The girl who reads

"Don’t date a girl who reads because girls who read are the storytellers. 

You with the Joyce, you with the Nabokov, you with the Woolf. 

You there in the library, on the platform of the metro, you in the corner of the café, you in the window of your room. 

You, who make my life so god damned difficult. 

 She insists that her narratives are rich, her supporting cast colorful, and her typeface bold. 

You, the girl who reads, make me want to be everything that I am not. 

But I am weak and I will fail you, because you have dreamed, properly, 

of someone who is better than I am. 

You will not accept the life that I told of at the beginning of this piece. 

You will accept nothing less than passion, and perfection, and a life worthy of being storied. 

So out with you, girl who reads. Take the next southbound train and take your Hemingway with you."

             Thank you Charles Warnke but I will keep my books and live out my fairy tale.  I will enjoy the sonnets of di Lentini and Shakespeare, the lyrical paintings of Austen and Dickens, and fantasize about characters who were my reality built by the likes of E.L James and S. Collins.  I will continue reading because dealing with reality is too much sometimes and I am much more comfortable when I am dancing around in my own head.  

             I don't regret reading fairytales that give me hope or encourage me to dream (and expect) big.  Because I have learned that I am worth it.  I give big.  I love big...and I love big back.  I don't think it's outlandish for a gal to think the chivalry is, in fact, not dead.  Because I witness it.  I'm lucky enough to know men who still open doors, still walk on the street side and still help their ladies put on their jackets.  And yes, I think that it is possible that friends become lovers and lovers become friends.  I enjoy the smitten, the glitter, the rainbows and the butterflies.  I love to hear about love...and I love loving even more. But I am also a realist and quite often times a cynic. Prince Florian may have given Snow White the true loves kiss but Anna and Elsa saved each other.  

       My story changes everyday.  The characters in my life change, sometimes, change more frequently than I would like.  My hearts been broken into a million pieces a million times....yet, I am still hopeful.  I still treat each new love as if the previous love didn't scar me.  Even though they have.  I still feel that romance is not dead, at least not with the right person.  I recently read, The Five Love Languages, by Dr. Gary Chapman.  It was prompted after a silly quiz I took on fb and in turn encouraged my, then, partner to take.  The idea was not received well, which sucked because we were already having problems in keeping each others love tank full.   After the break up, I decided to read the book anyway. I learned what went wrong in our relationship...why and how we were the cool couple who then became distant and nagging.  More importantly, I learned my language and dialect.  I learned that I have a secondary language and dialect.  I learned how I can better teach my partner on how to keep my love tank full. And in learning these things, I have also learned how I can be a better lover.  How to identify someone else's love language and keep their tank full as well.  

       So, Warnke, I'd advise the exact opposite.  Date a girl who reads....because a girl who reads is imaginative...in many ways.  She is adventurous.  She is ever growing and ever learning and will want the same for you.  She is not comfortable with the mundane or ordinary.  She will test her boundaries as well as yours.  She will keep you on your toes.  Keep you wild.  and keep you alive.  So, please, date a girl who reads and let her mind paint the most colorful stories for you.  Or better yet, go out and paint them together.