Date A Girl Who Reads

I stumbled upon this gem a while back (either on Pinterest or Facebook or some other fabulous internet venue) and have been looking for the right time to post it. It's perfect, beautifully written, and oh so true.

If you've come to know some things about me over the course of this blog, you know I love to read. I'm the girl who always has her nose in a book - I am Belle from Beauty and the Beast. Boys should learn to date girls who read, not the ones who could care less about cracking the spine of a brand new hard0back book. Books carry more weight and importance than a new pair of shoes or the new pallet of a season's make-up.

Those can be fun, but books are forever. Books make your mind come to life. The imagination gets to flex its muscles and you are transported to a thousand new places - both real and fantasy.

Yes, boys should date girls who read. We're way more interesting.

--------------

Date A Girl Who Reads by Rosemarie Urquico

[in response to: You Should Date An Illiterate Girl]

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 with 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 a book she wants. You see the weird chick sniffing the pages of and 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 becuase 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 bool. 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 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 2AM 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 kids 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 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 half0baked promises, 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.