Recently, I posted Rosemarie Urquico’s marvelous essay entitled “Date a Girl Who Reads.”

This is meant to be its companion essay, written by yours truly, Jackie Lea Sommers, entitled “Date a Girl Who Writes.”  Enjoy! 

Date a girl who writes.

You know the type—she’s the one in the corner booth with her earphones in, battering the laptop keys to high heaven.  The one who, despite appearances, is not really in the restaurant at all, but in a world of her own making, or else with one foot in and the rest of her looking up a synonym for blue and debating whether the sky is more of a cobalt or an indigo.

A girl who writes can take you on a date to Venus and have you back in time for dessert.  Five minutes with her, and she will usher you through the gates of philosophy and religion and metaphysics.  She’ll make an explorer out of you.  You’ll need to run to catch up.

Creativity rolls off her in waves.  She can think of beautiful ideas and make them real.  She is quirky, fun, witty, and wise.  She notices everything, and all of it matters to her.  Can’t you see her eyes flickering from the old couple playing cards in the corner to the whipped cream melting into her cocoa?  She also just memorized every detail of your sigh, and now she is thinking of the name of an obscure artist and of the waitress’s accent.

Date a girl who writes because she is observant and smart, and what is sexier than an incredible vocabulary?  Think of how many different ways she’ll be able to tell you she loves you.

Writers are quirky, strange, fascinating people.  You will never be bored if you date a writer.  In fact, your life with her will be a wild adventure.  The highs will be a pleasure, and the lows will remind you that you are alive and that truth and excellence matter.

Date a girl who writes.  She’s funny, a storyteller; people are drawn to her at parties.  But you’ll be the one who brought her, and think how proud you’ll be!  Every interesting thing you do or say will go immediately into her notebook and crop up somewhere in the future—a lasting posterity.  You’ll never have to buy a cheesy greeting card again.  All you’ll need to do is write a heartfelt message; she prefers when things don’t rhyme.

While it’s true that sometimes it will seem you’re taking the backseat to people and situations that aren’t real, she still loves you.  If you want to bring her back to where you are, wrap your arms around her and ask about her draft.  Ask questions and listen carefully to her answers.  If you help her out of her writing rut, trust me, she’ll reward you.

Date a girl who writes because she knows that the best stories make you laugh and cry, and so your romance will be infused with amusement and passion, jokes and joy.  She makes the connections you can’t, looks for lessons in life, makes sense of the chaos.

If you date a girl who writes, you can be confident that she will work at your relationship—she is used to second, third, and seventeenth drafts without giving up.  She willingly returns to conflict day after day.  She won’t leave when you fight—she knows the climax comes before the denouement.

Bring your A-game.  Remember that she has probably already dreamed up the most incredible Prince Charming, one who is tall and has gray eyes, irrational fears, strong arms, and a twisted sense of humor.  If you want to compete with her protagonist, you’re going to have to step it up.

It will be worth it.

Because when you date a girl who writes, the two of you will happen to life and not the other way around.  She will teach you how to make a moment extraordinary, how to appreciate this beautiful world spreading its arms to you both in majestic invitation.