11 Things You Should Know Before Falling In Love With A Writer

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Loving a writer in any way is no small feat. There are doors to open, scaffolds to climb, and ins and outs of our mind that are, ironically, impossible to put into words. Although they’re not superior to others, our brains don’t often work like everyone else’s.

It takes a special kind of person to pull back the layers of a multi-dimensional mind and dive head first into utter unknown. Not even we know what lies in there until it’s forcing its way out of us through words. If you’re among those who are ‘curiouser and curiouser”, don’t expect us to be what you’re used to. We aren’t and will never be.

1. We are observant to a fault.

We’ll notice what songs you play over and over. We’ll dissect each one and wonder why they’re your favorite. We’ll listen to which lines you sing with every ounce of your heart. We’ll catch on to the fact that you only wear that ring so that you have something to fidget with when you’re nervous, or when your words fall dead on you. We’ll pick up on phrases that you say, and the way you say certain words. We’ll remember every spot you took us to and the look on your face when you talked about your fears. Unfortunately for us, a sharp memory follows our observances. These things stay engraved in our mind long after the person that put them there leaves. This leaves us with many pieces of old ghost’s from our past still hidden inside us, like broken little trinkets on the Island of Lost Toys, only lingering around to remind us of the things we’ve left behind.

2. Sometimes we get it wrong.

Just because we are observant of people to the point that it’s almost a 6th sense, doesn’t mean that we can’t get it wrong. Sometimes we can truly believe that we’re looking into someone’s eyes and seeing a heart on fire for us, only to find out that we lit the match and shoved it in their iris ourselves. It is our gift to unleash the worlds inside us, to tell stories that haven’t been told, and to create something out of nothing. We have to be cautious not to conjure up smoke where there isn’t fire, in our reality. We have to be careful not to write the story as we want it to be, as opposed to how it really is. This is often more difficult for us to control than it is for others. It’s essentially like killing a part of ourselves, so that the other can breathe what’s real and true.

3. We’re in tune with our own feelings.

We might see what we want to see in you, but we can’t subconsciously dismiss the truth in our own feelings. Being a writer heightens your sense of self-awareness. If we say that we love you, we mean it with every part of our soul. When we say we love you, it means that we can feel volts of electricity surging in every atom of our body, begging just to be around you. It means that we trust you. For us, that’s usually a huge deal. Writers don’t often own silver spoons and our memories of childhood aren’t usually wrapped in a white picket fence. We’ve forged our way through the pits of hell and ascended with bloodied hands and enough stories to last a lifetime. If we allow you to keep us safe, despite being able to do it ourselves, wear it like a badge of honor.

4. Once you’ve lost our trust, it’s very hard to get it back.

We’ve grown up reading poetry mostly about heartbreak. We’ve seen it in our lives in some way, shape or form. The reason we feel it so deeply is because we don’t just see the surface of a person or how they fit in our life. We see the core of them. Studying the people in our lives, makes it that much harder to forget them when they leave. It also makes earning our trust back as complicated as rewinding the hands of time. We tune into things that make you, you. We figure out things that make you tick. We observe the presence that you bring in our life. Being extremely observant of people makes it difficult for us to view them as replaceable once they’ve had a key part in our life. It’s almost impossible for us to trust again once we’ve made an effort to know every part of you, to truly see you, to understand that there will never be another person quite like you, and in exchange for all that, you’ve deemed us as replaceable people in the chess game of your life.

5. We love differently than most.

We don’t ever fall in love gracefully. We will only be truly happy with a love that mimics the chaos we feel beating in our bones, but somehow remains a stable constant in our lives all at once. We thrive on the idea of intense mutual attraction; to love so much that neither of us know how to calibrate it. Shakespeare said that violent delights always have violent ends, but we want to create something so passionate that it surpasses the laws of reason. We love like a raging war fighting for a lifetime of desire for one another. The kind of love that could see the world burn and be happy to watch it like a blazing sunset as long as our home in human form is standing right beside us. Because we feel things so deeply, we can shut out everything materialistic about this world and just rest in you, entire. We want all-consuming side glances and frenzied hands. We want peaceful sleepy breathing and a fresh cup of orange juice on Sunday morning. We want a love that runs with our madness, but also babbles like a brook of calm when it overpowers us.

