By Claiie Esmile

April 5, 2011 

Date a girl who takes photographs. Date a girl whose favorite sound is the click-click of the shutter as it closes and opens to capture a memory. Date a girl who sees the wonder in the simplest things. Date a girl who looks at the world and wonders how to put a little of herself in it. You might find her in the park, lost behind her lens, the world a blur around her as she tries to capture a single moment in time. You might find her in an exhibit, a look of concentration on her face as she contemplates a photograph that called out to her as she was passing by. Or maybe you will find her in a bookstore, a book in her lap as she pores over photographs of weddings all the while wondering what hers would look like.

Take her out to photo walks and laugh as she tries to take a picture of you. When she gets tired of walking, buy her cupcakes but wait until she has taken pictures of them before proceeding to eat them. Listen as she tells you her ideas for a photo shoot on the ride home. Take her to a restaurant and wait patiently as she surveys the menu carefully, appreciating the food photography. And again, wait until she has taken a photo of your food before digging in. Allow her introduce you to Ansel Adams while you both eat your lunch. Introduce her to your favorite musician as you wait for the bill to arrive. When you get home, change your Facebook profile picture into a photograph she took of you. She silently hoped for it. Take stolen shots of her. Compile it and give it to her on her birthday.

Tell her you love her over and over until your voice replaces the click of the shutter as her favorite sound. Kiss her after she lifts her head up from the camera. Give her camera-shaped necklaces. Go places with her. You will never be bored again. Date a girl who takes photographs. She will never whine about a little dirt on her favorite pair of jeans as she kneels down to get a better angle of her subject.

She will never be afraid to take adventures with you. She will take photographs of you not just with her camera but with her mind as well and keep it to herself to admire at night. But above all, she will teach you how to look at the world with a brand new perspective and she will do that unknowingly. Marry a girl who takes photographs. Ditch those wedding photography books and give her the most beautiful wedding you could.

She will teach your kids to find the beauty in everything just as she had taught you. Every day will be an adventure as she tries to create memories photograph-worthy with you. She may wake you up in the middle of the night because she is buzzing with ideas but she will make it up in the morning with a stack of hot pancakes beside a steaming cup of your favorite coffee blend. Grow old with a girl who takes photographs.

Sit with her on the front porch as you both pore over the bits and pieces of the moments you’ve had together. Stroke her hair as you both relive the photo walks that you took and the places you have been when you were both young. Smile as you both reenact your clever wedding vows. Date a girl who takes photographs because she will always see that “something” in the most “nothing” of things. She will never let anyone take you away from her like she never lets anyone steal her photos and that is just one of the evidences that she loves you.

Date a girl who draws.  Her bag is littered with pens and pencils instead of mascaras and eyeliners.  She spends her time glorifying her environment rather than herself.

Date a girl who draws. She finds her hands take on a mind of their own.  She might find them tangled in your hair and in your hands, running along your spine and the small of your back.

Date a girl who draws.  She knows how to complement colours.  She’ll cater to your purple days and your yellow days.  She’ll match your blue with her orange, and she’ll know the difference between red and pink.

Date a girl who draws.  She understands the importance of interpretation.  She’ll look at an argument from different perspectives and take them into account before she speaks.

Date a girl who draws.  She sees beyond the literal.  To her, the human body is more than just flesh and bones wrapped in layers of skin; it is a world of valleys, hills and plains, of crevices and hollows that need to be explored with her fingertips so that she may translate them onto paper.  

Date a girl who draws. She’ll find the littlest subject and transform it into a work of art.  You never know- she just might do the same with you.

(In Response to Charles Warnke’s You Should Date An Illiterate Girl.)

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.

No. Don’t just date her, Love her.

Love a girl who is willing to stay up late at night just to give her mom her medicines. Who doesn’t lose hope even after seeing her mom suffer. Who knows how to ask God for strength an guidance. Love a girl who is patient even when her mom got tantrums. Who will…