who is Tamannaah ? Then I compounded the problem by asking a series of questions – Who is Asin ? Who is Vijay ? And so on … I was made to realise that I was not cool.

So to be cool, I thought I should read up on the said ladies and gentlemen. I was told that, with diligent study, I could even aspire to be “uber cool”. But then I was made to realise that at work, I was not supposed to be “cool”. Apparently a “cool” guy is one who is losing deal after deal. So you should at least be “warm”. Preferably “hot”. Like on a hot streak – winning deal after deal. At the same time you could also be “cold” actually ice cold – I believe you are good if you can remain "ice cold", while you are "hot". Doesn’t the laws of science make it just a wee bit difficult to be hot and ice cold at the same time ? Methinks I will be sued if I were to characterize one of our sales managers, a lovely lady, as “hot”.

I turned for help to my colleagues at the office. Everybody is a little (er; actually a lot) younger than I am. Since they are all Chinese, and since everybody who works here is a gorgeous, slim girl, I thought I would get to unlock the mystery of being cool or not. I even read up on the Chinese equivalent of T and A – Zhang Ziyi, Li Bingbing and so on. So, at dinner yesterday, we got around to talking of favourite actresses. I enthusiastically piled in on the charms of the said Ms Zhang. There was an embarrassed silence and the others swiftly went on to say their favourites were the likes of Gong Li ( a little bit like saying your favourite was Hema Malini) . Apparently the cool thing was to be “uncool”. Wow !

At yet another revealing conversation, I was told that the holy grail was not to be “cool” or “hot”, but to be a “dude”. I turned for help to an angel, who, chronology wise, is still in single digits. I told her that I was becoming familiar with T, A, Z and L in my attempts at being a “dude”. She looked at me as if I had completely lost it. Then in the tone that nine year olds reserve for elders who don’t really get it, she explained that if you are a girl, you had to be totally “in” to Victoria Justice, Selena Gomez and Miranda Cosgrove. But if you were a boy, you could try Zac Efron, but to be a "dude" you had to be pally about Harry Anderson. He's apparently so new that he doesn't have a Wiki page as yet.

I was looking lost and confused. Cool or uncool ? Warm or Hot ? Ice Cold or Dude ? Life seems to be very complicated.

I said so to the young lady. She said, not to worry. I was “OK” !!