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Chessy Bessy wrote on Sun, Nov 23, 2003 08:41 PM UTC:

Chess is cool, but is it only for geeks? I'm not a geek, but a lot of
people who do play are weirdos. Friends tell me I'm a loser because I
play Chess. Jeesh. Chess is cool. Isn't it?

🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Sun, Nov 23, 2003 11:45 PM UTC:

Geeks may often turn to Chess, because they are not good at the things many
recognizably cool people are good at, such as sports and partying. But
this does not mean that anyone who likes and plays Chess is not cool.
Chess is very cool. It is a very challenging game of intellect and
strategy that appeals to people who enjoy using their minds. Using your
mind is cool. Not using it is not cool.

But what does cool even mean? One meaning of cool is to be calm,
collected, and in control of yourself. If you're to do well in Chess, it
really helps to be cool in this sense. However, in this sense, you may be
cool in one context and not in another. You could be calm, collected, and
in control when playing Chess but shy and awkward at a party. Perhaps the
people we most often think of as cool show their coolness mainly in social
contexts. Think of the Fonz, for example.

Another meaning of cool listed in my dictionary is fashionable. This sense
of cool is rather fleeting. Raccoon coats were cool in their time, and now
they're not. Someone who is cool in any really important sense is not a
slave to fashion. A cool person knows what she likes and doesn't consider
it important if others don't like it too. If you find something about
Chess that you like, and if what you find in Chess makes your life more
fulfilling, then it is cool for you to like Chess.