Date a girl who reads. Date her, for you can lay her like a book, on your lap, scour through the bookshelves of her heart, touch the dusty spines of all the stories that have touched her, moved her, and slept with her, tucked away under her pillow – and then, pick the one that she has kept with the utmost care, pushed to the very back, where there are no traces of inky footprints and no one has cared to go – open up the pages of her heartbeat and trace the faint outline of the fading words on her eyes that are the language of their reverb – keep reading and rereading – for there is more to her than the unfinished sentences trailing on her lips, more to her than the questions in her eyes, and more to her than the ellipses that leave HER story midway … with the pale shadow of a potent promise …
It is in this unwrit promise that you may find LOVE – in between the white spaces of her carefully constructed lines – which hold nothing, save her breath!
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And once you have matched the rhythm of your deep, heavy, love-laced breathing with hers, you will not want to put her down, you will want to bring her everywhere, like a book that you can spend all your waking hours with, and one that you want to fall asleep with – like a book that does not need a bookmark, for you can turn to any page and start from there, coz every bit is your favorite part!
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But it isn’t even the novelty of this emotion that is the best part of finding a girl who reads and keeping her (although it, arguably, is!) – it is the skip of a heartbeat when she places In Search Of Lost Time next to your copy of GQ that you will fall a little more in love with her, it is when you read in bed with your legs intertwined, and she falls asleep on your shoulder that you will have a hard time believing you found someone as exquisite as her, it is when your subtle moments of silence will be welcomed with a kiss and overlapping words and spontaneous spurts of same sentences followed with a child-like laughter that you will begin to yearn for more – and more than all of this, it is when she’d remember the GI Joe action figure on your dresser as a gift from your older brother (when you’d only mentioned it off-hand, during the in-between) that you’d know she is the ONE. You’d know coz you will fall in love.
But would you be willing to complete what was left unsaid after the ellipses? Would you take a chance with the girl who’d insist that you arrange books by name? Would you be up for a Socratic debate segue into the foreplay? Would you be willing to seduce her with talks about Proust until she is weak in the knees and drops her clothes to the ground?
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You wonder …
Coz she is a girl who reads! A girl in love with stories (and she’d pore over yours, even if it isn’t too easy to tell and remember it, always), a girl who finds beauty in detail (read: she will insist that you pair up the socks in your drawer), notices the small wonders in life (read: she will notice the gleam in your eye when a dinner conversation well past the date keeps you spellbound like no ‘footsie-under-the-table-date’ had ever been able to), and becomes lonely without her stacks of hardbacks, first editions, and stolen library books (and you’d have to make room for those, and love them equally)!
So, do you forge ahead and date a girl who reads? Of course, you do – because …
1. She gifts you MORE
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Unlike a girl who does not know the captivating allure of stories, she will write her story with you, in you, and continue to fill in the pages with ravenous romps of times when reading Neruda by the fireside burnt you with an uncontrollable passion for each other, naughty narratives of your kids with exotic names and even stranger, yet fascinating tastes, and then, the tender lovemaking of times when you’d delight in her body, and kiss all the marks that you know too well, for they are proud badges of bearing your children. She will take you to fascinating worlds she reads of, weave you into her work through conceits that shall make you smile so hard that you’d wonder why your heart does not burst from all the joy that she continues pouring into your already-full heart! She is the one who’d make an epic tale out of the million shorter ones you’d live with her – of dog-poop and nursery rhymes to even those when the Thanksgiving dinner was burnt! And yet, there is nobody else you’d want to live your life with, for she makes mundane magical and makes 20,000 forgettable Fridays seem ‘a-not-so-tradeable-for-20000-terrific-Thursdays!’ Coz when you date a girl who reads, you get a LIFE brimming with a million colors – one in which you’d want to walk the winters of your age with her whilst she recites Keats to paint that smile on your lips that she loves all too well. A kiss might follow!
2. Even if she is a challenge
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A girl who reads is built of layers – and you’d have to prod and peep and poke your way through the words of geniuses, poets, philosophers, playwrights, and novelists to find the ground on which she had first sown the seeds! Will you be willing to take on the challenge that is her and be driven to form the bond you always wanted whilst she waits at home, with a Faulkner on her chest and her spectacles pushed up to her head, sleeping on the couch? Will you accept the life of passion, presence, and clarity although you might question the clarity quite a bit when returning home to a discussion about syntax may baffle you? Will you be willing to immerse yourself in the fantastical world of wonder, brimming with meaning? You have a decision to make!
