I Dated a Cardboard Cutout of Harry Styles

Great listener but a bit two dimensional!

If you are a Facebook follower of one of the many Harry Styles Facebook Pages I troll, you would know that the Twinkg of Pop celebrated the end of his historic Love on Tour. Congrats Mr. Styles! It’s been a long not one, not two, but three years of your tour and it was truly magical. While I couldn’t make it to the last show at Reggio Emilia, Italy you bet that tight ass I loved stalking you around the world in Tokyo, Frankfurt, Vienna, Barcelona, Madrid, and Portugal. In each city, I felt the spirit of the feather boa come alive as droves of fans of all ages twisted and shouted in the stadiums, or picnicked outside hanging onto your sweet lullabies. I truly hope you are enjoying that post tour lifestyle- you deserve it!

If you are new here, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Desmina de Vil, the lead columnist and CEO at Tattle Tale, Inc., Fashion Designer, Clown, and ex-wife of Harry Styles.

Yes! I said ex-wife. It is I, the former Desmina de Vil Styles.

So let’s spill some tea! Harry and I started dating when I purchased a lifesize cardboard cutout of him and we “just kept driving” down the I-5 from Sacramento down to Hollywood In February. I was feeling crazy and alone, and had the entirely insane idea to ask the most famous man in the world on a Valentine’s day date, despite my complete lack of social media followers. While flesh and blood Harry didn’t make our date at the Roosevelt, I enjoyed dressing his cardboard ghost up in Pride memorablia, calling him Matilda, and inviting people around Hollywood to his Birthday Party. You betcha I loaded up an uber full of random party shit and a Harry Styles cardboard cutout, and sat on a bench Under the Canyon Moon for 2 hours as I waited for nobody to show up. Damn you random dudes that told me Harry was actually in town and might come party! And apparently late night tinder dates are turned off by creepy lifesize cardboard cutouts of Harry Styles in the corner of the hotel room?!

Desmina de Vil and Matilda

Desmina de Vil and Matilda

Call me insane! I mean I am, but based on my extensive research people have been dating and even marrying cardboard cutouts of Harry Styles for a millenia. There’s a woman on Facebook who’s been roadtripping with Cardboard Harry around Europe! I hear they made it safely back from their trip in Croatia to Germany. We love love.

Harry and I had a wonderful time in California and I had thoroughly convinced myself that fate, and if not fate then light nonviolent stalking, would lead to our souls’ inevitable reunion. There seemed to be no other reasonable explanation why this man kept appearing to me in my dreams, and I needed something to believe in! So I peeled off Harry’s cardboard skin, stuffed it in my luggage, and brought my husband to Costa Rica with me. Unfortunately for Harry, I tossed the cardboard skin into a farm fire because I am afraid of commitment, even when it is to cardboard cutouts, and wanted my independence.

But his Ghost continued to follow me around the world. And I followed it.

When I say Ghost, I mean the projection of a human left on time space through the air and the internet, and most importantly our own imagination.

Desmina de Vil as a Ghost

Desmina de Vil as a Ghost

I could tell a lot of stories here- exposes, gossip, and conspiracy theories about Harry Styles and me; confessions about mental health, insanity, delusion, and the transcendable barriers of reality; sketchy how-tos about witchcraft, voodoo, and attempting to make a celebrity fall in love with you; a personal and analytical take on celebrity obsession and the media; stories of my world travels where I encountered my selves, new friends, and the Ghost of Harry Styles.

But in honor of the end of Love on Tour, this story is about Love. And I suppose it’s about all those other things too.

Between the crashing coincide-ence of my reality crumbling and the Internet plastered with Harry Styles on the tabloids, Spotify, and the awards ceremonies, I confused obsession with Love.

Obsession is an interesting thing. The media creates a feeding ground of obsession for the Ghosts of celebrities. Creates just enough of an opening for a person with the right mix of loneliness and insanity to take that Ghost and prop it up and project it, writing the whispers of a human into their own Story. I believed if I performed the story of his music it would become about me. I believed if I talked to his ghost through cardboard apparitions, a voice on my phone, or the locations he was snapped at on the streets of Tokyo, I could also haunt him. And maybe I did. But I know for certain that it was always my own Ghosts and Demons haunting me.

Underneath the crazy stories I invented, wrote, and performed, I felt incredibly lonely. Afraid that I would never be loved, that my life and identities were lies. So the pendulum of my brain swung into a story where I could be everything. It was almost easier to believe I was destined to be with Harry Styles in a fairy boy bloodless wonderland then make space for the sticky, uncomfortable, and painful reality that is real life love, or believe that I was truly capable of being loved at all. But for a while, the Ghost of Harry Styles, the image of a person and the recordings of their voice, kept me company and comforted me.

