What good is being cool?

In this question, we were asked to assess our own coolness. Which made me think: all my life I thought it would be cool to be cool. I imagined that cool people had better lives and got laid more often.

It occurred to me, then, that I should check that idea. Is that why people want to be cool? Just so people will like them? Or the right kind of people will like them? Or in order to get laid?

What good is being cool? Are we all hung up on that because it truly means something, or is it just one of those mythic ideas, and we accept it without questioning and without really knowing what it means?

If you’ve ever been at the top of the cool heap, what did it do for you? If you are somewhere lower down the food chain, what did you imagine being cool would do for you? In either case, can you describe how you experienced cool?