Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes, who 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 has found the book she wants. You see that weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a secondhand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow and worn.
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, for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry and 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 read understand that all things must come to end, but 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.”
― Rosemarie Urquico
Tagged: art, author, blogger, Coffee, journal, Journaling, journalist, keep on dreaming even if it breaks your heart, love, passionate living, Poetry, poets, quotes, reader, Reading, Rosemarie Urquico, short story, writer, writers world, writing
I LOVE THIS and I’m writing in caps because I actually want to shout this from the rooftops. I love to read and I love to write and I am the girl in the bookshop sniffing old books. Sometimes I find the oldest books I can in book shops just so I can open the pages and breathe in the smell. I think my husband loves me because I put up with him watching too much Star Trek, but he might just love me a little because I have a readers/writer’s soul too. Beautifully written. Lovely, passionate and heartfelt. Thank you. x
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This may the best (dating or otherwise) advice I have ever seen. Figures that it comes from one of my favorite writers. And absolutely true.
Very well said, ma’am.
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Reblogged this on In my Head.
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Love this…I first found this as someone’s status update on FB and I never really looked into it. Glad I now know who wrote it!
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Just love this.
Unfortunately, there are no such page-smelling girls anymore.
But who knows…? Maybe there are
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@julienmatei: There are. I’m nodding to you, over the pristine copy of The Old Man and the Sea that I once found in a secondhand shop.
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🙂 thank you
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Reblogged this on justaddtea.
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Reblogged this on disillusionedyoungone.
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great posting. Just finished spring cleaning and the number one item in my home tucked into nooks everywhere- books, books, books
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In all honesty, I buy my dresses with as much care as I do my books:)
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Reblogged this on Arwa.
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A magnificent monologue.
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Reblogged this on Roots Growing Deep and commented:
This is beautiful.
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But not a girl that is in the cult of Ayn Rand. 😛
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I love this
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Speaking from my personal experience, that sense of wonder one feels when walking into that little bookstore in that tiny little corner hidden in the scape of the city, unfurls my desire to drink in the multitudinous volumes of books stored on the shelves. The smell of yellowing pages and stiff bindings intoxicates the senses into the stuporous realms of forgotten stories where anything and perhaps everything simply waits to be discovered. If anything, this article really brings up fond memories of days gone by! hahaha I loved this article!
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Hello Coco.. How are you dear? Hope, you are doing good…
I loved this article. Indeed best ever… (because I love books and unable to resist myself to mark it as “best ever” 😉 )
And I like a girl who writes, reads and wears hat 😉
Keep writing…
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The writer left out a critical concept:
DATE A BOY WHO READS TOO!
For, in the piece, the boy whom she entreats to behave in those ways could only do so if he understands her proclivity for reading. He could only possess the character she needs by being a reader himself according to the writer’s premises.
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Wow. Actually feel kind of teary reading this.
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You are perfect, Coco !!! xo
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Read this before somewhere. Loved it then, still loving it now. Thanks for the reminder, Coco!
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What a beautiful way to put this! I am a girl who read & I am a girl who writes. Thanks for following Benzeknees!
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Reblogged this on Runaway Words and commented:
I love this post more than I can put into words. Please read!
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Oh, yes, Ms. Rosemarie Urquico. You are right, thousand times right! I adore women who read.
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True. True. True, Date a guy who reads for the same reasons.
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I love that post! Yes, I read. I read every chance I get, my house is stuffed with books. I LOVE old bookstores. 🙂
It’s getting harder to find people who really love to read anymore (at least it seems that way to me). I see 9 out of 10 people on a train playing with their phones and maybe one is reading something.
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Reblogged this on Thoaiums Buchecke and commented:
Ich sollte im Cafe lesen statt Zuhause und diesen Artikel als Argument dabei haben. 🙂
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