Although we are aware that the series You It is the opposite of a romantic comedy, since its protagonist is a dangerous erotomaniac psychopath (without a doubt, it is not the letter of introduction of the dreamed heartthrob), the character’s love for reading and the way in which he makes bookstores his Tinder comes to reinforce the recurring idea that reading is, among other things, tremendously sexy. Proof of this is that there are various accounts on social networks whose content consists of images of handsome men reading, and even with fear of offending lovers of the Kindle universe, in reality it is undeniable that the physical book emanates a certain sensuality and magnetism that the universe digital cannot capture. Because, does a casing allow you to know what that handsome subway companion is reading?
Is the book the amulet of libido?
The aforementioned Netflix series, You, romanticizes the idea of meeting our soul mate among books, and although of course, as its protagonist is as skilled in slashing as he is in books, the love of reading remains in the background, in reality reading is still an a good way to know when we are faced with a mutual interest, the object of reading being fundamental at times to know if that romantic interest has a future. The reading was able to connect Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks in You have an email, where they play the owners of two book stores, and bookstores tend to be in movies and television an unexpected enclave ideal for dating in which it is not complicated, in fiction, for two people to instantly fall in love between books, as also happens in Notting Hill.
We have been immersed in the narrative for decades that reading unites and falls in love, so it is not strange that we are immersed in this fantasy. “Pop culture has done a lot of damage. There is a whole archetypal construction around the figure of a man with a book: we attribute depth, sensitivity, a point of incomprehension, an inner world… Each person constructs the fantasy to their own measure, but we start from the basis that this man it will be more interesting to read. However, the truth is that a man with a book is nothing more than that: a man with a book. I don’t think reading is a very reliable indicator of anything in life. Maybe behind it there is a person who is capable of spending time alone, but not much more,” explains Gabriela Consuegra, author of One minute has passed and one life remains.
It is not only fiction that promotes the idea that someone who reads is hopelessly sexy, but social networks have been responsible for feeding this idea with accounts like Hot Dudes Reading, which has more than a million followers and such success that it has even been brought to the universe of shelves in a photo book of the same name. “When you’re stuck underground without Wi-Fi, on the subway, your mind is free to wander… And for me and my friends, what we like the most is fantasizing about the men we come across in our daily lives . as true millennials, We share these fantasies with each other through group text messages. “We unanimously agreed that guys who read a good old book were more attractive than those who are glued to their phones, or those who just flee the world with their headphones,” the creators of this popular write at the beginning of the book. account.
Reading as a source of ‘matches’
“If you go to someone’s house and they don’t have books, don’t sleep with them,” said filmmaker John Waters. The love of reading can strengthen or distance relationships, and that is why even now there is a app called Klerb, which has already been dubbed the “Tinder for bookworms,” as it connects the user with those who share literary tastes. Can books be indicative that the other person may be The Person? “Actually, I would say it’s a matter of taste. My husband loves science fiction (both in film and in literature) and it bores me extremely, but it can happen that we both read the same book and enjoy it very much, as for example happened to us with such disparate books. So little life, by Hanya Yanagihara, Our part of the night, by Mariana Enríquez or The history of vertebrates, by Mar García Puig. At the end of the day, it’s about entertainment, and the nice thing is to be able to talk about it with your partner, even if you have different opinions. Perhaps something else would be the topic of the essay,” says Andrea Tommasini, press officer at Penguin Random House. “I have the habit of paying a lot of attention not only to whether people read or not, but also to what they read, but I think that in my case it is more a professional deformation than anything else. I’m not doing this to judge, but out of mere curiosity. I work at a label that publishes commercial books and that has taught me, among other things, not to despise any genre, because in each one there are good books and bad books. Of course there is red flags. I have mine, but each person should put their own,” he adds.
The barriers of genres and authors
Now that the topic of red flag, can a literary genre, or even a passion for a specific author, be the unequivocal sign that the relationship will not continue? “For me it is very red flag the historical novel (Rome and Greece in particular) or the memoirs of emperors and conquerors. Anything that bears the label of “epic and colossal story.” “Imagine that on the first date someone tells you about the exploits of Alexander the Great!” says Estela Cebrián, Social Chronicler and co-founder of the Cultural Podcast The Great Friends. “Matching tastes and readings is important, but not essential. What attracts me most is when that person talks to you with passion about his tastes, even if you don’t share them—as long as he doesn’t talk to you about Mein Kampf, of course—and listen carefully to yours. It also seems important to me to know how to laugh at the fact that others find your favorite book boring,” he says. “More than a genre, I think there are authors who are a great red flag. Recently, my editor sent me the story of a guy who published that his candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature was Houellebecq. And it is true that suddenly, many traits of his character made sense,” Consuegra clarifies.
Keith Oatley, psychologist and novelist, pointed out after reviewing a study on the benefits of reading For the imagination, reading fiction fosters empathy, since reading helps the reader form ideas about the ideas, motivations and emotions of others to then translate such experiences to life beyond the pages. That is to say: reading helps to generate empathy, broadens one’s vision and why deny it, it is sexy. “Reading is a very individual, solitary and intimate act. When we see someone reading, we see them oblivious to everything that happens around them, lost in their world (or the one that the book builds for them). It is a way of seeing that person in their privacy, and there is nothing more suggestive than that. In addition, it generates an incredible curiosity to know what is going on in his little head,” says Cebrián.
Even bookstores, beyond that halo built by pop culture, are still romantic environments in which the smell of paper and the knowledge that those who are there love reading makes it not unreasonable to think that perhaps, Instead of looking for love at the nightclub bar or even on Tinder, it is best to do it among books. “I see your intelligence when you turn the pages of a book and a flash illuminates you,” said Guillermo Carnero, and that is the power of reading: to make us think that the other shares tastes, reflects and of course, reads. Another matter is what conclusions you draw from reading, but that is another topic…
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