Topic: You Should Date an Illiterate Girl
Anonymous A started this discussion 15 years ago #10,272
Date a girl who doesn’t read. Find her in the weary squalor of a Midwestern bar. Find her in the smoke, drunken sweat, and varicolored light of an upscale nightclub. Wherever you find her, find her smiling. Make sure that it lingers when the people that are talking to her look away. Engage her with unsentimental trivialities. Use pick-up lines and laugh inwardly. Take her outside when the night overstays its welcome. Ignore the palpable weight of fatigue. Kiss her in the rain under the weak glow of a streetlamp because you’ve seen it in film. Remark at its lack of significance. Take her to your apartment. Dispatch with making love. Fuck her.
Let the anxious contract you’ve unwittingly written evolve slowly and uncomfortably into a relationship. Find shared interests and common ground like sushi, and folk music. Build an impenetrable bastion upon that ground. Make it sacred. Retreat into it every time the air gets stale, or the evenings get long. Talk about nothing of significance. Do little thinking. Let the months pass unnoticed. Ask her to move in. Let her decorate. Get into fights about inconsequential things like how the fucking shower curtain needs to be closed so that it doesn’t fucking collect mold. Let a year pass unnoticed. Begin to notice.
Figure that you should probably get married because you will have wasted a lot of time otherwise. Take her to dinner on the forty-fifth floor at a restaurant far beyond your means. Make sure there is a beautiful view of the city. Sheepishly ask a waiter to bring her a glass of champagne with a modest ring in it. When she notices, propose to her with all of the enthusiasm and sincerity you can muster. Do not be overly concerned if you feel your heart leap through a pane of sheet glass. For that matter, do not be overly concerned if you cannot feel it at all. If there is applause, let it stagnate. If she cries, smile as if you’ve never been happier. If she doesn’t, smile all the same.
Let the years pass unnoticed. Get a career, not a job. Buy a house. Have two striking children. Try to raise them well. Fail, frequently. Lapse into a bored indifference. Lapse into an indifferent sadness. Have a mid-life crisis. Grow old. Wonder at your lack of achievement. Feel sometimes contented, but mostly vacant and ethereal. Feel, during walks, as if you might never return, or as if you might blow away on the wind. Contract a terminal illness. Die, but only after you observe that the girl who didn’t read never made your heart oscillate with any significant passion, that no one will write the story of your lives, and that she will die, too, with only a mild and tempered regret that nothing ever came of her capacity to love.
Do those things, god damnit, because nothing sucks worse than a girl who reads. Do it, I say, because a life in purgatory is better than a life in hell. Do it, because a girl who reads possesses a vocabulary that can describe that amorphous discontent as a life unfulfilled—a vocabulary that parses the innate beauty of the world and makes it an accessible necessity instead of an alien wonder. A girl who reads lays claim to a vocabulary that distinguishes between the specious and soulless rhetoric of someone who cannot love her, and the inarticulate desperation of someone who loves her too much. A vocabulary, god damnit, that makes my vacuous sophistry a cheap trick.
Do it, because a girl who reads understands syntax. Literature has taught her that moments of tenderness come in sporadic but knowable intervals. A girl who reads knows that life is not planar; she knows, and rightly demands, that the ebb comes along with the flow of disappointment. A girl who has read up on her syntax senses the irregular pauses—the hesitation of breath—endemic to a lie. A girl who reads perceives the difference between a parenthetical moment of anger and the entrenched habits of someone whose bitter cynicism will run on, run on well past any point of reason, or purpose, run on far after she has packed a suitcase and said a reluctant goodbye and she has decided that I am an ellipsis and not a period and run on and run on. Syntax that knows the rhythm and cadence of a life well lived.
Date a girl who doesn’t read because the girl who reads knows the importance of plot. She can trace out the demarcations of a prologue and the sharp ridges of a climax. She feels them in her skin. The girl who reads will be patient with an intermission and expedite a denouement. But of all things, the girl who reads knows most the ineluctable significance of an end. She is comfortable with them. She has bid farewell to a thousand heroes with only a twinge of sadness.
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. The girl who reads has spun out the account of her life and it is bursting with meaning. 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. I hate you. I really, really, really hate you.
Let the anxious contract you’ve unwittingly written evolve slowly and uncomfortably into a relationship. Find shared interests and common ground like sushi, and folk music. Build an impenetrable bastion upon that ground. Make it sacred. Retreat into it every time the air gets stale, or the evenings get long. Talk about nothing of significance. Do little thinking. Let the months pass unnoticed. Ask her to move in. Let her decorate. Get into fights about inconsequential things like how the fucking shower curtain needs to be closed so that it doesn’t fucking collect mold. Let a year pass unnoticed. Begin to notice.
