Patterns are Hard to Break

Over the last two years, my life has become unrecognizable to that of the person who used to write this blog, at least on the surface.  I moved to Charlotte, leaving a city that I used to think was the real love of my life behind me.  After moving here for a nightmare of a job, I was recruited into a job I genuinely love with coworkers who have become amazing friends.  Oh, and I bought a house.  I’m a homeowner, and that is a dream that never would have come true in DC.  

But, with all these amazing changes, I am still over here wasting time on boys who don’t deserve me.  I still tend to backslide with boys I should leave in the rearview mirror.  I’m still struggling with my ever-curvier body image because it’s hard to shake comments like Teddy’s that, even after all this time, are always in the back of my mind.  No matter how many times I remind myself I’m a badass, home-owning, curvy queen, I still have a hard time standing up for myself with people I care about when I feel wronged.  Instead of standing up, I still shut down.  Instead of moving forward, I still hold on.  It’s like I have a hard time believing I deserve all the success and great things in my life.     

Maybe that is why I let my hot neighbor into my life. Why do I have feelings for someone I know is broken and not really pursuing me?  Even though Hot Neighbor looks at me in a way that makes everyone think we are a couple, we aren’t.  I need to trust what he said - I don’t want to date him, he will destroy me.  Even if his actions don’t match, I need to listen to the words coming out of his mouth.  I have been taught that lesson so many times, when someone tells you who they are, you need to believe them.  

How did I get into this situation?  I should have never slept with my next door neighbor, but I let the spark I felt overcome my better judgement.  I’m turning 33 in 16 days and need to stop following the wild sparks that have led me into some of the darkest times in my life. 

When I ran into him on the sidewalk a week after moving in, I felt a tightness in my chest, that butterflies meet-cute moment.  I could feel my cheeks hurting from the insane smile I had the whole time we talked.  He asked for my number and texted me so I would have his.  I fought the “crazy girl” urge to google him immediately.  He is my neighbor, liking him is a terrible idea, the absolutely worst idea, and that is why I didn’t text him for a few weeks.  I was having a few friends over for a house warming so inviting Hot Neighbor couldn’t hurt anything; it was just neighborly.  

When he replied that he was going to ask me over for a drink that night anyway I felt giddy, ecstatic.  No harm in friendly drinks.  I rushed to finish cleaning up my house for the upcoming party so I could see the tall, mysterious boy next door.  I didn’t realize we would sit on my couch from 9:30pm until after 2:00am just talking.  I also didn’t realize I would come to  wish I could take back those 4 ½ hours.  If those hours of talking about everything hadn’t happened, maybe I wouldn’t be trying to shake off the feelings I have for him.  

As I curled my hair and put on my perfectly curated outfit for my party, I thought about him, what would Hot Neighbor think of my yellow dress, or seeing me all done up.  I was so happy to have my friends in my new home, to see their faces after months of quarantine, but until I answered the door and saw him on the other side, I was anxious.  But he came and he cleaned up nicely.  I tried not to focus all my attention on him, to make sure I was spending time with all the amazing people in my life who showed up. Every time I looked over at him and he smiled, those stupid butterflies fluttered in my chest.  When he left to pop by another party in the neighborhood, I felt a little deflated, even though he promised he was coming back.  I knew I was in big trouble, that Hot Neighbor was trouble, that I had caught some feelings.  

When other neighbors who I had over suggested we go to the neighborhood party, drunk me was all about it.  We walked into the alleyway party and I saw Hot Neighbor walking away from the party with another girl - I felt like I had been punched in the chest.  He said he was making sure she got home ok, but I saw how pretty she was, how thin and cute.  He was barely out of sight when my eyes welled with tears.  I was mad at myself for crying; I barely knew him and I had no reason to be upset.  So what if we had talked about more things in the first night hanging out then I had with the last guy I “dated” for two months?

I continued to down the rosé, hoping the wine would numb the feeling.  Instead I found myself alone in my kitchen, putting away leftovers and texting him to come hang out.  I went 100% drunk girl on him.  He was texting back, but he didn’t come over, or answer the door when I rang his doorbell.  I woke up the next day filled with shame and regret, mortified at my behavior.  I would love to blame the pandemic and being cooped up for months, but we all know I have been that girl when there wasn’t a global health crisis to blame.  I sent a GIF of someone hiding in a box labeled shame, and another that said “we’re still friends right?”.  

