Date A Guy Who Reads

Saw this cute post Date A Girl Who Reads by Rosemarie Urquico on tumblr.

There are some stuff here and there that's gonna sound arrogant but the original author intended it as a reply to another article: You Should Date an Illiterate Girl.

Her original post is here.

If you feel lazy going through the post and actively substituting the word "girl" and related words as you read along, below's the edited version for us gays, hehe.

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Date a guy who reads. Date a guy who spends his money on books instead of clothes. He has problems with closet space because he has too many books. Date a guy who has a list of books he wants to read, who has had a library card since he was twelve.

Find a guy who reads. You’ll know that he does because he will always have an unread book in his bag. He’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when he finds the book he wants. You see the weird guy 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.

He’s the guy reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at his mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because he’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. He might give you a glare, as most guys who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask him if he likes the book.

Buy him another cup of coffee.

Let him know what you really think of Murakami. See if he got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if he says he understood James Joyce’s Ulysses he’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask him if he loves Alice or he would like to be Alice.

It’s easy to date a guy who reads. Give him books for his birthday, for Christmas and for anniversaries. Give him the gift of words, in poetry, in song. Give him Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let him know that you understand that words are love. Understand that he knows the difference between books and reality but by god, he’s going to try to make his life a little like his favorite book. It will never be your fault if he does.

He has to give it a shot somehow.

Lie to him. If he understands syntax, he 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 him. Because a guy who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because guys who read 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? Guys who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilight series.

If you find a guy who reads, keep him close. When you find him up at 2 AM clutching a book to his chest and weeping, make him a cup of tea and hold him. You may lose him for a couple of hours but he will always come back to you. He’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 he’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. He 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 he will recite Keats under his breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a guy who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a guy who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give him 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 guy who reads.

Or better yet, date a guy who writes.


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