Date a girl who reads, by Rosemary Urquico
Autor: Kєℓℓy Nєry | Publicado: 2011-07-31T13:30:00-03:00

- I read this on Facebook, and it touched me -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.