Hot Neighbor: “Haha yes I was planning on coming over today what time works for you.”

When I didn’t respond right away he came back with …

“Don’t make me come ring your doorbell ;)” 

A sense of relief washed over me.  I hadn’t ruined our friendship with my drunk antics.  He was going to come over and hangout.  I nursed my hangover and cleaned up more from the party, anxiously awaiting HN to ring my doorbell.  When he hugged me the moment I opened the door, I realized I didn’t know where we stood at all.  As we climbed the stairs to my main floor and he told me that the drunk girl from last night had thrown-up so she slept on his couch, I didn’t think about why he had taken her back to his place.  As I handed him a water bottle, he pulled me into another hug, a different hug, a caressing embrace.  That embrace led to a kiss, which led to clothes on my floor, and sober sex with my next door neighbor.  I didn’t think, I just let my body take over, absorbing every ounce of affection that I had been longing for over the past year.  Afterwards, lying next to him in my bed realizing how many lines I had just crossed and how much I liked him, I knew I was in over my head.  

Hot Neighbor didn’t hang around long after sex.  Left alone with my thoughts, a dangerous place to be under normal circumstances, I began to spiral.  I don’t want to be his fuck buddy, the fat neighbor he fucks out of convenience, I don’t want to be that girl and I have tried so hard to not be that girl.  I knew he and I needed to talk about it, that I needed to say that friends was a better idea considering we’re neighbors, but how do you bring that up?  I tried inviting him over for a drink during the week but he had plans that night.  I practiced the conversation in my head over and over.  That I wasn’t saying I wanted more from him, just in general I’m in a place in my life that I’m looking for more than casual.  

With Friday off, I spent the day at our neighborhood pool, day drinking and making new friends.  When Hot Neighbor asked if I wanted to come take a shot of tequila at his house, I was way too many White Claws in to have a proper conversation but didn’t realize it.  Have you ever had one of those conversations that the harder you try to fix it the more it snowballs out of control?  When “I don’t want to be fuck buddies” turns into, “You don’t want to be with me anyway, I would destroy your life.” I didn’t know what to say but of course I tried.  He said I would end up getting drunk and fucking him again in a couple months.  My mind said, well that does sound like me, but it also infuriated me.  How dare he!  When he told me he had a very hot but very stupid girl coming over, I knew I had to get out of there.  What he was saying didn’t add up to the person who sat in my living room the week before.  It didn’t add up to the person who told my friends about his broken engagement. But it did sound like so many shitty guys from my past.  

I reacted in the only way drunk me knew how, I sat on my couch crying and texted my much younger ex, P (full story on him in a later post).  He couldn’t come over that night but would text me the next day to hang out.  Although we are never ever going to work out, I knew that P would make me feel wanted and at that moment I needed to feel desired.  I needed Hot Neighbor to know I was wanted by other people.  

When P showed up to the alley party the next night and met all my neighbors, he held my hand and kissed me.  I’ve never been a dirty secret with him.  Our first date was a huge cocktail party with all his friends.  I go back to him because he has never made me feel like I wasn’t good enough; he has always been proud to be seen with me and to show affection.  Hot Neighbor wasn’t there and that didn’t matter, I needed P’s attention.  After an hour at the party and several hours back at my house, I was reminded that casual doesn’t have to lack passion. P left because he had an early tee time.  I tried my best to persuade him to stay the night, and as he put it “used my witchery” to prolong his departcher, but few things get in the way of him and golf. 

After he left, I checked my phone to find Hot Neighboor texted me several hours before.  “What are ya’ll getting into tonight?”  I should have let it go, but I didn’t.  I said, “Sorry I had company.”  

HN: No worries. Are those fireworks coming from our neighborhood?

Harper: I think so?  I have sparklers I haven’t used. 

HN: You dog. How late do these people stay up partying?  I still haven’t reached my drunk peak. 

Harper: I think they are still in the alley

HN: Do you want to drink?

Harper: Sure

HN: Don’t sound so excited

Harper: My place or yours?

HN: You are welcome to come over or we can go to the alley your choice. 

Harper: I just asked if they are still out there. 

HN: Tight. Tequila shot? 

