A Surprising Hobby Has Quietly Become A Dating Green Flag
It might be time to update your photos to include a book in the frame.
In modern swipe culture, books are boosting attraction. Reading has become a staple of dating app profiles, whether it’s including your favorite novel as a prompt, stating your go-to genre, or specifying that you’re “looking for someone to talk books with.” Reading is quickly becoming an item on our good partner wish list — and, for many, a non-negotiable.
Damn! So people are turned on by reading books? It’s writer’s dream!
Now if only I could convince daters to bond over a good book about a submarine! Or an Amusement Park! Or a Time-Traveler stuck in Imperial Rome. Or something.
Yeah, unfortunately, it didn’t seem to work in the other direction. My being an introverted bookworm in High School did nothing for my dating life, go figure. I guess I was just 45 years ahead of my time
Thanks!, more a rom-com than a romance, for example the immortal scene when, after the 2 of us went to see Star Trek: Generations, she asked me if I wanted to go have a coffee with her and I answered… that I didn’t like coffee
Ha! Yeah, I had similar clueless moments like that in my early dating years. Funny how book smarts do not seem to translate to those situations. Fortunately for you she eventually got the message across.
Heh, reminds me of a bit on Conan O’Brien’s show in which Triumph the Insult Comic Dog is talking to a group of nerds waiting outside a theater about to show one of the Star Wars prequels. He says, let’s do some Star Wars trivia: what was Han Solo encased in at the end of The Empire Strikes Back?
Someone in the crowd: Carbonite!
Triumph: no, the correct answer is-- “who gives a shit?”
I think it’s part of a backlash against our society’s trend towards “idiocity”. Intelligent singles are looking for people who don’t have the uneducated and superstitious mentality of a medieval peasant.
If I had to endure a dinner date with a guy who thought interesting conversation consisted of proving to me that the moon landing was fake, the world is flat, and that God created the world in 7 days, I would excuse myself and go call an Uber.
Maybe. But the flip side is that reading is a solo activity, and therefore any time spent reading is time spent not paying attention to one’s partner. Sure, it’s considered more adult than not paying attention to one’s partner by playing video games or watching TikTok, but it still amounts to the same thing if one has a partner that demands a lot of attention. I know it’s a balance that I had to struggle to find.
Time
You both sit on the bed and just read.
When you have to stop to eat or take the dog out you talk about the books you are reading, the books you are expecting, how you both want to hunt down Stephen King and/or Lois McMaster Bujold and eat their brains to gain their powers…
Oh my! [ fans self ]
Since his retirement, my husband is just starting to get into reading for fun. I’ve been thinking of starting a thread to get him some recommendations, but I don’t want to overwhelm him. I’m excited though!
@CalMeacham , I think whether reading is a turn-on depends on the book and, to be honest, the reader. For example, one person might find The Story of O more stimulating than Properties of Concrete, but then again… I mean, concrete…