6. We’re not Manic Pixie Dream Girls.

We don’t write because we’re so quirky and creative. We write because at some point, it has saved us. We write because we have to. We write because our life has been heavy and keeping it bottled inside only makes it fester and turn into black cloaked creatures the roam that darkest halls of our mind. Writers aren’t always cheery, and sadly some the greatest writers in history struggled with vices and faulty wiring. Writing can be fun, but for every funny piece we write, there’s one that pierced its way through the pores of our skin like crystalized weeds begging to surface.

7. We will write about you.

There isn’t a single major event in my life that I haven’t written about. There isn’t a single person that holds even a small space in my heart that I haven’t written about. We have the ability to immortalize you. No one can see the very best of you like a writer can. Like how your eyes aren’t just green, because when we’re riding into the night and I have my feet on your dash, the emeralds inside them dance with each flicker of the street lights. On the contrary, no one can see the very worst in you like a writer can. When your words turn to acid in our stomach, we can see every crevice of insecurity you harbor and try to hide. Good or bad, we will seek to understand you and writing just happens to be the weapon we wield.

8. We’re very understanding, but not often enabling.

While we won’t hold your faults against you, we won’t ignore them either. Since we’re so used to forcing ourselves to deal with the pain that we feel and find light at the end of the tunnel, we might push you to do that as well. We don’t mesh well with people that make excuses or complain about things that they won’t attempt to fix. It’s hard for us to grasp why someone wouldn’t want to explore ways to make themselves feel better, but would rather revel in their misery. On the other hand, no one will understand you like a writer can. Sometimes, we can even put what you’re feeling into words better than you can.

We’ve reached new levels on the spectrum of human emotion. We‘ve looked our demons in the face and shook hands with the most wretched parts of ourselves. We’ve felt peace in every inch of our body. We know what it’s like to have a burning stomach and reaching hands when someone that wasn’t supposed to leave, violently slams the door. We know what it’s like to feel too far gone, and we know what it feel like to save yourself at the very last second. We know that it counts…that every damning and redeeming second counts in terms of the complex worlds that we create inside us and person we become because of them.

9. We are sometimes self-destructive.

We throw our hearts through glass windows just to see what it looks like afterwards. It’s our poetic yet brutal attempt to observe what we feel when we’re sinking in pure, unfiltered truth. Some people numb the dark parts of themselves, the things that they don’t wish to feel. Writers welcome these parts like old friends because it’s in our lowest moments that we reach inside ourselves, pull out the shards that ail us, and create something beautiful from the fall out.

10. We are used to being our own heroes.

Give us time to learn to trust you, because it doesn’t come naturally. That being said, I like knowing that if I’m ever in trouble, the people that love me, will stand beside me. However, when it comes to internal things or things that hurt us, we often save ourselves. Writing has been an involuntary defense against sorrow for us. Sometimes we put ourselves in places of pain, only to drag ourselves out of it. Masochistic? Probably. But there’s a creative and self-salvaging reason behind all of it. One that is almost instinctive to us. In some weird way, this gives us a sense of emotional independence, and that’s something we’d walk through fire for.

11. We are worth all of it.

We’re worth it because of the words of encouragement we’ll speak to you when you’re unsure of yourself, the harsh truths you need to hear wrapped nicely in a words that you can’t ignore, the countless precisely worded letters, the vows we say and mean, the way we become the poetry that we read and write, the way it flows out of us not only on paper, but in our touch too, the way we continuously unfold, revealing new things about ourselves, the way we’re always searching and reaching for new experiences that broaden our mind, and the way we love without caution tape.

We’re a complete paradox, forever walking the line between sensitive and resilient. We lie on both ends of the spectrum, sometimes at the same time. We have the ability to mend wounds and fight mercilessly for the things we hold close. If ever you’re lucky enough to be one of those things, know you’ll never go without hearing the words you need to hear, nor without the soothing poetry our touch brings.