For your psyche; possibly some damage here and there. I can’t speak for all writers, but I can speak for many because we’re (purportedly) great with our words so…A lot of this has already been stated, or has inherent truth. It takes a lot to be a writer, first, they spend their formative college years majoring in something that most people laugh off as a life of formidable-lackluster-employment opportunity. “Ill investment.” That is simply not the case.

I know, I know, I may be bursting the bubbles of some “more significant” majors out there but, craft has purpose.

We can, gasp, do some pretty cool things with our “meaningless liberal arts degrees.” Those of us, Literature and Creative Writing majors alike, have mastered a skill that most of the world could care less about. Seriously, if I had a dollar for every person that gave me a line of judgmental guff because of my major - it wouldn’t matter what my major was…I would be retired. All that’s to say: your writer has been battling for legitimacy for a long time, more than likely since they chose to hone in on their interest. They are naturally going to have some pent-up angst.

Writers are emotional creatures, maybe not in the traditional sense but nonetheless, we avidly communicate our feelings. This can be overwhelming for some people. In a relationship it can create a sense of unbalance. While one individual is fluid in the presentation of thought and emotion, the other may not be. I can say this much: I’ve been in several relationships, and every argument, no matter how small or significant ended in, you guessed it, (or maybe you didn’t) a slam poem.

This can be tricky too.

Memoirists face this issue quite often, people don’t - for the most part - enjoy being observed in contexts which they cannot control, especially when the portrayal is negative. My last boyfriend, for exemplary purposes, was horrible about this. He would stumble onto poems saved on my computer, rough drafts or snippets of thought and become so hurt, disgruntled, and angry with the way my words painted a picture he didn’t see (thankfully he never stumbled onto my journal.).

Now, I was never dishonest in my writing about him, or any of my muses, however, sometimes those realities are, well, hard to digest at first glance.

My poems were full of passive-aggressive innuendo and verbal assault, but that rawness is something that any writer you meet lives for. We are passionate. Let that one sink in, because it is the honest to God truth. Writers are humanitarians by nature. We are people - for people. We care about the environment, we care about civil rights, we care about love (and sappy shit) we have holistic, mindful personas.

This translates into our writing; it is the essence of who we are.

Our passion and our ability to communicate our passion through spoken and/or written word is our entire reason for being. Unsurprisingly, we stick to our values. We have an uncanny ability to over-explain things and meticulously so. We are complicated and often bogged down by the confusion that is life, the sadness the immorality - no pun intended - that is life.

We can be, therefore, a little bit grouchy. We are dreadfully obsessive; we have this in common with musicians. We are mindful of our perfectionist tendencies, but that doesn’t mean we’re willing to change them for just anyone, or anyone at all for that matter. We love deeper, we feel stronger, we are impassioned by the things that we adore. Privacy is something we got over a long time ago. We don’t have a blindfold on our personal lives, instead, we have a fully cranked mega-phone, and we will tell anyone willing to hear us about our triumphs and downfalls - and that means that if you break our tenderly-rooted hearts, you will be sorely apologetic.

You may find that dating a writer just isn’t for you, and if you tend to the side of reservation, consider that a stronger than not possibility. If you’re looking for someone who will tell you how wonderful and awe-inspiring you are in all of the most flattering ways that language can lend, know that your writer will always lean towards the romantic, and if you like to be swept off your feet, they’ve probably got that covered, too.