Find a girl who reads. She will always have an unread book in her bag and several books on her bookshelf. She does not hesitate to order new books, even with her several unread ones. She is the girl that drags her library with her to every apartment she lives in because she is not able to be away from her books for a long period of time. During a vacation, you can catch her pulling a book out of her suitcase. Rest assured she has one or two extra books stashed in that suitcase. This is not a valid email, please try again. She is the one lovingly glazing her eyes over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly makes a noise of excitement when she finds that book she wants. She can never resist smelling the pages-- especially the pages of old books. She is the girl that reads, everywhere. In the coffee shop, in the park, on the couch and in between classes. Sit down across from her. She might give you a look, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book. Buy her another cup of coffee. Make sure it's warm. As her how she felt about Dorian Gray while reading Wilde's masterpiece. Once you know her book list, give her books for her birthday and for Thanksgiving and for Christmas and for Tuesdays. Find her author signed books and take her on surprise trips to used bookstores. She adores used bookstores, specifically the smell that accompanies them-- the history that beams from the books with the touch of every page. Give her the gift of words, in books, in song, in poetry. Give her Tolstoy, Dostoyevski, Austen and Grant. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but, by God, every now and then she will try to be a touch like the heroins of her favorite books. If you find a girl who reads, keep her close to you. When you find her up at 2 a. Let her tell you about her book and what impacted her even if you do not know the story. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She will talk as if the characters in the book exist, because for a while, they always do. She will sit on the couch, curled up in the words that comfort her. You will watch her-- her eyes specifically. Even the way her lips move with her emotions and reactions. She writes you notes. Perhaps explanations, of thoughts and feelings. Her desires and wants. She speaks with written words better than any other kind. She writes from the heart and she will write you pages upon pages. She will explain it best on paper. Listen, read, understand it. Swallow it up with your heart and your eyes. Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can provide you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only bestow her with monotony and stale hours and half-baked proposals-- then you are better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads. Dear BFF's future hubby, First of all, congratulations. You've caught one of the sweetest, most beautiful fish in the sea. But I don't need to tell you this. You already know she's a dime plus ninety-nine. Wifing her up is definitely the best decision you've ever made. Our girl yes, she's mine too is one of a kind. She's strong, smart and unbelievably caring. Her standards are pretty darn high, so you must be quite the man. If I had to guess, I'd say you're very tall and very handsome. You probably also dress extremely well and drive a nice car. Most importantly, though, I'm sure you're an awesome person who treats my best friend like the princess she is. Now that you two have tied the knot, there are a few things we should get straight. You married me too. Sorry to break it to you, but her and I are a package deal. Lucky for you, I rock so this is no biggie. You can expect daily phone calls and multiple visits throughout the week. Some of these visits may result in sleepovers, and some of these sleepovers may be in your bed. You'll learn to love me almost as much as you love her. This is not a valid email, please try again. I'll be your go-to girl. If you ever need advice or anything of the sort, I got you. I know this girl better than 99% of people so I'll be your main source of info until you reach my level of expertise. It's likely that I played a big part in planning out your engagement so you probably already know how good I am at this kind of stuff. If she's ever upset, call me up and I'll I'll tell you how screwed up and give and how to fix it. If you want to know how to surprise her, I'm your gal. Of course, all of this will be our little secret. You can take full credit for any of the ideas I give you. If you hurt her, I'll cut your you-know-what off. I know you won't, but this is something I'm kind of required to say. I'm so glad she met you. This is the most important thing I want you to know. I can only imagine how incredibly happy you make my best friend. She doesn't fall in love with just anybody, so I know you're special. I can finally stop pretending to be her lesbian girlfriend when creepy guys hit on her at the bar. Thank you for proving me right all of those times I promised her there was a guy out there worth marrying. So here's the thing: I love straight people as much as the next guy. But being gay and trying to date straight girls is the hardest thing ever. Now, by straight, I don't mean someone who isn't homosexual. The girls that have romantic relationships with women but don't want to be seen in public on a date. The girls who can't stomach planning a future with a woman, despite any daydreams of a happily ever after with her by their side. The girls who can't even come out to themselves. Unfortunately, I feel like these kinds of straight girls are just so hard to stay away from. This is not a valid email, please try again. But the process is always the same: I meet a girl who says she's questioning her sexuality, we hit it off and I promise to help her adjust, then the relationship ends all too quickly, and always for that very reason. My emotions get all jacked-up, then almost instantly let down. For me, this means that I feel like I'm on a constant track towards disappointment, even though I know what I'm getting into in the beginning and that it probably won't work out. I think that, as a community, we can sympathize, and sometimes empathize, with the feeling of being torn between the painstaking awareness of who you are and devil on your shoulder telling you its wrong. But the problem is that this internal struggle is all too familiar to a lot of the community, and it doesn't seem to be getting any easier, either. Even with all of the Pride celebrations, national acknowledgment of the struggle that queer people have experienced for decades, and representation in the media, internalized homophobia still runs rampant. In fact, my most painful experiences with homophobia haven't been from homophobes, but within the very community where I found my tribe. So many friendships and relationships have been torn apart because one party feels too much pressure from our homophobic society that they squash it down themselves before the external pressures have the chance to. Maybe that's why the LGBT+ flag is a rainbow, symbolic of breaking free from the darkness. But one of the hardest things to accept as a gay person after coming out is that even if you kick your own internal homophobia out the door, you have the hardships of the rest of the community to deal with, too. It is a truly exhausting uphill battle; abandoning your pain only to have it replaced by that of millions of others. Or even the pain of that one special girl who hates herself for loving you.
