This is a response to Don’t Date a Girl Who Travels.
I have damaged hair and sun-kissed wrinkles, mosquito bite scars and burns from countless waitress jobs abroad.
Yes, my pants are from Thailand, passed down from a friend. My family thinks I’ve joined a cult and I want a tattoo.
I know that the thousands of people I have walked past, the people who served me at the market, drove my night buses and gave me $5 massages, could never fathom buying a lonely planet guide book and picking a random destination (because it was highly acclaimed by western voters).
That choice is a birthright given to so few and I’ll never under appreciate it.
Date me for all of me—all the corners of my imagination—the nooks of my cerebral membrane and every sun kissed wrinkle. For I travel and that should make you love me; it shouldn’t be why you love me and it certainty should not be why you don’t.
Date me, a girl who travels: I have a degree in drama and am now a yoga instructor. Instead of playing a role, I’ve decided to be authentically vulnerable and follow my bliss on a different kind of stage—not an “alternative” one.
Date me, a girl who travels: I’ve been to 11 countries since I’ve left home. I could tackle any night bus, gross accommodation and inedible food that comes my way. I’m cultural but also super fun, spending my New Years drinking buckets under the full moon. I’m versatile, easy going and resourceful. You can practically take me anywhere.
Date me, a girl who travels: I seek perspective not solitude. I travel to feed my eyes, not my ego.
Date me, a girl who travels: I’m outgoing and thus have friends from all over the globe. I’ve just saved us heaps (Australian slang for a lot) of money on accommodations in at least 30 countries!
Date me, a girl who travels: I will embrace your love with open arms. I didn’t travel to find you but it undoubtedly led my path to yours.
Date me, a girl who travels: I didn’t travel to fill a hole or because I was lost. I travel because I lost the ability to be myself. My judgment was clouded and my priorities weren’t in order. I needed a dose of reality, not a hint of fantasy.
Date me, a girl who travels: My phone is Nokia (no model) and my iphone (4s) was stolen in Malaysia—an experience I took as a lesson and not a curse. Materialism is so yesterday.
Date me, a girl who travels: I don’t care if you’re an adventurous eater or want white pasta every night. My travels have taken me on cultural expeditions of the taste buds and senses. I’ve explored the depths of the spice trade, dabbled in the art of chili, but I will never crave exotic food experiences. Traveling has taught me to value every single meal I have and to know that a choice of what to eat is a beautiful, rare gift for the majority of the world’s population.
Date me, a girl who travels: It has been internationally acclaimed that I am a great lover. Your investment has been tested, tried and proven successful in at least eight countries.
Date me, a girl who travels: Though I come from a society which has a 50 percent divorce rate, I believe in true love. I’ve seen it in the face of the most unimaginable adversity—love that can light up the sky and can create hope in the most hopeless of places.
Date me, a girl who travels: I’ll never fight with you about taking up the whole bed. After sleeping three in a full, fighting off bed bugs and creepy crawlers, I can handle the biggest of bed hogs.
Date me, a girl who travels: I don’t want a travel partner—I have more than enough friends for that. I want a life partner, someone to share all my dreams with. Someone to cultivate my life with, not someone who I only enjoy in faraway places.
Date me, a girl who travels: I will never project my unlived life on our children, because I don’t have an unlived life.
Date me, a girl who travels: I need you to have boy time. I want you to go travel with your friends. My travels have proven that love has nothing planted in the physical world and my love for you will only grow with each second apart.
Date me, a girl who travels: Because I believe the adventure is in the journey not the destination.
Date me, a girl who travels: I won’t try to make you a vegetarian (yes, a life choice I’ve made while traveling, how did you guess?) You don’t have to do yoga or care about Nicholas Kristof, as long as you do care about something whether it’s fantasy football, microfinance or surfing. Do it with integrity and love and I’ll be turned on for a lifetime.
I don’t need someone who acts like me; if I did I certainly would never have traveled. I do want someone who thinks like me; in bright colors, expansive horizons with an interesting perspective with faith and love.
Date me, a girl who travels: My exes live in other countries.
Date me, a girl who travels: Let’s ride bikes. Not because I’m sustainable (which I am) but to live longer. I want to spend more time on this earth with you. I want that panoramic view that only two wheels and two feet can give.
Date me, a girl who travels: Because the sun rising everyday amazes me and the moon’s power silences me. I don’t need the perfect sunset to show me that, or even the clearest sky. I would never replace my sunsets abroad but I would rather have un-spectacular ones with you.
Date me, a girl who travels: I live in the present moment. I embrace the past and welcome the future.
Date me, a girl who travels: I’ll be your cheerleader. I’ll hold your towel at the end of a marathon and be right beside you at your favorite band’s tribute concert and your annoying boss’ 50th birthday party. Because getting to be a part of your happiness and unhappiness will inspire me to keep making you and others happy.
Date me, a girl who travels: I will never get mad at you for forgetting to flush the toilet. I know my toilet is my sacred privilege and it saves water anyway.
Date me because I’m a girl who travels. I’ve been given more than stamps on a passport and scars with stories. I’ve been given the art of patience and learned the importance of respect. I’ve had glimpses into realities unlike my own. I am like a bird, flying to distant shores, interacting with new creatures that on the outside appear strange and talk different, but in action speak exactly the same. They speak a language that for so long my soul had forgotten—the language of love, of gratitude, faith and kindness to all life’s living things.
That is why I have traveled. So that one day, when I found you, I would know how to love you genuinely, with no profit or personal gain. I would love you from the deepest most vulnerable parts of my heart. Because I saw people with nothing (in a monetary sense) give love in such a magnitude that it created abundance in places that felt cold with despair, and which were warmed with effortless love.
So hurry up and date me because this world traveler doesn’t stay single for long. Not because I’m running away, but because I’m willing to let someone make me stay.
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Assistant Editor: Dana Gornall/Editor: Bryonie Wise
Photo Credit: Ivan Kassa/Pixoto
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