A Little Less Conversation.

Who said socializing with people was easy? That's what my best friend once said. And I figured, yeah, that's right, who said so? Because it's so damn hard to find someone who's as excited as you are to be caught up in a conversation about books. I know, right? I'm being impossible. Books are lame. Surely no one (Ermm, that's probably an understatement because there are a few, though not much) in the world would love to be talking about Tolkien, Dickens, let alone Rowling. Imagine sitting in a bar, sipping on some gin and hitting on a girl with: "Do you read books?". That has got to be the dumbest, weirdest pick-up line someone has ever thought of (or perhaps it's not so weird after all?).

Well, I don't go around talking to people in bars. I don't even go to bars. But I do have this habit of asking people, especially new people, whose habits I'm not familiar with, whether they do read books. It's like when boys ask other boys "Do you play ball?" or when adults sort of just blurt out "So, are you in college?". It's not something as personal as "Are you seeing someone", but somehow you get a glimpse of what kind of person he or she really is. It's like an old saying, you are what you read (or rather "you are what you eat"?).

It derives such an interesting conversation, whether the answer is yes or no. When they don't read books, you won't get it. Because they will go on and on about how boring it is to have to stare at pages of black letters, words, paragraphs, and how dreadful it is to have to spend days finishing a 700-page novel when you can finish it under 3 hours by watching its movie adaptation. But you won't get that because it's not merely staring, is it? Nonetheless, it's still an interesting conversation. You'll be arguing about how it's not just merely staring, it's being absorbed to a different world, and it will go on and on until you both decide, let's move on. Let's talk about football.

But when they do say yes, sparks will fly. You'll feel like the whole world doesn't exist anymore simply because you'll start screaming, "YES!! That's exactly what I felt when I read Bradbury!!" and he or she will scream back, "I KNOW! Have you read Steel? Oh, doesn't she just take your breath away!". And there'll be this adrenaline rush inside of you because you realized that someone gets it. Someone gets it that a sentence could really take your breath away. You won't be able to resist, to start jumping off from one book to another, this author to that poet, from Hogwarts to god knows where. It becomes less of a conversation and more like a journey to relive all those wonderful stories we came to know before.

Ah, the beauty of books. I think the only thing better than writing and reading is talking about writing and reading. Oh, and, just because I asked "Do you read books?", doesn't mean I think you're anti-social. It just means I'm curious.

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