The Games We Play ...

In the early stages of a relationship, things are always complicated before you DTR. I think it’s because both parties are playing games.  You ask yourself, “Who should text who first?  How long is too long without hearing from him?  When should I push for more?”  Of course, it’s still very early with Stefan, and, of course, I find myself asking these very questions.

I hate the games we play when we are infatuated with someone.  Unfortunately, I find myself playing them more often than I like to admit.  I have resisted the urge to text someone when I wanted to because I was supposed to “let him text me first.” I have purposely made men jealous as a power play in our relationships.  I have even used a guys reaction to specific scenario as a test of how much they care.

I enjoy spending time with Stefan when we actually end up getting together.  When we are together, it’s as if nobody else is in the room.   I have never felt more wanted, or sexier, than when Stefan can’t keep his hands off of me.  When I am laying tucked into the nook of his arm, I feel so safe, so at home.  I never thought I would meet a guy that loves staying up talking as much as I do.  The problem is the games we play.

I rarely hear from him during the week.  Is he playing hard to get, or am I just being kept around to fulfill his carnal desires?  Our time between the sheets is definitely worth coming back for, but I would like to know that I cross his mind in the middle of the week from time to time.  He never makes definite plans too far ahead of time, so I occasionally feel the need to not be available, even if I am just sitting on my couch.  

When we like someone, why do we put them through the ringer? Is it just so we don’t appear to be the one that cares more?  All I want is, for once, someone to be frank with me.  I would prefer someone to say, “I like having sex with you, but I don’t want to date you” to stringing me along for 3, 4, 5 weeks. It is better to know, than to build hope and feelings for someone who doesn’t reciprocate.  On the other hand, why can’t people just say, “I like you.  I enjoy spending time with you.  I don’t know what that means yet, but I want to figure it out.”  

I have said it before, and I will say it again - I am not looking for the love of my life in Stefan.  I am not even sure if I am looking for a boyfriend.  For the first time in my life, I am just letting things play out.  I just wish we could eliminate the games.  How is anyone ever supposed to find happiness with someone if all we ever do is play games?

The Parts I Left Out ...

When I told all of you about the many loves of my life, I left a few details out.  Since I described the heart wrenching details of the men that both had my heart and broke it, I have felt guilty.  The guilt is not because I shared them with you, but leaving out a few details about two of them.  

In the summer of 2011 Adam married, who I believe to be, a very lovely girl.  She does look a little like me though, a much thinner, more wholesome version of me.  It’s hard for me to admit that the person that I loved, maybe more than anyone else ever in my life, is married and very happy with someone else.  The day Facebook told me Adam was engaged was easily one of the top 10 hardest days of my life.  I try to remember him as the fun-loving future lawyer, who loved bourbon and 80’s cover bands.  Now he is a pastor, just like his father always wanted him to be.  The Adam I knew and loved only exists in my memories.  The pain of that maybe worse than anything else.  

Then there is the truth about Bryan.  When I wrote the earlier post, I knew Bryan was engaged.  I didn’t know that this past weekend, he got married.  Facebook, that beautiful beast, flooded me with pictures of the happiest day of Bryan’s life.  The hope that, by the time we tied the knot to our significant others, we would be reconciled is moot now.  We will never be more than two people that used to care about each other, and are now just friends on Facebook simply because not being so would be rude.  

Two of the men with whom I have been in love have since found the true loves of their lives.  These two have made the ultimate commitment to another human being, whereas I can’t seem to find a boyfriend. That is the part that I left out, the part that makes my lost loves seem more tragic, the part that makes the end of our stories so final. 

2012 Emmy's Best and Worst Dressed

My tagline for this blog promises talk of fashion and I have not really delivered on that promise.  I plan on changing that, and I am going to start with my Best and Worst dressed from the 2012 Primetime Emmy Awards!  So my picks are as follows:

Let’s start with what I didn’t like.  It’s always best to get the negative out of the way.  