After a shot of tequila, me alluding to my company, and him reminding me that he will always be the first person I had sex with in my house, we headed to the neighborhood party that was still going at 1am.  When I walked up, one of the neighbors who I had just met that night blurted out “that isn’t the guy you left with earlier.” I felt both embarrassed and vindicated.  I told her that HN was just a neighbor I walked over with and that P had left, a sentiment I had to repeat to several different people.  The more people commented on where P went and pried for details, the more Hot Neighbor was on his phone, well until a girl showed up in the alley.  She had some kind of accident so he had sent her to his house by herself to get cleaned up.  When we all gave him a hard time about how he should have gone with her, he said “I mean I don’t care about her, I’m not going to sleep with her.” 

My new adorable gay couple besties, M&C,  said something about would you have sent Harper down an alley by herself, and NH’s answer shook me.  He said of course not and if that was me he would drop his drink, run after me and make sure I was home and safe in bed.  When he saw the look on their faces, he started to back peddle, I matter because we’re neighbors, she's like a sister.  I gave him a look, and he retracted the sister comment.  

Are you confused yet?  Because I sure am.  C took me upstairs to freshen up my hair and clean up my melting mascara.  When we returned the girl was back, and as much as I wanted to dislike her because of the circumstance, she was actually very sweet.  But I couldn’t help but notice she was the exact opposite of me.  Tall, thin athletic build, long brown hair, brown eyes and a tan I will only have if I pay someone to airbrush me.  I probably weigh two of her.  How can I believe he is into me if he is into her?  When they started to kiss I was done, it was 3:30am anyway.  

Walking away from the party I knew he was going to sleep with her, and it bothered me more than I wanted it to.  I had slept with someone else, I had no right to be jealous, but it still raged inside of me.  Every bit of validation I had gotten from P and our time together was gone.  

Over the next week Hot Neighbor and I really didn’t talk.  A snapchat here or there, he would watch my instagram stories, but no real contact.  I knew he had a military exercise coming up, he is in the reserves, and that would mean he would be leaving for a few weeks.  Thursday evening he sent a snap of his packed bags.  I responded asking when he was leaving and he said Saturday morning.  I felt the need to see him before he left.  I was cooking dinner for M&C and invited him over for a drink with us.  Dinner led to us hanging out in M&C’s garage and lots of neighbors stopping by.  

When Hot Neighbor finally got there, I felt so anxious.  I tried my best to not flirt and to talk to other people as much as possible.  Someone I had just met said something about how long my boyfriend and I had been in the neighborhood.  I quickly corrected them and said we were just next door neighbors.  I talked to a gorgeous older Latino man who was there with a friend.  We were having the best conversation, and I said something about being single and buying a house on my own.  He said, “wait you’re single?  I thought you were with,” and he pointed out Hot Neighbor.  Knowing I was single apparently changed everything for this dreamboat of a man, his words not mine.  He asked if he could walk me home, and after some hesitation I said yes.  

I didn’t say goodbye to HN, but when I said goodbye to C he told me that when Hot Neighbor wasn’t with me he couldn’t keep his eyes off me.  I wanted to believe it was because C is my friend and not because Hot Neighbor really was giving off “we’re together vibes” to everyone that night.  I kept trying to push it out of my mind.  Hot Neighbor left for his military thing and I thought this meant I could get my head together, except all weekend people who met us that night kept commenting on how they thought we were a couple, and well he is clearly into you then.  

How am I supposed to get my head on straight about us being friends when he acts like that?  How am I supposed to believe the things that come out of his mouth about being terrible for me when he looks at me with his big hazel eyes and I have to look away because it makes my heart flutter?  Why can’t I just believe him and shut off my feelings?  

This is like every guy from my 20s in DC - the pattern I have been trying so hard to break.  He is broken, and I think I can fix him. But if history is any indication I can’t.  I refuse to spend months or years of my life on another person who is never going to change, or grow up, or realize that they want to be with me.  How do I make my heart stop feeling like this?  I know how it is going to end; he even told me how it is going to end. Why do I still want to believe he got scared of his feelings and is pushing me away?  How can so many things in my life have changed, and I still can’t pass up a broken Peter Pan of a boy destined to break my heart?  

