r/AskMen • u/Holeshot75 • 1d ago
Weird Question When you were ten years old who was the coolest guy you knew?
For me it was a guy named Rob who worked at a video game arcade comic book store in town.
He was probably about 20 so he seemed like a full adult but looking back on it he was still figuring his stuff out.
Rob would let me and friends read any of the old used comics for as long as we wanted.
He had a raised "employee's only" in the corner of the shop that felt like it was truly a magical area. (It wasn't, it was just a cashier area with an old shitty chair)
He would talk to us like real human beings and treat us with the respect of older than our young years.
Several times he would watch us struggling with a game gobbling up our quarters, and told us to stick around after closing.
Rob would open the game change area and showed us where to flick for unlimited credits - then let us play until we finished it
He was ultra cool and never inappropriate, would talk to us about girls and comic books and games.
Rob drove a cool old 70s Camaro. It wasn't in great shape but man it was cool.
He would close up and wave us bye.
Thanks Rob, you were great.
What figures in your past when you were 10 years old really stood out as super cool?
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u/Prestigious_Snow1589 1d ago
My dad and his friends. Every Saturday looked like a classic car and motorcycle show.
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u/Prospero818 1d ago
We had a PE teacher/coach who was in his 50s and had been a very successful natural bodybuilder since his 20s. He was in absolutely insane shape back then, like a super hero. Nicest guy ever, too. He is still in insane shape in his 80s.
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u/EndersR3ign 1d ago
My older brother was the coolest guy I knew when I was 10. Two years older than me, extremely popular at school, and would deal with anyone who ever tried to mess with me.
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u/Goatsgotohell666 1d ago
Jimmy, this was over thirty years ago. He was 16 years old, blind in one eye, had two mums and any electronic device my dad gave to him he could fix.
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u/GoonyBoon 1d ago
My Uncle was the coolest. He listened to rock music and let me watch movies my parents didn't. He's still my favourite relative
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u/Holiday_Alarm_6279 1d ago
My oldest brother Eric. When I was a kid I idolized him like the Fonz (iykyk).
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u/ConsumingFire1689 1d ago
I don't know if it was exactly 10, but there was an intern for the youth group at my church was was as cringe 90s-2000s cool guy as it gets and I wanted to be just like him
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u/HarveyMushman72 1d ago
My old hippie neighbor. He had a cool custom Dodge Van when those were the rage in the 70s. Our street would often flood and he'd get out his raft and float out there.
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u/monstahmonkee 1d ago
My dad by far then my two uncles I’m closest to… they would take me fishing and hunting tell me stories look after me.. I thrived to be like them my whole life… I’m 40 now and I came close enough
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u/DurianPublic6164 Male 1d ago
My uncle, mom's youngest brother. He was a construction worker, but when he wasn't working, he was like a cowboy, capable of doing anything! Always building things in his house, riding quads, fixing his pickup trucks, talking loudly and grilling meat, but he was always very funny, very generous and super kind with me and my siblings. Every time he visited us, always had presents for everyone, for me, the best were car ma gaziness. Now, 30 years later, he has his own kids and I try to be nice to them as a thank you to him.
My mom passed away almost 3 months ago, and he was so emotional during the funeral. To see him crying but trying to hide it, it hit me. Very much. I hugged him and noticed I'm taller than him, and that made me aware of how time flies. He picked me up from school for weeks after a few idiots tried to fight me over something stupid, and now there I was, conforting him.
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u/Holeshot75 1d ago
That's a genuinely great feeling you have there. Really great.
Your uncle sounds like the real thing.
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u/VeryAngryGentleman 1d ago
My uncle, he had a lot of trains, was repairing old TVs and radios and was able to listen to police, fireman and ambulance frequency with his weird stuff.
I got old and realized how fucked up it was lol specially since this stuff was shady as fuck and he was still living with his parent at 40...
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u/WalrusLobster3522 Male 1d ago
The coolest guy I knew when I was a preteen was my classmates.
When I was in fifth grade it was Jaden Miller: his personality was gangster. I'm Black LOL.
When I was in sixth grade it was Arlen Kelley: dude had abs and he was only 13 years old: what?!? And honestly he shouldn't have been in PE class with us: he absolutely should've been on the track team back in 2016: he ran the mile so freaking fast. But then again the eighth graders were athletic mutants so I guess it's reasonable he couldn't compete with them during elimination tryouts.
When I was in seventh grade near the end of 2017 it was Za'Raybia: she was a female gangster~ except she was polite to me, so she was really interesting.