Claire Danes

This Lanvin Dress just looks sloppy to me.  I understand the need for comfort on the Red Carpet when preggers, but this is not the way to go about it.  Something in an Empire waist would have been much more flattering and elegant.  I mean Empire waist lines were invented to hide pregnancy!    I will say that Claire’s Hair looks impeccable though.  And no matter what people like me say about what she was wearing, she still walked away with the Best Actress in a Drama Series Emmy!

Ashley Judd

Everything about this is just wrong!  The hair is too big, and it takes a lot for a southern girl to say that, and not age appropriate.  The dress looks like a bad bridesmaids dress and a bad prom dress had a baby.  Nothing about this Carolina Herrera gown was age appropriate and everything about it was just wrong!

WORST DRESSED- January Jones

I didn’t even recognize January Jones with the slicked back hair and street walker eye liner.  Then there is the dress, where to start.  I am not a fan of the “high-low” or “mullet” hemline.  The skirt itself appears to be made of many old church lady hates put together.  I usually love what Zac Posen does, but this just doesn’t do it for me.  Her lack of jewelry is also baffling to me!  You have access to diamonds galore for events like this and you wear none?!?  Sorry January Jones but you are receiving my Worst Dressed of the Night shame.  

Let’s move on the the in-betweens.  These are people that I liked but were not wowed by, or they were missing just a little something that would have taken them to the next level.  

Kerry Washington

I love the the cut and color of this dress for her body.  This Vivienne Westwood looked both beautiful on the red carpet and on the Emmy stage.  Since I was a young girl I have always loved a good sequin and this fills my sparkly needs.  One of the main reasons she did not make my best dressed category is her hair just wasn’t doing it for me.  The lack of style just put a damper on the whole look for me.  

Zooey Deschanel

This adorkable actress looked more sophisticated than I am use to seeing her on the red carpet.  Yet, it was still very Zooey.  This whimsical powder blue dress paired with the pink lips made her blue eyes pop.  The only thing that was standing in her way, for me at least, was the neckline of the dress.  I would have liked the dress better with a higher sweetheart neckline.  

Julianne Moore

I love this electric color next to her red hair!  I also love the cut and how age appropriate it felt.  I know a lot of people have mixed feelings about this Christian Dior by Raf Simons dress but for the most part it worked for me.  The only thing that was missing for me was a statement necklace.  I think she needed some jewels around her neck to really bring the look together.  It needed to be something big and very intricate.  

Now for my pics for the Best Dressed category.  These were the all around looks that worked best for me.  

Ginnifer Goodwin

 

Although I am usually not a fan of of the “High to Low” or “mullet” hemline I think it works on this dress.  I love the orange color and the detailed pattern of this Monique Lhuillier creation.  It looks beautiful on her skin tone and is a great cut for her body.  Her hair and makeup look fresh and young.  This outfit works from head to toe.  

Tina Fey

 

This comedian is known for her red carpet disasters, but not this time.  She looked stunning in this form fitting, yet figure flattering gown by Vivienne Westwood.  The jewel tones look wonderful on her fair complexion.  It is both sexy and age appropriate.  Her hair works with both her bone structure and the style of the dress.  Goodbye red carpet disaster, hello red carpet diva!  

BEST DRESSED- Julie Bowen

My Best Dressed of the night goes to the Modern Family star, and Best actress in a Comedy series winner!  This electric chartreuse, Monique Lhuillier, form fitting gown shows off Bowen’s rocking bod.  There was a lot of this color on the red carpet (I have an example in everyone of my categories), but for me this was the only example of the color worn just right.  Her makeup was fresh, her jewelry simple, and her hair elegantly down.  I think this look was very her and that is why it worked so well. 

The Many Loves of My Life ...

While watching an episode of a bad 90s WB show, one of the characters posed a question that really got me thinking.  The question was, “How many times have you been in love?”.  My wheels started to turn.  For me, that is not an easy question to answer.  There are several people I thought I loved at the time, and maybe I did, but looking back, I am not sure it was really love.  For the sake of an entertaining blog post, I have decided to share with you the many boys I have loved.  