I shouldn’t spend another minute on him, yet I have spent hours pouring all my feelings and our story onto these pages.  Thousands of words written just to remind myself that this isn’t a Hallmark movie.  He told me who he is, and I need to start believing him.  Can one of you show me how? 

Seven Years Later

Seven years ago, I started this blog as an ambitious 24 year-old one year into my career in Washington DC, and in love with a boy with a girlfriend.  Fast forward to now,  I am a 31 year-old single cat mom living in Charlotte, NC.  It has been almost a year since I moved to Charlotte.  Countless times I have begun to write about this huge life change, to write about the catalyst for the change, and the struggle of starting my life over in a new place at 30 but couldn’t find the words.  As often as I have shared the most intimate parts of my life with all of you, this was just something I felt I needed to be mine and mine alone.

It was just two short months from the day I first contemplated leaving DC to the day I drove away for a new job in Charlotte.  It was like I blinked, and I had changed my whole life without really processing everything I was leaving behind.  Although the move has been good for me, and there were really reasons for it, leaving DC felt like leaving a part of me behind.  It was like I split my heart in two and when I went home at night I would cry for that part of me. There was a time when I believed that DC was the love of my life and there was no way I would ever live anywhere else.  It was as if DC was woven into the fiber of the adult I became there and I never really knew. 

How can this be Capitol Confessions if I am no longer in the Capitol?  If I am honest I stopped being that Harper a long time ago.  Harper Waverly is an alter ego I don’t recognize anymore. She is the pen name I chose when writing as myself was impossible.  As I have discovered new hobbies, new sources of happiness, I have lost other parts of myself.  It seems impossible to be everything all at once, to fit in all the boxes and please all the people from each aspect of my life.  I am an Ole Miss Sorority girl, a southern debutante, a political junky, a Harry Potter fangirl, a true Whovian, a professional in corporate America, a pop-culture addict, an Anglophile, a Comic-Con goer, and a cosplayer. 
 
In the past year I have done things I never thought I would do; maybe because outside of DC the pressures as someone who could run for office someday have lifted.  I have had dramatic moments that have lead to high highs and very low lows.  How do I articulate all the joy and pain of the past year of my life, because I don’t think I can do it justice? The words to describe the devastating gaping hole that leaving Chloe, my best friend, my person, left inside of me and the struggle we went through to find our new normal.  Meeting new people who finally made Charlotte feel more like a home and less like a mistake. Having a clandestine affair in an empty ballroom of an Atlanta hotel at 4am the last night of DragonCon (I really should tell you all that story sometime).  A relationship with real promise ruined by a broken condom and a trip to buy Plan B because it made things very heavy way too soon, and the havoc it reaped on my body (both the Plan B and the loss). 

I have no idea how to put a year worth of life changing events, crippling depression, unbridled indulgence, creative expression, new friendship, and intense loneliness into a few paragraphs.  Over that year I have found my place in Charlotte; I have created a home I am proud of and accumulated a family that supports me at every turn. 

I might not know how to share the time that has past since I last wrote,  but I do want to share all that is to come.  Thank you for reading and being a part of my journey over the past 7 years. I hope you will continue on this roller coaster with me as I navigate friendships, career, and dating as a 30-something in the South. 

A Crack in My Foundation of Strength

I know you have all been on pins and needles waiting to hear the recap of my trip across the pond, and you will have to wait just a bit longer.  Before I can get to the fun details and my love for London, I have to talk about something that happened there that has been haunting my thoughts.  The only way I am going to be able to get past it is to write about it. So here it goes - the incident that has me questioning everything about myself.  

You avid readers know that Chloe and my London adventure was prompted by Teddy moving there for a year.  On our next to last night Teddy said something to me at the pub that has really fucked with my head ever since.  The conversation went something like this:

*Insignificant Small Talk

Harper: *says something about not being able to pull off this very attractive younger guy.

Teddy: You know you could be really beautiful if you lost weight.

Harper: I’m sorry what did you say?

Teddy: I mean I think you could be a knockout if you lose a lot of weight.

Harper: Oh that’s what I thought you said.

Teddy: I mean your eyes alone.  You could be such a bombshell if you lost the weight.

Harper: (said something along the lines of) Well the reason you are alone is that you are a shallow douchebag.     

*Chloe comes back from the bathroom.

Harper: Chloe let me fill you in on the conversation.  Teddy was just saying how I need to lose weight, and if you will excuse me I need to going to the bathroom.

