7 Things That Happen When You Date A Girl Who Journals

1. You won’t be able to escape the fact that she has a history.

Your girlfriend’s past will literally be chronicled – perhaps in volumes upon volumes. There will be a row on her shelf, or a box in her closet, that is filled with scrawlings of past lovers, ex-boyfriends, and stories that don’t contain you as the main character. These notebooks will taunt you- they will stare at you in the face when you visit her apartment, and they are practically begging you to read them. Do not – I repeat, do not – give in to this temptation. The only thing worse than knowing your girlfriend has journals about old boyfriends is actually reading about it. The words will be burned into your brain for the rest of eternity. Keep those notebooks closed, and keep your sanity.

2. Forget flowers or chocolate, take a note from Carrie Bradshaw and buy her this month’s Vogue.

Except she’s probably not going to read it; instead, she’ll cut it up to make collages. Her bedroom floor is often covered in scraps of paper, with rolls of double sided tape and pairs of scissors strewn about. Don’t underestimate a good collage – sometimes it can say just as much, if not more, than words themselves.

3. You’ll learn the nine words that are the key to her soul: “Hey do you want to go to Paper Source?”

Nothing gets your girl going like a good trip to Paper Source. All those little notepads, paper clips, thumbtacks, and colored paper – it’s like stepping into a writer’s nirvana. Yes, she does need those 5 different Kate Spade notebooks, complete with the matching folder set, ok? But hey- at least holiday shopping is easy.

4. You will be written about. But maybe not as often as you think.

There’s no way around it – if you’re dating a girl who journals, she is writing about you. She recapped your first kiss, and she probably saved some sort of souvenir from your first date that’s taped into the pages as evidence that it was real. But it’s also probable that she’s not writing about you every minute of every day. Keep in mind that you represent only a portion of her life – not her whole life. So while you should know that you are an inspiration of words, perhaps you aren’t the center stage of all of her entries.

5. You’ll learn to reflect.

The girl who journals is sometimes quiet, and often lost in her own train of thoughts. She thinks in strings of phrases, and sometimes her mind works like poetry. If you are lucky, you can learn from this – you can learn to be quiet in your own life as well, and learn what it means to truly reflect and process on what you have seen, done, and been.

6. You will receive letters instead of e-mails.

The love letter is not deceased, as you will soon discover. Remember how it felt to receive a folded up note from your crush in high school? You’ll revisit that feeling. There’s something so personal about writing by hand, writing to another person. If you date a girl who journals, someone who is skilled at recording her thoughts and being in touch with her surroundings enough to write them down, you might be lucky enough to receive words of love scrawled with paper and ink.

7. You’ll discover that life can be beautiful and sad, and sometimes it’s best when it’s both.

The girl who journals is someone who is accepting of life’s highs and lows. She finds words to capture the spectrum of human emotion. She dances with vivacious adjectives for her happiest days, and embraces cold words for her loneliest nights. But in reflecting upon her sadder memories, she doesn’t look back with regret, but with the understanding that every moment shaped her in some way. She knows that we don’t get to pick and choose the things that happen to us. And she’ll teach you that, if you let her.