Daniel: The High School Boyfriend
Daniel was my first, and actually only, boyfriend.  We dated for two years.  I was a 15 year-old freshman, and he was a junior from a different school.  I will never forget how his shaggy hair flipped out from under his baseball cap and how hot I thought I was in my no-pocket jeans the night we met.  His goofy smile made me giddy, and I lived for the moments we would dance in the moonlight next to his pickup truck.  I wish I could remember the first time we said “I Love you”, especially since he was the first boy to whom I had ever said the words.  Spring of his senior year, things began to fall apart.  The thought of him at college and me tying him to our small town was overwhelming.  I broke my first love’s heart while sitting in my childhood living room on a Wednesday afternoon.  Maybe that is why every other person I have ever loved has broken mine.

You never really stop loving the first person you give your heart to.  Post-college I had the opportunity to fall in love with my first love all over again.  Daniel and I talked all through college, but when I graduated it became more frequent.  I got to know the man he had become and I loved everything about him.  When I told him how I felt, my move to DC was looming.  I would have stayed for him, but he didn’t ask me to.  I got to feel what he felt when I broke his heart.  

Caleb: The Summer Romance turned Long Distance Whatever
Caleb was the first boy to ever tell me I was beautiful.  We met at church camp the summer before my freshman year of high school.  I was a camper, and he was an older lifeguard.  His clear blue eyes and swoopy blonde hair had me weak at the knees. After dancing with me at the farewell dance, we exchanged addresses and emails.  (This was before I had a cell phone.)  We would chat on AIM.  I started to date Daniel, so we talked less.  The following summer, Daniel and I had broken up, and I returned to camp to be a Counselor-in-Training.  After 2 flirtatious weeks of “giving us a shot”, Caleb ended things when I left camp.  We continued to talk, and flirt on and off for the rest of high school.  

Caleb and I were famous for our big fights.  Our mutual friends knew we were a train wreck together, but we couldn’t seem to stay away from each other.  There are very few people that I have encountered that could make me feel so euphoric and then so broken.  My freshman year of college, in the middle of a tornado watch, I drove to spend the night with him.  I finally got to kiss that first boy that called me beautiful.  Everything about it was wrong; it felt so cheap.  After what seemed like real romance over the years, it just ended when I drove away.  I thought I loved Caleb, and I think that I did in the way that an unjaded heart can.  Caleb and I were the definition of complicated, and he was the beginning of my vicious pattern.  

Bryan: The “I Love You” Friend
My first week of college, I was out with the girls from my dorm, and an older boy bought us drinks.  That older boy got my number and invited me to a party at his house.  Bryan’s blue eyes and charming ways were two of the main reasons he was the first boy I kissed in college.  He quickly decided that one of my dorm friends was more his style but insisted on us staying friends.  She didn’t last in either of our lives.  Bryan lived with a group of boys that became family to me.  I slept on their couch after parties, or sometimes they would even give up their beds.  Every crisis that came up, Bryan was my shoulder to cry on.  My feelings for him were constantly changing.  I would think I had things figured out - know our friendship was the most important thing - and he would get drunk and get jealous.  We would have these heart-wrenching fights that he would not remember the next day, but I would be stuck with the battle wounds.  

The first party after Christmas break, I said something, that in the few seconds before his response, I thought would ruin everything.  When “I love you” slipped out, I never expected him to say “I love you too”, but he did.  That was not the last time.  He started ending our phone conversations by telling me he loved me, and I would say it back.  When he would screw up, he thought “I Love you” was a get out of jail free card.  I convinced myself our love for each other was the same, and that denial was a heavy burden.

When I told him I was in love with him a year and a half later, I couldn’t believe that he was shocked.  The fight we had that night had atomic bomb level destruction.   I was tired of him saying he wanted a girl just like me when he could just have me. Or when he was jealous, and said that I was one of the coolest girls he knew, but I just wasn’t “dating material”.  His promise that this wouldn’t ruin us, and that we would talk about it sober were lies.  I always knew that we were never meant to be together, but I couldn’t help the fact that I loved him.The night I told Bryan I was in love with him was the last real conversation we have ever had.  My belief that we would figure things out and he would always be a part of my life was false.       