I barely made it up the stairs before the tears were falling.  It was as if someone punched me in the chest, knocking all the air out of me.  Everything I question about myself, every insecurity, was justified in that moment.  I was living my worst fears, the reality that I am undesirable the way that I am.  I am not a small girl, I never have been, but I am the biggest I have ever been, meaning my insecurities are at an all time high.  I am a size 16, and I teeter between straight and plus sizes.  I am 5’6’”, 195 pounds.  To quote Mindy Kaling “I fluctuate between curvy and chubby.”  My weight and size has been a constant thing of stress since I hit puberty, always seeking approval, like every good Southern girl does.  

By the time I reached junior high, being called fat was something I was used to.  It was the insult of choice for the pubescent bullies.  When I got to high school, I made an effort to skip meals when I could.  I would  tell my mom I ate at youth group and go to bed without dinner.  The truth is I didn’t have the discipline to be full fledged anorexic.  That, and I had a mother who paid attention.  She would support the diets like Atkins or what ever else I wanted to do to try to slim down, as long as I was eating.  I want to preface what I am about to say with the fact that I love my mother, and she loves me no matter what, but it hasn’t always come off in the best way.  My mother, someone who has struggled with weight herself, can be quite harsh when it comes to my body.  Telling me in high school, when I was size 12, that girls like us aren’t meant to wear bikinis.  

In college, fat was a word I continued to hear quite often when describing me, often times to my face, being called “Bee’s fat friend”.  Boys would not want their friends to know that we were an item, because I wasn’t the kind of girl people expected them to be with.  Even my own sorority sisters got in on the body shaming from time to time.  I was once told by a girl I thought to be one of my best friends that “girls like you don't land guys like the vice president of a fraternity.”  

My weight continued to yoyo throughout college as I went on and off Weight Watchers, but my self-esteem was consistently pretty low.  I looked for validation from the guys I made out with, or the many clubs and organizations I was apart of.  I never believed that I was enough.  Why would I?  Everything really came to a head when I was selected to be queen of my hometown the summer between Sophomore and Junior year.  This is an Old South tradition dating back to the 1920s with hoop skirts, cocktail parties, china patterns, and a lot of judgement spanning over a year.  I tried on the dresses of every “bigger” queen there had ever been, and none of them came close to fitting.  I remember standing in the seamstresses shop when she told me there was no way to make my favorite dress fit me.  The tears rolling down my face in silence, knowing I was the fattest queen there ever was.  That is the day that I decided I would do whatever it took to lose weight.  That is the day that triggered my eating disorder.     

I had 6 months to lose weight, and then had to stay exactly the same size for the next 4.  I started taking stool softeners and laxatives everyday.  No one knew I was taking those pills everyday; I seemed to have normal eating habits; I was working out.  Everyone just thought all the things that I had tried for years without results were finally working for me.  No one knew I was doing irreversible damage to my stomach in the name of beauty and conformity.  It was the thinnest I have ever been.  The pictures from the Spring of 2009 are my favorite pictures of me ever.  It was probably the only time in my life that I believed people when they told me I looked beautiful.                 

I have spent the last 5 years of my life trying to become comfortable in my own skin.  Loving yourself is hard, at least for me it is.  It seems like the first 23 years of my life were spent being told I was not worth loving.  As a bigger women you are expected to squeeze into your shapewear and face the world knowing it still isn’t enough.  If you thighs touch, or your arm jiggles, you’re not beautiful, you're undeserving.  Our society puts numbers on beauty that are unrealistic.  After months of therapy and stints on antidepressants, I had found a version of myself I could love, most of the time.  A version that didn’t need a man's approval, or physical gratification to know I am worth something.        

Why am I telling you these sordid details?  I have decided if I am going to talk about body shaming and my body issues, I am going to tell it all.  I want to explain that eating disorders come in many forms.  I am going to explain in detail why Teddy’s comments have shaken me to my core, cracking the strength that I spent years trying to build.  

When I finally stopped crying, mainly due to the wonderful British girls in the bathroom who offered to punch Teddy in the throat, I went to face the physical incarnation of all my inner demons.  Teddy hugged me and said he was “coming from a place of love” and that he just wanted me to be “happy and healthy.”  I actually think that might have been more insulting than the original comments.  I looked at him and said, “What about me says I am not happy?  I am the happiest I have ever been in my whole life.”  Chloe and I left the pub shortly after that.  I cried the whole cab ride back to our flat.  I cried myself to sleep, and I woke up the next morning crying.  

