I've got two basic rules for dating requirements. (1) Must read books (2) Must have Gmail. This article does a nice job of describing why the former. If I were to pair this article with audio, I'd choose "What You Thought Hops" by Denizen Kane. Actually this is a stellar idea, pairing reading recommendations with music like we do with food and wine. I'm a genius! Oh wait, people already do this. Well, it's still a good idea.
Note: Some words and images in or near the article may not be safe for young readers. There are mature themes like procreation and lots of big multisyllabic words. If you are underage -- still in your Nickelodeon not quite MTV stage -- and insist on clicking through anyway, congratulations on your reading comprehension skills. You're gonna kill it on the verbal SAT. Oh and it could be slightly NSFW, because you should be working while at work. From what I hear anyway.
"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 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 goddamned 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 of which I spoke at the beginning of this piece. You will accept nothing less than passion, and perfection, and a life worthy of being told. So out with you, girl who reads. Take the next southbound train and take your Hemingway with you. Or, perhaps, stay and save my life."
-Date An Illiterate Girl-