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3. She isn’t afraid of failure
Date a girl who reads for she isn’t afraid to fail or even be failed. Because she knows that all failures build up to a climax and some, even chart their course to a sequel. She strings together all the mistakes that led to the failure into lifelong lessons to carry forth on the journey that she knows is long and worthy! And that’s as REAL as it can get!
4. She does not expect you to sweep her off her feet
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A girl who reads is able to find the magical in the mundane. She knows the difference between books and reality, and does not expect a fairy-tale to leap forth from the pages and become REAL. She will just be as excited about the proposal you make to her when she is lying sick but insists on being up to finish Vonnegut, as she’d be about the one that you make fifty years after she’d said YES, by going down on your arthritic knee and sliding a ring on her wrinkled finger! Coz she knows the beauty in simple things – she has felt them come REAL in fiction and she will love them for real, in reality! Although, you can’t blame her for wishing upon a star that some poignant moment from her favorite book comes alive – what, she’s a girl who reads and dreams! 😉
5. She talks, a lot, but she listens too
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Yes, she will go on and on about Hemingway and you may find her clutching a book close to her chest, and stifling sobs at 2 AM – just hold her close. She is upset about her favorite character dying and she will talk about her, in between incessant tears, as if she were real. Hold her still, comfort her – for she will return to you, always! And when you’d talk animatedly about a subject that ticks you, she will be listening attentively too or when you feel it is difficult for you to speak about the car crash of your younger sister, she will hug you tight and listen to your incoherent mumbling and bring you some tea!
6. She understands and ACCEPTS change
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You can be You with her, unafraid of growing into what TIME makes of you, coz she understands that people, not unlike characters, change and develop. Nobody is made of singular facets that stay the same and that it is a universal principle. She will be by your side, embracing your quirks and flaws, knowing fully well that you are a being of multitudes, refusing to be bound by a definite! She will love you all the same, and exhort you to BE who you’d always wanted to BE!
7. She finds solutions, for EVERYTHING
Her critical thinking abilities have made her a one-stop solution kiosk for everything! YES, EVERYTHING!
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8. She feels deeply and loves the same way
A girl who reads has opinions and dreams and she’d want for the two of these to co-exist in her life with you. She will, oftentimes, argue with you at inopportune moments and for seemingly trivial things because she’s passionate and emotional – she cares. Her mind is imaginative and analytical, and she will accommodate your needs, without shifting hers. This makes her to never settle for halves or the semblance of a mediocre relationship. As such, she will love you completely and will demand the same of you. With her, you have the chance to grow into loving completely or losing her because half-baked proposals and partial emotion were all you could offer!
9. Her hunger for MORE satiates you
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Her curiosity and unquenchable thirst for more stories, more information, more experiences shall return in trebled doses of rich colors in your life! She will tell you about Schrodinger’s cat and Pound’s opinions on writing whilst also explaining Derrida’s concepts and her rage at the social coda in Chaucer’s times! Whoa – beat that! Plus, she will help you win all those pub quizzes! 😉
10. She will string together words of LOVE, and find LOVE in your silences too
Coz that comes as naturally to her as breathing!
11. She wants her own space and gives you yours
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A Friday night might not necessarily mean a week of worry for you, for she will call you and tell you that she is ready to soak in a lavender bath with the latest Eleanor Catton book she bought! And she’s love for you to go out with the guys and have some beer-y time!
12. She’s empathetic
Years of reading has given her a way to empathize with everything and everybody! She understands people’s feelings, actions, and relates them to the several situations, motivations, and thoughts that could have caused them! So, here’s a girl who won’t judge but shall extend an understanding that goes beyond ‘I know how you feel.’
13. Arguments with her will be REAL arguments
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Coz well, she wouldn’t use the ammunition from former fights to blow up the couch on which you rest your bum and surf the sports channels for no reason! She will advance logical and valid points for the issue at hand and you’d do well to sit up, listen, and perhaps match up (if you can). Her way of rationalizing things and closing an argument once and for all is a great deal! Believe me!
14. She will take you to the wondrous world of reading too
She’ll encourage you to pick up a book yourself, so you can experience the joy reading has to bring. Plus, reading next to each other in bed is so much better than playing Candy Crush!
Suggested read: The joy of reading!
15. And of course, you will always know what to gift her
And we’ve got you covered! 😉
I don’t think you need any more reason to date a girl who reads. For she will bring you the world and the worlds beyond in the kisses left on your duvet as well as the notes left on the breakfast tray! 😉
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