An international study found cool people are extroverted, open, hedonistic, adventurous, autonomous and powerful. At best, I have three of these traits. Could I change that?

Who would you say is effortlessly, undeniably cool? Charli xcx, certainly. David Bowie, of course. Yoko Ono and Fran Lebowitz – or do they just wear a lot of black? I’m not cool and never have been. As a teenager, I was a swot at a school that prized sports. As an adult, I’m always wearing a backpack. I’m garrulous, risk-averse, lazy with my personal presentation and not convinced that any drug beats eight hours’ sleep. “Cool” feels to me like the stock market or Michelin restaurants: none of my business.

I’m not alone. In a recent YouGov survey, a third of respondents said they weren’t cool at school, with only 10% reporting that, yep, they actually were. Half claimed they were “somewhere in between”.

Find an appealing activity and stick with it even if you lack skill, says Karen Walrond, author of In Defense of Dabbling

• Tell us: have you fallen in love this year?

All my life I’ve been bad at sports. At school I was always successfully “sick” on the annual sports day and had a standing note from my equally averse mother to excuse me from physical education classes due to my “bad foot”. Even after I started exercising regularly in my mid-20s, I never joined my friends’ social netball or football teams.

“Hating sports” was core to my identity. Then, last year, a friend invited me to her birthday “kickabout” – a casual game of football, I gathered. (I believe some call it soccer.) Had we been less close, I might have made my excuses. Instead I turned up to the park, determined to keep as far away from the ball as possible.