I texted my mom and told her what happened.  I know from what you read above you might think my mom wouldn’t be supportive, but you would be wrong.  She has come a long way in the last decade.  She might pressure me about getting married, but she is more supportive about my body image.  I don’t know if seeing me struggle with depression was what flipped the switch, or if it was me finally telling her about all the teasing and the eating disorders I had hid from her, but whatever it was, I am grateful.  My parents think I am beautiful no matter my size.  My dad would have hit Teddy if he could have gotten his hands on him.  A man of few compliments, my dad said to me that skinny doesn’t make you pretty.  

I know I should have written off Teddy’s comments and maintained my long fought for sense of confidence, but that isn’t what happened.  I have withered.  He said out loud what I have worried every man I meet actually thinks of me.  It was verbal confirmation that I am indeed undesirable.  I flip between anger that anyone could be so shallow and a despair that I am truly less than I think I am.  Words are blows that bruise deep beneath the surface, festering and manifesting in the darkest most twisted ways.  In the last month, I have found myself evaluating every wrinkle, stretch mark, cellulite and fat pocket on my body.  I have been more conscious of how my clothes fit or don’t fit.  I have stopped in the drug store twice and look at the bottles of laxatives on the shelves, coming so close to putting them in my basket.  I have let those words put cracks in the foundation of confidence I had built up one therapy session at a time.     

The thing is, I know I am a pretty girl.  I have breathtaking blue eyes, that pretty much give away my every emotion if you care enough to look.  I have lips that have just enough pout to make them perfect for lipstick.  The idea that those things are not enough to make me beautiful because I am not a size two is beyond crazy.  That I COULD be beautiful if I just lost weight is one of the cruelest idea.  Could I use to lose a few pounds? Sure, I would like that even.  But to think that my beauty is contingent on my dress size is beyond superficial.  Beyond the physical, I am a beautiful person because I love with all my heart, I care for people so deeply that I often put their wants and needs before my own.  I am smart, thoughtful, and loyal.  Those things make me beautiful too.

There are no words to ever express the level of disgust, disappointment, and offense I felt and continue to feel about the situation.  I don’t know that I can ever look at Teddy and not feel all of those negative emotions.  I think the worst part about it is he thought what he said was coming from a place of love.  He thought it was ok to say them, he thought he was being helpful.  If he had said I am worried about your health, it still wouldn’t have been ok, but it wouldn’t have been as insulting as saying I am not beautiful because I am bigger.    

If this post seems disheveled it is because my thoughts are disheveled.  I haven’t been able to get my head on straight since that night.  I second guess everything about myself.  But that stops now. This is me taking back my life, some might say this is my fight song.  I am going to find my confidence again.  I am not going to worry that if I lose weight, I am proving Teddy right.  I am going to do whatever makes me feel comfortable in my own skin.  I am beautiful and no person’s opinion can change that.      

Tinder Failure

I have come to a conclusion that is undeniably sad - I am bad at online dating.  I, Harper Waverly, am a Tinder failure.  I do not know how people develop real life relationships based off of a profile with all the best pictures of themselves and an unrealistic assessment of how many times they drink/work-out a week.  In person I dazzle, but via dating app, I am a complete flop.  

I don’t know how to be witty without being too flirty, to show interest without coming off as only wanting to hook up.  Part of the dilemma is the pervy mindset of the opposite sex when they message me on said dating apps.  When trying not to give the wrong impression, I fear I come off as boring.  It’s disheartening to try to get to know someone before deciding to meet up, and be met with radio silence. It’s important to figure out where you are from, whether you went to college, and if you’re basically a normal human being and not a serial killer.

Some of it might be that I really don’t know how to be flirty without being sexy (See Bombshell), especially in messages.  Maybe that says something about me as a person, and the types of guys I attract.  I also believe that guys push the envelope with curvy women because many of them expect us to have lower self-esteem, and therefore have lower standards.  I could show you several examples of the same guy asking a thinner girl on a date and a curvy girl to his bed.  Also, it’s unbelievable how stupid some guys will talk to two girls at one time when the girls are in each others’ pictures.              