Adam: The Friend with Emotional Benefits
The day that the rosy-cheeked, blue-eyed cutie sat on my row in my Comparative Politics class, I could not contain myself.  The fact that we did a class project by rows that day was like a gift from the gods.  I was outwardly determined to stay friends with Adam, regardless of how attracted to him I was, but internally, of course, I hoped he would fall for me.  I don’t remember why we started texting and calling each other, probably something to do with class.  When I asked him to Halloween date party, I said it was as just friends.  I gave him a set of 5 rules, 2 of which were: Don’t try to kiss me and Do not fall in love with me.  We drank and danced, and were both hot messes when we got off the bus.  I was determined to go to a frat party across campus, so he walked me there.  After his attempts to hold my hand, I told him he didn’t care about me, and I knew he would rather be there with my best friend.  I will never forget sitting on the steps of the English department and his answer: “If I didn’t care about you, we would be in my car on the way to my place.  If I wanted to be with Bee, then I would be sitting next to her.”  He wiped my drunken tears and as we got up and started walking he stopped and kissed me. This kiss was brief and very hazy; I even pretended not to remember it.  I think that was the biggest mistake I have ever made.  

After that date party, we began texting and calling almost daily.  I would pick his drunk ass up from the bar on a Tuesday, and he would tell me how much his sisters would love me.  We liked all the same things and even stayed up watching election results together.  Emotionally, we were dependent on each other, but were never physical.  We had plans to visit each other over the Christmas holidays, and my dad even got him a ticket to go to a professional football game with my family.  I felt like I had met the person that I was supposed to spend the rest of my life with.  Looking at him, I could see our future and I wanted nothing more in the world.  

Christmas formal rolled around, and Adam agreed to be my date, even though he had an offer to go to the SEC Football Championship.  I just knew that this was going to be the night that changed everything, and it was.  We were sitting in a booth taking a break from dancing, when a sorority sister said “Y’all are such a cute couple.”  He told her we were just friends.  I looked at him and said, “Are we really ‘just friends’?”, and his answer was like a million daggers to my heart.  “Yes, we are just friends.  I only want to be friends.”  It was if someone had ripped my chest open and removed a part of me.  I couldn’t breathe.  The rest of that night is a blur of tears, strong drinks, and more pain than I care to share.  

We tried to be friends after that, but Adam was a constant contradiction.  In hindsight, I think he was trying to disappoint me.  Being me, I laid it all on the line, in writing.  I pointed out all the things he did that screamed the opposite of “just friends”, and I left our future up to him.  It was 46 days from that email to the day I ran into him on campus.  He later told me that he didn’t know how to express his feelings, to put it on the line the way I did.  He didn’t regret anything about the time he spent with me, but he did regret hurting me.  When you think you have met the love of your life, and they chose not to love you back, it forms a hole inside of you - one that you never know if you can ever fill again.  

Liam: The Forbidden Co-Worker
A week after I started my first real-world job, my first batch of interns started.  In that batch, there was one boy, a beautiful, well dressed, blond boy with kind blue eyes.  Liam had a smile that could light up the whole world.  We quickly became friends, g-chatting and grabbing drinks after work.  He would do the sweetest things for me, like surprise me with a milkshake when I was having a bad day.  I knew, as long as he was my intern, nothing could ever happen, AND he had just been through a terrible breakup.  He would listen to me vent about things in the office, and I would give him advice on how to deal with his ex.  I was falling head over heels for him, but I just knew there was no way he reciprocated those feelings.  When my parents came to town, he talked to them while they waited for me and told them he knew that we would always be a part of each other’s lives.  With every conversation, every sweet comment, every time he told me I looked pretty, I slipped deeper into the black hole that is unrequited love.  

