You should date a girl who reads

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By Rosemarie Urquico

Model – Ahenda Anjichi | Photographer – Karue

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 if 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.

This essay was written in response to Charles Warnke’s “You should date an illiterate girl”.

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  3. Lemme Be Your Bad Girl
  4. Poetry: Girl Power

49 thoughts on “You should date a girl who reads”

  2. Nice piece ….. this more of a higgs boson pursuit or elusive liver Tekayo was looking for …wako wapi ? coz majority carry unread books in there hand bags and they always forget to interchange …that’s the data I have

  3. Beautiful…It reminds me of the below quote by James Baldwin:

    “You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive.”

  7. Hahaha. Great witty piece. I like the flow of your thoughts and creativity.

  9. “If you can give her monotony, stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone…” Very True!

  16. Pingback: WRITING HAS ALOT MORE TO OFFER « lynewordsmith

  30. A nice one! tis something i still hope for. now and then, i glance at the gate to see if there is a she-reader/writer hovering over there. still none, seems not yet. I’m a librocubicularist n tis only someone of my ilk who can understand that sleeping late while reading isn’t an excuse of impotency and won’t accuse me of blowing conjugal rights to smithereens.

  36. i’ve always loved the passion that seeps from the work of Ahenda. The emotions that overwhelms the reader as she skillfully takes you through the smiles, the frown and the indifference in a manner that art and science are left fighting over who really is in control. Only one more thing is required of her, give us a GODDAMN BOOK. i’ll buy 3 copies, one for me, one for the girl who reads and one for the offspring of the two.

  41. Just googled up girls who read and this came up. I feel ashamed I never saw it earlier. Great read. It echoes every thought i had in mind before googling. There is power in the written word. To find a woman who can read and may be even write is to find such power :)

  42. Finally a post that appreciates or tries to understand the woman who loves to read. And hey, the guy doesn’t have to be a reader or even a writer…as long as he appreciates and encourages the culture you are game. Why I always muse, haven’t I won a books voucher yet? Maybe I need to hang a books wish-list on someone’s way:-) However for the dude that dates or even marries a reader, be careful. Her mind is a sharp double-edged sword. Why, she has interacted with fine literary minds through her reading pursuits. Also, if you don’t mind your bed-side lamp on at weird hours at night when she reaches out for that book, or you don’t mind her scavenging the street bookshop at Toi or Ngara Market looking for a read, by all means date her:-)

    Great post.

  46. Love it! =) Glad I practice this culture. Currently reading With Billie by Julia Blackburn

  47. “Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilight series.”
    LOL!
    I loved this piece. It flows effortlessly and it is very creative…

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