“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
Twilightseries.
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.”
Rosemarie Urquico