Figure that you should probably get married because you will have wasted a lot of time otherwise. Take her to dinner on the forty-fifth floor at a restaurant far beyond your means. Make sure there is a beautiful view of the city. Sheepishly ask a waiter to bring her a glass of champagne with a modest ring in it. When she notices, propose to her with all of the enthusiasm and sincerity you can muster. Do not be overly concerned if you feel your heart leap through a pane of sheet glass. For that matter, do not be overly concerned if you cannot feel it at all. If there is applause, let it stagnate. If she cries, smile as if you’ve never been happier. If she doesn’t, smile all the same.
Let the years pass unnoticed. Get a career, not a job. Buy a house. Have two striking children. Try to raise them well. Fail, frequently. Lapse into a bored indifference. Lapse into an indifferent sadness. Have a mid-life crisis. Grow old. Wonder at your lack of achievement. Feel sometimes contented, but mostly vacant and ethereal. Feel, during walks, as if you might never return, or as if you might blow away on the wind. Contract a terminal illness. Die, but only after you observe that the girl who didn’t read never made your heart oscillate with any significant passion, that no one will write the story of your lives, and that she will die, too, with only a mild and tempered regret that nothing ever came of her capacity to love.
Do those things, god damnit, because nothing sucks worse than a girl who reads. Do it, I say, because a life in purgatory is better than a life in hell. Do it, because a girl who reads possesses a vocabulary that can describe that amorphous discontent as a life unfulfilled—a vocabulary that parses the innate beauty of the world and makes it an accessible necessity instead of an alien wonder. A girl who reads lays claim to a vocabulary that distinguishes between the specious and soulless rhetoric of someone who cannot love her, and the inarticulate desperation of someone who loves her too much. A vocabulary, god damnit, that makes my vacuous sophistry a cheap trick.
Do it, because a girl who reads understands syntax. Literature has taught her that moments of tenderness come in sporadic but knowable intervals. A girl who reads knows that life is not planar; she knows, and rightly demands, that the ebb comes along with the flow of disappointment. A girl who has read up on her syntax senses the irregular pauses—the hesitation of breath—endemic to a lie. A girl who reads perceives the difference between a parenthetical moment of anger and the entrenched habits of someone whose bitter cynicism will run on, run on well past any point of reason, or purpose, run on far after she has packed a suitcase and said a reluctant goodbye and she has decided that I am an ellipsis and not a period and run on and run on. Syntax that knows the rhythm and cadence of a life well lived.
Date a girl who doesn’t read because the girl who reads knows the importance of plot. She can trace out the demarcations of a prologue and the sharp ridges of a climax. She feels them in her skin. The girl who reads will be patient with an intermission and expedite a denouement. But of all things, the girl who reads knows most the ineluctable significance of an end. She is comfortable with them. She has bid farewell to a thousand heroes with only a twinge of sadness.
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. The girl who reads has spun out the account of her life and it is bursting with meaning. 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. I hate you. I really, really, really hate you.
Ks !KansasxqvM joined in and replied with this 15 years ago, 6 minutes later[^] [v] #182,666
Write walls like that, and she won't bother to read it anyway. Dammit, I kinda wanna read that... someone tell me if its good.
Anonymous D joined in and replied with this 15 years ago, 51 seconds later, 7 minutes after the original post[^] [v] #182,673
Dodongo !ZQvsveEcD6 joined in and replied with this 15 years ago, 11 seconds later, 8 minutes after the original post[^] [v] #182,674
@182,666 (Ks !KansasxqvM)
I know what you mean. It certainly looks interesting, but I just can't force myself to sit through it all.
I know what you mean. It certainly looks interesting, but I just can't force myself to sit through it all.
Ks !KansasxqvM replied with this 15 years ago, 20 seconds later, 8 minutes after the original post[^] [v] #182,677
Voice of !WisdomHsuU joined in and replied with this 15 years ago, 4 minutes later, 12 minutes after the original post[^] [v] #182,693
> I hate you. I really, really, really hate you.
'sup ltamake/vocalon/ninjj?
'sup ltamake/vocalon/ninjj?
!ocurburUbk joined in and replied with this 15 years ago, 54 minutes later, 1 hour after the original post[^] [v] #182,755
Hmm.
wilson !Mex505FZAw joined in and replied with this 15 years ago, 49 seconds later, 1 hour after the original post[^] [v] #182,756
(Citing a deleted or non-existent reply.)
people still use my shoops?
damn.
people still use my shoops?
damn.
Lawrence !9p5vCatBBQ joined in and replied with this 15 years ago, 2 minutes later, 1 hour after the original post[^] [v] #182,759
@182,666 (Ks !KansasxqvM)
It's not something I'd urge anyone to read, but it was well written. I enjoyed it.
It's not something I'd urge anyone to read, but it was well written. I enjoyed it.
Voice of !WisdomHsuU replied with this 15 years ago, 1 minute later, 1 hour after the original post[^] [v] #182,762
Breakfast of Champions !!snnYcROO9 joined in and replied with this 15 years ago, 1 minute later, 1 hour after the original post[^] [v] #182,763
> expect Syntax
> recieve --anon-- probably Leonidas
> recieve --anon-- probably Leonidas
(Edited 5 minutes later.)
