Got it. So the real question is "what makes a pussy?" The answer is "you do."

If you are keeping your mouth shut because you think your friends want you to keep your mouth shut but you really want to say something - you are a pussy.

If you are snarking and picking fights because you think your friends want you to pick fights but you'd really rather sit it out - you are a pussy.

Most kids don't realize this until they're 30 or so. The reality of the situation is that you know a thousand times as much about yourself as your friends do. You care a thousand times as much about yourself as your friends do. Their only way to really know where you stand is to test your limits. Push your buttons. See if they can spin you up. If they can? You are less than them. If they can't? Well, they'll try harder. Until they hit the point where they determine that your stones are bigger than theirs.

That's the nature of pecking order. That's the nature of "being a pussy." Know how The Fonz could make anything cool? Could show up in a bathrobe and suddenly bathrobes were the thing to wear? Obviously The Fonz is a fictional character, but the nature of "cool" is following your own path for your own reasons and being invulnerable to the doubts and assaults of those around you.

To be a pussy is to knuckle under in the face of adversity. To be a pussy is to not fight battles you can win. But to be a pussy is to fight battles because it is expected of you, because it's the easy way out, because it gives your friends and peers a way to shunt you down the pecking order.

Your friends will think you're a pussy if you think you're a pussy. If you have the belief in your convictions to say "I'm not getting into it because I don't want to" and make it stick, your friends will know you as the badass you truly are.