A girl who reads

Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was eleven, related herself to Matilda.

Find a girl who reads. You'll know that she does because she will always have a book in her bag. She's the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she finds the book she wants, and knows never to judge a book by its cover. She applies the same principle to people.

She's the girl reading while waiting in that cafe down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the coffee no longer has steam coming up, it's cold, because she is kind of engrossed already. (She tends to miss her station on the train this way too.) Lost in the world of the author's making. Ask her if she likes the book. Buy her another cup of coffee.

She loves the gift of words, in poetry, in song lyrics. She's the one whose Facebook statuses are usually quotes that inspired her.

Let her know what you really think of Oscar Wilde, and if you got through the first chapter of a Jane Austen novel. Ask if she loves Alice or would like to be Alice. Understand that she knows the difference between book and reality. But she still dreams of Mr Darcy, and Noah Caulfield.

She'll talk as if the characters in the books are real. Because for awhile, they are. She is up at 3am clutching a book to her chest and weeping, over Marley's death, her favourite labrador golden retriever with a gold heart. She is the one that read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows all in one go, all through the night. She came of age with The Outsiders, Catcher in the Rye, To Kill a Mocking bird, Little Women, and The Virgin Suicides.

Marry a girl who reads. She can give you a colourful life. Because books give you the world and the worlds beyond it. If you marry her, you will have kids with strange names. She might give them unisex, two first names, because she loved Jesse Aaron. She will introduce your children to Cat in the Hat and Aslan, and take them to the Magic Faraway Tree. You will walk in the winters of your old age together and she will recite e. e. cummings under her breath.