sylviasybil:

“Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes. She 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 finds the book she wants. You see the weird chick 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. 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 she would like to be Alice. It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas and for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry, 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 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? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilightseries. 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.”

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Rosemary Urquico (via blitzkreigkate)

Wow, this quote really pisses me off.

It’s addressed to heterosexual men, but we don’t even need to mention that, do we? Because heterosexual men are the only audience worth addressing, right? /sarcasm

The infantalization of women. I’m here to tell you, don’t date “girls”! There are laws against that.

The fetishism of women who read, like these women don’t have a life of their own. I read to escape assholes, not lure them in.

The “if she glares at you, keep talking” gives me rape-tastic vibes. Yes, ignore her clearly expressed desires. That’s okay, it’s not like she’s a real person who exists beyond the need to please random strangers. /sarcasm

The assumption that no woman could possibly be smart enough to understand Ulysses and that if she contradicts your perception of her intelligence, she must be lying. (Also, why is Ulysses the standard of intelligence? And why is intelligence the standard of human worth?)

The order to lie to her – yeah, there’s a recipe for a great relationship!

The order to fail her – no, that doesn’t make you a romantic hero, it makes you someone who frankly isn’t worth this awesome book-reading goddess you’ve built up.

The obligatory dig at the Twilight series – oh no, something that became wildly popular and financially successful because of women’s dollars! Cooties, get it away!

The basically monolithic list of authors throughout this piece – because all bookworm women have exactly the same tastes and that taste lines up with classical literature (*cough* dead White men *cough*), right?

“You deserve a girl who…” because that’s really what this whole thing boils down to, isn’t it? Women exist to be consumed, and you deserve the best.

So basically this entire quote is a manifestation of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope, in which quirky women exist for the sole reason of giving men “the most colorful life imaginable”.

I am a woman who reads, who’s had a library card since I was six, who’s run out of shelf space, who squees out loud in bookstores. And if anyone pulls this fetishistic, objectifying “let me interrupt you and plow right over your obvious discomfort because I ~deserve~ you and you only exist for me” the best response they’re gonna get is me walking away.