One night, we were out with a big group of friends, and his roommate said something that I wish I could go back and un-hear.  He told me that Liam really cared about me.  I replied that I knew that he valued our friendship.  Michael said, “No Harper, he really cares about you.  He doesn’t need as much time to move on as you think.  Don’t wait forever.”  I let that give me a glimmer of hope that one day, when we didn’t work together, things would be different.  After a trip to the Kentucky Derby with a big group of our friends, I realized I would never live up to his ex.  Even if the way he looked at me made my heart melt, or the fact that he wanted to know my opinion on everything, made me weak.  Being friends meant he would always be in my life.    

I think back on all the girls I encouraged him to take on dates.  Forcing myself to suppress my feelings and acting as just his friend was my inner turmoil.  I told myself that having him as a friend was better than losing him.  Yet, I lost him anyway.  He shut me out, leaving me to sit in an office with him everyday and not know his thoughts.  It felt like a thousand needles being shoved into my heart slowly, over and over again.  I still don’t know why he stopped talking to me, and I have asked him more times than I can count.  Loving him was one of the most painful things I have ever endured.  Losing him nearly broke me beyond compare.  He has been gone from my office for over a year. I never see him.  I have done my best to move on, but I still wonder if someday he might love me too.  


I have loved more than some people will in a lifetime and felt pain that some will never know.  I have been very open with my heart, but the people I gave it to have been very reckless with it.  I don’t regret the fact that I have fallen hard and fast several times in my life.  I am a passionate person, and it is a very big part of what makes me me.  I do not love as easily as I once did, and that is likely a result of all the times I have loved, only to have my heart broken in return.  Every one of these boys taught me something about myself and about people.  I am stronger because of them.  One day the real, great love of my life will decide to show up, and when he does, I will realize that yes, I had loved, but there is no love like reciprocated love. 

Relationship Girl?

I am a relationship girl who is never in a relationship.  In college, no one ever wanted me to be their girlfriend.  When you go to a school notorious for being the beauty queen school, it’s hard to stand out.  Even though I am the kind of girl you’d want to take home to mom, I never landed a boyfriend.  Instead, I ended up having one night stands and fuck buddies to ease the loneliness.  I loved twice in college, neither of them were people I dated.  In true Harper fashion, they were just very complicated, very emotionally-charged, very fucked-up friendships.  For instance, this guy and I continued to say, “I love you” to each other for over a year and a half, yet we were never “together”.  My love life in DC has not been much better.  Outside of the complicated situation with D, I’ve loved once.  The details of these relationships are irrelevant now.  What is relevant is the fact that I want a real relationship at this point in my life.  I want the small things; I deserve to know what they are like.  

I look forward to the day when a guy can’t wait to wake up next to me.  I mean a weekday, when morning sex is not in the picture, and I probably have on an oversized t-shirt.  He should be just as excited to start his day with me as I am with him.  He will know that I like to cuddle as I fall asleep, separate in the middle of the night, and as morning comes find my way back to him.    

I look forward to making space in the medicine cabinet and the closet for him to leave a few things.  I will even keep old-fashioned, non-flowery soap in the shower so he doesn’t smell girly when he goes to work.  I will throw some of his laundry in with mine, but he is on his own when it comes to ironing.  I will even cook him dinner, but he better help with the dishes.     

I want Sundays on the couch watching football together, even if we are pulling for different teams.  It’s okay if we fight over what to buy at the grocery store, what movie to watch, or whether to order red or white wine with dinner.  Perfection is not reality and I am just looking for reality.   

He will know so much about me, like I am cranky when I am hungry, and he should give me juice when I am hungover.  I sometimes snore in my sleep, but he should never bring that up.  If he leaves the toilet seat up, I will get pissed.  I know I am high-maintenance, and that is never going to change.  I paint my nails about 3 times a week and am useless for about an hour afterwards.  I watch a lot of television, and some pretty bad television at that.  I am who I am.  It took me a very long time to figure out and accept myself.  I am only looking for people in my life that support who I am.  I know my quirks may aggravate him sometimes, and I know we will fight.  Just because you love someone doesn’t mean you like them all the time, and that's okay.   

