In the past year I've seen this beautiful piece of writing floating around the internet and it never ceases to make me smile. I saw it again today on one of my favorite blogs and I wanted to share it with you.
Date a Girl Who Reads by Rosemarie Urquico
Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books
instead of clothes. She has problems with closet space because she has too many
books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a
library card since she was twelve.
Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will
always have an unread book in her bag. She’s the one lovingly looking over the
shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she finds the book
she wants. You see the weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a
second hand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the
pages, especially when they are yellow.
She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the
street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top
because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s
making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not
like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.
Buy her another cup of coffee.
Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through
the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she
understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound
intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or if she would like to be Alice.
It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday,
for Christmas, and for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry, in
song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you
understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference
between books and reality but by God, she’s going to try to make her life a
little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.
She has to give it a shot somehow.
Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to
lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It
will not be the end of the world.
Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up
to the climax. Because girls who understand that all things will come to end.
That you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and
still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.
Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read
understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in
the Twilight series.
If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2
AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold
her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to
you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a
while, they always are.
You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or
very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.
You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and
bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have
kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your
children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk
the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath
while you shake the snow off your boots.
Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who
can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her
monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off
alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.
Or better yet, date a girl who writes.
Just lovely. <3
Love & Chaos,
Sam
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