Ks !KansasxqvM replied with this 15 years ago, 2 minutes later, 1 hour after the original post[^] [v] #182,765
The Owl !KThEOwLwbU joined in and replied with this 15 years ago, 2 hours later, 3 hours after the original post[^] [v] #182,808
I read it all. It was pretty good, and I agree in a certain way.
Breakfast of Champions !!snnYcROO9 replied with this 15 years ago, 5 minutes later, 3 hours after the original post[^] [v] #182,811
@previous (The Owl !KThEOwLwbU)
Pfft, not even. It was just a bunch of masturbatory "hurr look at me im so insightful and derpressed" bullshit.
Get on my fucking level, bro
Pfft, not even. It was just a bunch of masturbatory "hurr look at me im so insightful and derpressed" bullshit.
Get on my fucking level, bro
Handel !khEOdtKF56 joined in and replied with this 15 years ago, 1 hour later, 4 hours after the original post[^] [v] #182,842
@previous (Breakfast of Champions !!snnYcROO9)
The difference between this piece and what your saying is that this piece was insightful, not "insightful", which is what you are suggesting.
The difference between this piece and what your saying is that this piece was insightful, not "insightful", which is what you are suggesting.
Triptych !LightPenis joined in and replied with this 15 years ago, 7 hours later, 12 hours after the original post[^] [v] #182,919
...This was actually a pretty good read.
vocalon !!dX0knrTu5 joined in and replied with this 15 years ago, 29 minutes later, 12 hours after the original post[^] [v] #182,927
@182,693 (Voice of !WisdomHsuU)
> >I hate you. I really, really, really hate you.
> 'sup ltamake/vocalon/ninjj?
nope lol
> >I hate you. I really, really, really hate you.
> 'sup ltamake/vocalon/ninjj?
nope lol
The Owl !KThEOwLwbU replied with this 15 years ago, 2 hours later, 15 hours after the original post[^] [v] #183,033
nimj joined in and replied with this 15 years ago, 6 minutes later, 15 hours after the original post[^] [v] #183,041
nimj double-posted this 15 years ago, 26 seconds later, 15 hours after the original post[^] [v] #183,042
Breakfast of Champions !!snnYcROO9 replied with this 15 years ago, 1 hour later, 17 hours after the original post[^] [v] #183,214
@182,842 (Handel !khEOdtKF56)
> this piece was insightful, not "insightful", which is what you are suggesting
uh wot
> this piece was insightful, not "insightful", which is what you are suggesting
uh wot
Handel !khEOdtKF56 replied with this 15 years ago, 3 minutes later, 17 hours after the original post[^] [v] #183,217
Killer Lettuce !!iNo3FkiZx joined in and replied with this 15 years ago, 40 seconds later, 17 hours after the original post[^] [v] #183,218
Breakfast of Champions !!snnYcROO9 replied with this 15 years ago, 2 minutes later, 17 hours after the original post[^] [v] #183,224
@183,217 (Handel !khEOdtKF56)
LOL
If you're the kind of ignoramus that thinks Catcher in the Rye is the height of existentialism, then sure, OP is very deep
LOL
If you're the kind of ignoramus that thinks Catcher in the Rye is the height of existentialism, then sure, OP is very deep
Handel !khEOdtKF56 replied with this 15 years ago, 3 minutes later, 17 hours after the original post[^] [v] #183,227
@previous (Breakfast of Champions !!snnYcROO9)
I've never even read the book and I don't want to either.
I've never even read the book and I don't want to either.
Breakfast of Champions !!snnYcROO9 replied with this 15 years ago, 3 minutes later, 17 hours after the original post[^] [v] #183,234
Wade Wilson !IOdbnXsKDk joined in and replied with this 15 years ago, 20 minutes later, 17 hours after the original post[^] [v] #183,247
Fats !BBbudGf3kM joined in and replied with this 15 years ago, 47 minutes later, 18 hours after the original post[^] [v] #183,319
sim !!A+G8/bsTE joined in and replied with this 15 years ago, 8 minutes later, 18 hours after the original post[^] [v] #183,357
fuck off
Anonymous A (OP) replied with this 15 years ago, 3 hours later, 22 hours after the original post[^] [v] #183,527
Unintentional Jackass !LASXURl1b6 joined in and replied with this 15 years ago, 7 hours later, 1 day after the original post[^] [v] #183,701
I quite liked this text, but I find that I myself am not content with even imagining such a lukewarm way of life. I would much rather suffer the pain and pleasure of a proper relationship than wallow in an empty relationship where I probably wouldn't love her. Perhaps this is the fault of the fact that I, too, have read.
I liked the way it was written, OP, if you wrote it.
I liked the way it was written, OP, if you wrote it.
TrollBuster3000 joined in and replied with this 15 years ago, 12 hours later, 1 day after the original post[^] [v] #183,919
I only have time to read the bible and Ron Paul