Everywhere I look, I see people in relationships, but I don’t know how they end up in them.  What makes them more worthy of Sunday brunch and pillow talk?  I am 25 and have never been in a real, adult relationship.  Is it too late for me?  Have I reached the point where I am not long-term relationship worthy?  Do the relationship types look at me and know that I have no idea what I am doing?  Will I ever be someone’s girlfriend?   

The Answer is in Someone New

Nothing makes you feel more confident than a really good-looking man wanting to see you naked.  Well, maybe when the sight of you undressed leaves this man wanting more. The feeling when you wake up in the arms of someone that just seems too perfect to be real is like a high.  Nothing brings you out of the shadows of heartbreak like the euphoria of a budding romance.  

Three weeks ago, I told someone that I was glad I didn’t feel anything when I kissed all the boys that were crossing my path.  I was in a post heartbreak spiral.  If the boy was cute and wanted to kiss me, I was game.  I was trying to put distance between the memory of kissing D and my present.  I thought I needed to to feel nothing for anyone else until D was out of my head.  I was on a boy bender.  I went out on Wednesday and kissed a boy in front of Union Station.  I went out on Thursday and kissed a boy outside the bar.  Went out on Saturday for Chloe’s birthday, kissed a boy and got swept away.  

When I am in a spiral, I have a cute boy radar like none other.  When Stefan walked in the room, it was like sirens went off in my head.  Being Chloe’s birthday, I went back to dancing with the girls and tried to forget about the gorgeous guy who was lingering nearby in the small basement bar.  I caught him watching me on the dance floor.  There was no ignoring the Vineyard Vines clothed, green-eyed man with Chuck Bass hair.  Who talked to whom first is still a little hazy, but his dance moves were amazing.  He twirled me all over the floor before he went in for the kiss.  I was the girl making out in the bar and I didn’t care.  Don’t worry, we talked too, but mainly we just kissed, alot.  

There comes a point in these situations when what’s happening next is inevitable.  When other people are thinking, “Get a room!”, maybe you should!  That is what led me to say, “You want to get out of here?”. I forgot what it was like to feel so wanted, to feel like they are just drinking you in.  Having someone who can’t stop kissing you long enough to find a cab is exhilarating.  

After entangling ourselves in my sheets for quite a while, Stefan and I stayed up talking until the wee hours.  My Sunday morning was a mixture of knocking boots and pillow talk.  When Stefan left the next afternoon, I didn’t know if I would ever hear from him again.  I decided to cross my fingers but not hold my breath.  When he texted me hours later, I thought my heart might explode from surprise and excitement!  

He made his way into the city the next Wednesday to see me before I left for a cruise to Bermuda with Chloe and Vivian.  I had forgot how it felt to flirt without guilt, to be excited without consequence, and to feel like everything is full of possibility not doom.  

Chloe, Vivian, and I had a blast on the cruise!  There were late nights at the disco, post-bar hot tubbing, and a some racy games of Truth or Dare and Never Have I Ever.  I kissed a guy under the stars, pool-side. It was sweet. The problem was he wasn’t Stefan.  I didn’t enjoy talking to him, I didn’t want him to hold my hand, and I absolutely did not want to sleep with him.  

So, it is official.  I am crushing on someone new.  All signs seem to point to good on the Stefan front.  I am hopeful that things last at least a little bit longer.  I am not expecting the great love of my life; I just want to enjoy whatever this is while it lasts.  The giddy feeling I get when he texts me makes my heart pound.  I day dream about his fingers gently running down my bare back. I fall asleep thinking about doing so in his arms, and how much better I sleep when he is there.  

I don’t really think about D very much anymore.  There was a time when he consumed me.  Now it is more like an occasional thing out of habit.  I know it has helped not seeing him for a month, but now I am more worried about the first time I do see him.  I think I am just going to rip off the Band-Aid and go to that weekly social gathering.  Besides I have someone else that likes to see me naked.