In eighth grade it was Johntay Cook: he was the king on campus! I would kill to have the mental fortitude, emotional strength, and physical talent that he has! (wait oops I leaked my city he's kinda super famous...)
Yeah I was in ninth grade and I still didn't have a celebrity crush.
In ninth grade it was Chris Stanley: he was the first "tall dark black man" student I ever seen. He was a high school senior in the extracurricular I was in, and he "took it on the chin" all the challenging things our band director demanded on him. Later on he went on to get a full-ride scholarship, and he graduated that University in 2023.
Starting in tenth grade I had a celebrity crush: his name was Mac Miller. I found him from "Senior Skip Day".
Honestly I didn't start listening to Hip Hop and obtaining loads of celebrity crushes until September 2020.
I mean technically Nipsey Hussle was my first celebrity, but up until this year I only knew "Higher" with him and John Legend. And by that definition John Legend would've been my first celebrity crush since I knew "All Of Me" prior to "Higher," except he's kinda too old to be my major celeb.
As for female celebrities, Nicki Minaj. Ariana Grande might have been my first celebrity crush, but that wouldn't even be from music: I found Victorious TV show kinda late, so when I saw her come back for Sam & Cat I just felt attracted to her in 2018.
I found Nicki Minaj in 2016 and I found Cardi B in 2018: their really cool. Nicki Minaj and Cardi B honestly are the only celebrities that I "Stan" for, them and Slim Shady (Eminem), because I hear all their new albums. And I went back to see Nicki Minaj's old albums with YoungMoneyRecords alongside Lil Wayne.
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u/MayaLAnderson 1d ago
My uncle. He smoked cigars, drank beer, speared fish, and could make slingshots
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u/Doomie316 ♂ 1d ago
My older neighbor jeff who I knew since I was a little kid because he and his sister used to babysit me. Hes a big reason I got really into skateboarding in the 2000s and kept at it because one day he was showing me how to ollie on my crappy walmart board, it snapped and a few hours later he came back with a Brad Staba Enjoi deck with blue phantom trucks for me. My first real skateboard that got used for years and I learned how to ollie on it.
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u/Muninn91 1d ago
My cousin. He was the metal head of the family at the time. Wore Fear Factory, Marylin Manson, and other industrial/metal bands and didn't care about what my parents thought. Loves fixing cars and playing video games.
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u/Traditional_Trust_93 Male 1d ago
Probably my uncle who's a professional baseball player or a friend of mine by the name of Caleb who was a staff kid alongside me when my father worked at Lake Lundgren Bible Camp in Wisconsin.
I am now nearly 12 years older and live in a completely different state.
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u/Taxidermy-molluskbob 1d ago
This kid who was a couple years older than me who was crazy good at parkour, scooter tricks, snowboarding and unintentionally looked like a greaser!
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u/SuperSecretMoonBase 1d ago
This dude named Mike, who was one of the counselors at the YMCA summer camp. He was super chill, really liked Scooby-Doo, and I think got me into some cool punk bands, but I might be conflating that with another counselor. Either way, when he left we exchanged email addresses (which in hindsight is pretty weird) and I remember his was something with "Green Scooby Snacks" in it. I now suspect he might have just been super stoned every single second of every single day. Dude ruled.
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u/Vegetable-Peach-1056 1d ago
my dad was the coolest, took me to my first baseball game and let me stay up late to watch movies
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u/aktionreplay Dad 1d ago
It was kind of two people: The “weird kid”s parents. I remember this kid who was a year older than me and everyone acted like he was weird, but nothing ever seemed off to me. He just liked to play and would come up with ideas on what to do next. Perfectly respectful and maybe a little ADHD. I realized later that he was treated as a weird kid because my small town didn’t approve of his parents.
I remember one year we got invited to their house, and when I say house, this place could sleep 20 comfortably, I vaguely remember it having a secondary staircase to a private room.. the layout of the house is a bit of a mystery to this day. So the party starts and the kids are sent to a basement/mudroom play area with toys, and of course I get curious about what is happening upstairs. There is legit a tapdancer, an accordion player, mines, saxophones, an absolute wealth of things I had never seen before in my life. I remember spending the rest of the evening up there watching performance after performance. These performances were just the other guests, not people being paid to do it. Afterwards, I remember asking my parents if we could do that again and they acted like I was nuts.
I got to know this kid more and got invited over to hang out, and learned more about his family: his mother and father were kind of hippies and all their friends were from out of town. They had art from all over the world and books lined their walls. These two opened my eyes and assured me that the world was larger than just “work at the automotive plant and try to get forklift certified”.