If one more guy starts off with “DTF?”, I might explode.  I guess it is men just playing the odds, but in all honesty, I don’t know what self-respecting girl actually responds to that.  Maybe it is just me, but if you really want to “make my panties drop” then take me to drinks or dinner and engage me in meaningful conversation.  Ask questions about me, and at least pretend to care about the answers.  In short, be a man, not some douchy boy-man-lazy-pervert whose idea of making an effort is sending an uber.  

I know many of you are probably thinking, come on it’s Tinder what do you expect.  And some of you are probably wanting to remind me of my own Tinder Adventures, but my mindset has changed.   But I am asking how else am I suppose to meet someone?  Match.com?  I tried that, and men are just as shallow there, so I threw away money for 6 months with no dates.  The old fashioned way?  Well, if you can explain to me how this even relates to our society today then sure I would give it a shot.  I know happy couples who met through Tinder. Apparently it worked for them, so why not me?  

As bad as I am at Tinder, I am going to keep trying.  Why you ask?  Well, I don’t really have any other option do I?  I will never meet anyone if I don’t put myself out there.  Getting a match is a bit of a confidence boost, even if 90% of my matches never talk to me.  At the very least I have seen some of the most hilarious/ disturbing pick up lines, of which I have screenshots for future entertainment.  A friend of mine put it best when she said, “It feels like we have two options, Tinder or dying alone.”  So, Tinder it is   

Dating is Hard

I am sure all of you are tired of the self-discovery, emotionally-settled Harper because I give you nothing juicy to read.  The truth is it kind of bores me too.  I am trying to have a healthy dating life and all that means is a lot more lonely nights.  I am not supposed to kiss a boy unless he takes me on a date first, which puts quite the damper on my kissing whore ways.  I know it is for the best, and if I want something real I have to actually spend my time with other people looking for the same thing.  

So, I pay for Match.com, and I have gone on a total of zero dates in the past 2 months.  The men that want to talk to me ignite zero spark.  I go through my daily matches and I message the men I am interested in only to be disappointed by the lack of response.  Tinder is a confidence booster and Match.com is a confidnce killer.  Maybe that is why I broke all my rules for a tall lobbyist with mesmerizing green eyes.  Evan was the only guy in all of Jack Rose that I wanted to talk to.  I spent hours trying to figure out a way to get him to talk to me, and finally his group split enough for me to find an in.  While ordering a drink at the bar we struck up a conversation and before I knew it he was paying for my drink and getting my number.    

As we went back to our respective friend groups my phone buzzed.  As we texted and made plans for a date the next week I couldn’t help but want to kiss Evan.  Out of the blue, a drink appeared in front of me, and yet Evan didn’t stick around to talk.  Could it be his motives were pure?  The rules went out the window.  I had to make out with this man, but right when I made my decision, his friends insisted that he leave.  Shortly after my own group started to break apart, and I decided to head home alone.  While in the cab my phone dings and it was a certain lobbyist wondering if I was still out.  

I knew I shouldn’t break my rules but the idea of that tall gorgeous man kissing me, touching me put me over the edge.  The invitation was extended, he was in a cab heading my way.  I frantically picked things up around my apartment and stuffed them in drawers and closets, damning my lack of cleaning in recent days.  I checked my make up, peeled off my spanxs and replaced them with something lacey.  Although, I made it very clear that if he came we were just making out, what adults remain fully clothed when rolling around a bed, even if they are just making out?

I buzz him up, anxiety coursing through me.  When he walks through the door he kisses me, grabbing my face with one hand and slightly lifting me with the other to bridge the foot difference in our height.  Damn.  That was all I could think, damn.  He pulls away gazes into my eyes and says, “hi.”  I reciprocate the greeting and then he says something so simple yet so sexy, “I have been wanting to do that since the moment I saw you.”  How can you not kiss someone after hearing something like that?

As he breathed my name into my ear I felt my whole body ignite.  There is something exhilarating about a man whispering your name while they explore every curve, unwilling to stop touching any part of you that they are allowed.  It is empowering, intoxicating, thrilling to have someone unable to get enough of you, unwilling to leave your bed, in awe of your beauty.  It’s a high, and I know I am like an addict that just fell of the wagon.  The physical touch does not fill my craving for love, just intensifies it.  It begins the “will he or won’t he call?”

