A Girl Who Reads

Let’s talk about fantasy for a moment. I’m not talking about Lord of the Rings or Narnia or Dragon Age, I’m talking about fantasy in its purest form.

“Imagination, especially when extravagant or unrestrained.”

Sure, you could date an illiterate girl. One who doesn’t have any expectations or ideas of what her life should be, but if you’re going to do that, you’re just going to be dating a shell and in time you’ll just be a shell too.

The human mind is a shockingly powerful creative force, and with knowledge of story structure comes hope that there is something more in your life. A way to fit all the events that happen in your life into a framework that makes some degree of sense, and with that comes aspiration. A girl who reads knows all about the heroes and villains and their lives, and with that comes dissatisfaction with the mundane nature of her existence. She is unwilling to settle for second best, because she knows that her Prince is out there with his mighty charger and sword of thunderbolt iron, ready to come rushing in and slay all her demons and whisk her off into the sunset side-saddle on his horse.

Just a beautiful dream, right? Nothing more?

Wrong.

Because there is lightning in love, there is a way to find your Princess, and for her to find her Prince. Sure it’s not foolproof, but once you know that a girl like that is out there then you as a man can’t settle for anything less, because if you do you’re trading in perfect bliss for mediocre contentment and in time that sucks the imagination out of you, too, and you stop dreaming, only accepting. We’re not supposed to accept things as they are, we’re supposed to aspire and strive and be all we can be.

A girl without hope will work a dead end job for the rest of her life, living with her parents in a house she hates until she finds a man with vision for at least mediocre contentment who can lift her out of her tragic hole and into the sunshine, but she can’t handle the brightness. She’ll build walls and shades, restraining the potential Prince and placing a cage around him because she knows she doesn’t deserve him and his songs. She has lost her faith, if she ever had it, and everything is doomed to bland decay in her eyes. Nothing is worth it.

A girl who reads and thinks won’t resign to that for her life. She knows there’s beauty out there yet, and she knows that it’s entirely possible to find if she doesn’t shut her eyes tight to the concept of happiness. She is open to the prospect of her Prince, even if this life has taught her that he will at least be hard to find, but he is looking for her too. In time, they will meet.

Together, you become relentless. Together, you are better than you were apart, not a rotting insect carcass traipsing to and from your shitty call centre or supermarket job waiting for your turn to fall off the planet with no impact or contribution made and nobody to care. Together, you are more perfect than you were apart and people can see that.

It may not be easy. There may be struggle. Argument. Disagreement on how this particular climax pans out. Or perhaps some part of your subconscious actively fights against this beauty you’ve found, because it bellows that you don’t deserve it. But you work with it, because this lightning doesn’t just go away, and you can slay the demons with your sword of thunderbolt iron. This feeling can power your imagination forever if you don’t fight against it. And you do deserve it, and so does she, and so do we all, because to live without belief in this is to be truly wasted. Trust me on that.

When you find a girl who reads and thinks and dreams in colour, dispatch with fucking. Make love to her. Treat her as if she is the most special thing in the world, because she is. Cherish her in your arms. Kiss her forehead. Stroke her hair. Tell her you love her, every day, because it’s pure and unrestrained and there is no glass ceiling stopping the pair of you from doing whatever you want to do.