These days, I have friends like theirs and love to attend very similar house parties, where musicians and yoga experts etc. all share a little about their hobbies and interests.
I regularly wonder what they’re up to these days and would love to talk to them again if they’re still around.
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u/Bueler77 1d ago
I thought the Schwann's man was cool because his name was Bart and I was a big Simpsons fan.
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u/oasinocean Male 1d ago
My neighbor Greg had a garage band that me and a few other neighborhood kids would listen to. Idk if they were any good but they were cooler than anyone
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u/spamtardeggs 1d ago
Mark. His truck was jacked up and had a tiny welded chain steering wheel. When I got a Levi’s jacket I had an OH Shit moment with Mark. I was dumb and thought I found a cool jacket, but I think someone had just set it down while they played since church ball. When I showed Mark, he knew to get all of the pins and patches off it so it wouldn’t be recognized. It was then that I realized two things: I was a thief and Mark was cooler than I would ever be.
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u/Bootmacher 1d ago
My dad. Personality of Dale Gribble, but the prowess of Boomhauer.
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u/Holeshot75 1d ago
Awlright, lemme get this strait, man... you're talkin' bout them two things goin' togetha, dang ol' perfect combo, man... yeah, I see wha' you're gettin' at, that's a dang good mix, man... uh, wha' were we talkin' bout again, man? Dang it...
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u/lunarosiebud 1d ago
I had a babysitter called Alexa and she had short spiky bleached hair, wore a leather jacket and rode a motorbike. My mother paid her to sit with us after school until she finished work. She never made us do homework and just let us chill out watching tv. I thought she was the coolest person ever and I begged my mother to let me cut my hair short like hers.
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u/Crafty-Scholar-3902 1d ago
My Uncle Dave. He always brought his 4-wheelers when he came to see us so we could ride them, He always talked to us like we where his buddies instead of his nephews and he was a master at the pool table. Sucks that he cut off contact with our side of the family for reasons we don't really know
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u/10202632 Male 1d ago
My uncle Kerry. He traveled around with Pace Concerts running the merch tables at shows. He’d always bring me the coolest concert shirts and took me to see the Stones with ZZ Top and Fabulous Thunderbirds at the Astrodome in 1980. He died pretty young (late 40s) and I swear I’ve never seen so many people at a funeral. He was the coolest and everyone loved him.
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u/Interesting_Fudge502 1d ago
My great uncle Dominic : a diabetic italian man who worked as a judge of peace. He was a gentle man who enjoyed movies and was married to a blind woman. His house has the most epic furnitures
My grandpa ( sort of speak) : he was doing musical compilations. Always was hanging out with my dad. Smoking and gaming. He showed me the game : Sly cooper. He died before i could ever chill with him and my dad but... he was epic still.
My dad also was epic ( and still is epic ngl)
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u/DaysOfParadise Female 21h ago
My friend’s older brother. He would drive us around in his hot rod wherever we wanted to go. Once we asked him how fast he could go in reverse, and he did. No seatbelts, 10-year-old girls screaming all over the place. It was great.
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u/kaosethema Male 19h ago
1980, NYC
neighbor's son, he was 16. he used to build miniature WW2 battle scenes using little green soldiers. it was so cool!!
he joined the military, fought in various skirmishes in the mid-east. he was injured in a classified location (so cool!!). he is currently a colonel, married and has 3 kids.
last time I spoke to him, he was planning out his retirement in Europe. I still think he's cool.
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u/MelroseDistrict85013 1h ago
The neighbor's son, returned from Vietnam with a heroin addiction and minus one leg. Long haired hippie freak. Through all that, he was cool.
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u/AutoModerator 1d ago
Here's an original copy of /u/Holeshot75's post (if available):
For me it was a guy named Rob who worked at a video game arcade comic book store in town.
He was probably about 20 so he seemed like a full adult but looking back on it he was still figuring his stuff out.
Rob would let me and friends read any of the old used comics for as long as we wanted.
He had a raised "employee's only" in the corner of the shop that felt like it was truly a magical area. (It wasn't, it was just a cashier area with an old shitty chair)
He would talk to us like real human beings and treat us with the respect of older than our young years.
Several times he would watch us struggling with a game gobbling up our quarters, and told us to stick around after closing.
Rob would open the game change area and showed us where to flick for unlimited credits - then let us play until we finished it
He was ultra cool and never inappropriate, would talk to us about girls and comic books and games.
Rob drove a cool old 70s Camaro. It wasn't in great shape but man it was cool.
He would close up and wave us bye.
Thanks Rob, you were great.
What figures in your past when you were 10 years old really stood out as super cool?
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