How to pick up a partner . . .

Are you guilty of vetting new dates through their bookshelves? Do you scrunch up your nose at a guy or girl’s choice of reading material? Or have you ever decided you couldn’t possibly be a love match if they don’t feel the same way as you do about your favourite book?

The books we read say something about us, whether we like it or not. The daily commute is populated with people unwittingly revealing insights into their personalities through their reading choices.

The man on the bus reading David Sedaris is likely to have a fine sense of humour, while the woman reading Love In The Time of Cholera might have romantic sensibilities.

Meanwhile, if you’re spotted reading Proust or James Joyce’s Ulysses on the bus, chances are people will think you’re a bit of a show-off.

Now a new dating site is saving singles the hassle of snooping through potential partners’ bookshelves by putting their tastes in books upfront on user profiles.

Penguin publishers have teamed up with the online dating website Match.com (special offer: 72 hours FREE trial) to help book lovers become simply lovers.

Anna Rafferty, Digital Marketing Director with Penguin, came up with the idea for a books dating site when she overheard a conversation about a girl who was disappointed to find an incompatible bookshelf.

“She discovered the guy she had gone on a date with was really into all of these books that she couldn’t bear.

“She felt, you know what, he’s not worth it. It’s absolutely a deal-breaker. And then she thought, if only I’d known that from the start I wouldn’t have even bothered.”

The sentiment gave Rafferty the idea. “Everyone has one book that you just had a huge thunderbolt of love for when you first read it and you connected with it and felt that it resonated with your soul.

“If you met someone else who felt the same way about that book for the same reasons, you’d think, ‘Oh my god, maybe we should get married.’”

The site has been up and running since the end of August and already has 1,000 members and 100,000 visitors, although as of yet, ‘no marriages’ says Rafferty. But what makes the site different to other dating sites — does knowing someone’s taste in books give a deeper insight into the person?

“You can connect deeply with a book,” says Rafferty. “Books are genuinely social currency in a way that boots and sportswear aren’t. And they’re not only a signifier of the kind of person you are — that’s the theory behind the coffee table books and why you put certain books out on display — more than that they can be self- defining and can tap into what your cultural values are and what your core beliefs are.

‘Because books occupy that deeply emotional part of people’s lives, it almost gives permission to be able to talk to people on quite an intimate level. I do think it’s quite an emotional connection.”

In other words, you’re never going to be stuck for conversation.

“Even if you don’t feel that great big, ‘Oh my God, you’re the same person as me,’ at the very least it’s a really good way to start a conversation, even if you hate the book they’re talking about. People have opinions on books, so it’s a great way to get the ball rolling.”

If online dating is not your thing there are still plenty of other ways to meet book-lovers, including your local library, bookshop, reader events or even a book club, although, anecdotally at least, book clubs tend to have a scarcity of male members.

Frances O’Gorman, executive librarian with Clare County Library is on the organising committee of the annual Ennis Book Club Festival in Clare.

Last year they organised a speed dating-style meeting for book club members who had travelled from all over the country for the festival. But there was little chance of romance.

“Well, they were all completely women,” says O’Gorman with a laugh. But the purpose of the speed dating-style meet-up was more to break the ice amongst book club members than to create love stories.

“It’s very difficult to get men to join book clubs, even in a library setting,” says O’Gorman. “Over the years there was only one male member. I do know a group of men here in town who planned on setting up a book club and they talked about it and even chose a first book, but they never actually met.”

Whether through book clubs or online dating sites, reading and discussing books has become a resolutely social experience.

“A big factor is the friendship thing,” says O’Gorman. “Getting to meet people, obviously they’re all readers and love reading, but the idea of just getting together on a monthly basis and creating friendships, it’s a great way of immediately getting to know a group of people.”

Like Anna Rafferty, O’Gorman agrees books offer people an opportunity to discuss issues on a more intimate level that they might otherwise.

“You’re getting to a deeper level really because of the contents of a book or your experiences, things that arise when you’re discussing the book and the themes and topics in it. So definitely, it’s a really good way of chatting to people and getting to know people.”

If that hasn’t got you convinced of the aphrodisiac powers of books, research has highlighted that books and reading are now considered sexy.

“I think it just gets sexier and sexier every year,” says Rafferty. “It goes both ways as well, it’s sexy for men to read, it makes them attractive to women. Books themselves are sexy.”

So, if you want to get sexy, best get reading.

This entry was posted on 03/11/2008 at 05:31 pm and is filed under Dating Advice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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