Surprisingly, Evan was a man of his word, at first at least.  He texted me on the first day of my new job, and he made plans to take me to dinner that he actually followed through on.  I had a lovely time and felt this spark with him, but after that dinner I never heard from him again.  After igniting a spark he left me to alone to go up in flames.  That is why I don’t break the rules, that is why you stay on the wagon, to avoid that feeling of not being worth the real thing.  

I know I deserve the spark, the electricity, and the relationship.  That is why I shouldn’t kiss someone before they earn it, shouldn’t share my bed with someone that can’t take the time to take me on a date.  As much as I pretend I am a modern woman that can separate the physical and the emotional when a boy lays in my bed, looks me in the eyes and tells me I am beautiful I melt.  Dating is hard, and it is anything but simple.  But I am not giving up just yet.      

Bombshell

I feel like because I am curvy, I have to be sexy.  If I am not sexy, then I am just fat.  Society has very distinct images of what is sexy.  They even photo shop already thin actresses to set unrealistic expectations for women.  But there is an exception to that stereotype - the bombshell.  

When you hear the word bombshell, you probably think of classic beauties like Marilyn Monroe, Sophia Loren, and Elizabeth Taylor.  If you were to google the term you would be directed to also: pin-up girl, sex symbol, super model, blonde stereotype.  Hollywood bombshells of 1940s -1960s were recognized for their hourglass figures, their large breasts, sex appeal, and originally their blondness.  

The bombshells of today like Kate Upton, Sofia Vergara, and Christina Hendricks are beautiful, curvy women. They epitomize the busty, sassy idea that the bombshell has become.  The question is, what makes an average girl a bombshell? Is it boobs and an ass? Is there a certain demeanor needed? What is the factor that makes a women a bombshell because she is curvy, instead of just being overweight and invisible?

I asked some men what they thought a bombshell was.  One said, “Someone who is genuinely beautiful, both inside and out, and has the personality to match. Also, is someone everyone wants.”  Another gentleman described a bombshell as, “someone who turns heads, lights up a room, and is usually a smart ass.  Oh, and has big boobs.”  I have to say I was a little surprised that the men that I talked to thought that attitude was just as essential to being a bombshell.  In the end they both referenced sex appeal as well, but it is obvious that to men a bombshell has oomph both in her bra and her personality.    

To be a bombshell is to be sexy. But there is a dilemma, to be overly sexy is to be undateable. As a curvy woman, you have to decide - would you rather be sexy and wanted, even if it is just in bed, or be considered undesirable?  Society overly sexualizes what it means to be born with breasts and hips.  Victoria’s Secret even has a bra named the Bombshel,l which adds 2 cup sizes to your shape.  

Marilyn Monroe once answered a question about being a sex symbol by saying, "A sex symbol becomes a thing, I just hate being a thing.  But if I’m going to be a symbol of something, I’d rather it sex than some other things we’ve got symbols of.”   You become a thing that people want to use and discard, an experience they must have. When you lead with sex, which is what bombshells tend to do, you eliminate the image of the girl underneath, the one who, above all, just wants to be loved.  A symbol doesn’t have emotions, but a bombshell isn’t a symbol, she is a woman.  

Am I a bombshell? Do I even what to be?  I have been trying to write about the modern day bombshell and my feelings about it for over a year. I guess it is hard for me to cope with my only viable options.  Wrapping my head around the idea of the bombshell, the fine line between a bombshell and a fat girl.  You either embrace the bombshell, or you embrace being invisible.  I was never meant to be invisible.

So, I hide behind the fake confidence of red lipstick and sky high heels and sway my hips when I walk because that is what bombshells do.  I smile, bat my eyelashes, and say flirty things.  I pretend like things don’t hurt me, because a bombshell is carefree.  Sometimes I wonder, am I being who I want to be or am I being who I think I should be?

As a bombshell, will I ever get the guy?  What is the saying?  You marry a Jackie and you fuck a Marilyn.  When does one stop being a bombshell?  When they are all used up and the light has left their eyes?  Who will want them then?  Who will want me?  

“Being a sex symbol is a heavy load to carry, especially when one is tired, hurt, and bewildered.” - Marilyn Monroe