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 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.
By Rosemarie Urquico
(In Response to You Should Date An Illiterate Girl.)
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