Desmina de Vil in Lisbon

Desmina de Vil in Lisbon

In Lisbon, I was unable to get a ticket to Harry’s concert. I sat on the beach, toes buried in the sand watching the sunset. The music from the concert boomed from across the barricade, echoing against the hills and rolling across the waves of the ocean. I found humor in the abandoned idea that Harry is my one true love. I found heartbreak in my fears. I listened to Harry’s music, aware that he has left pieces of his heart and story in each song, performance, and stomps on the stage, but that these pieces were Ghosts compared to the complexity of his human self that I do not know. I recognized that while I found deep resonance and comfort in his songs, and that sometimes it felt like they could have been written about me and my Ghost, they were written about other Ghosts of Harry’s story. Matilda played. But my family has shown me love. And I need to go home.

I left the concert a few songs early. “I’m sorry Harry, I can’t do this anymore. I have to go.”

To all of the Harry Styles fans out there, know that the story was never about Harry. It’s about you and the music that you choose to play at the background of your life. Sometimes that music is heartbreaking, sometimes joyous, sometimes profound.

When I returned to the US I had a dream where Harry was playing a very small and personal concert. It had been a while since I dreamt of him. At the end of his concert he lay down to rest. I approached him to ask if he was okay, he turned over and he was no longer Harry Styles. He was the man that lay next to me in bed.

Because in the whirlwind of life, between traveling through the cosmos of my imagination and the world, I fell in love with someone made of flesh and blood. For a while I thought I stopped talking to Ghosts, there was someone on the other end of the line to answer back with stories, jokes, and memes. Apparitions don’t make good cuddlers, and for a moment there was someone I could touch, hug, and hold, laugh and cry with.

Desmina de Vil as a Ghost

Desmina de Vil as a Ghost

That is until he ripped my heart out of my chest and squeezed the blood all over me.

I was going to write some mushy article about how falling in love with a Ghost isn’t the same thing as falling in real love. Because humans are deep, dark, complex, imperfect but wholely loveable, made of flesh and blood and not cardboard, blah blah blah. But you know what, what the hell do I know about love? I just fell in love with some idiot who gave me gonorrhea, committed credit card fraud, and stole money from me to gamble! Dating the Ghost of Harry Styles was a lot easier than dating a tortured human who tortured me. I apparently don’t know the difference between love, obsession, addiction, and hate. Maybe they are all the same thing twisted in different ways. Clearly I am not a good judge of character, whether it be the Ghosts of men or men themselves.

Sometimes it turns out that you don’t really know someone even if they’re standing right in front of you in flesh and blood. They are still Ghosts, still an image created from their and your imagination, projected and reflected unto a body and a character weaving stories and lies gaslit into reality. They are vampires that sink their teeth into your skin and suck you dry until you don’t feel anything anymore except a craving for their bloody love drug.

Maybe you fall in love with the pieces of them that feel so real it hurts. Maybe you fall in love with their skin, pressed on yours. Maybe you fall in love with their smile, or their face, or their words. Maybe you open yourselves so fully and widely to love that your own Ghosts, the parts of yourself you've hidden in shame and protection, come out to play. Maybe you ignore all the red flags, knowing they are haunted by demons beyond your grasp but you are too intrigued and entangled, falling backwards and blind into the dark pit that is love, to face how they are harming you.

I’m honestly quite livid and I don’t care who reads this. Fuck men. Fuck Ghosts. Fuck bloodsuckers. Fuck people telling you they care about you and then lying, abusing, and using you. I’m done unintentionally and intentionally building my story around some white man whose attention and money I’m trying to conquer. That’s what I’m supposed to want right? It’s social and political conditioning. Or I’m sorry, that was a joke! That would be anti-feminist. I’m just trying to figure out how to exist.

Fuck you J, and if you thought the last couple of crazy bitches were bad you haven’t met Desmina de Vil. Grow up and atone for your abusive actions and behaviors- it's embarrassing. We’re officially over Harry. Can you please get the fuck out of my psychotic delusions? I don’t know you and you don’t know me, but thanks for the comfort and music! And thank you even more Olivia Rodrigo- I think it’s about time I become the bloodsucking monster.

Fuck love!

Fuck love.

Fuck you.

And fuck your toxic love.

Honestly.

I’m tired of trying to figure it out. I’m tired of trying to decipher what ghosts and demons are haunting you so I can lay myself on an altar to be slayed while smiling. I'm tired of handing over my kindness to people that take advantage of it. I’m tired of trying to find acceptance and excuses for your vices so that I can feel the comfort of your body and sweet nothings, as if it was all I needed to be happy. I’m tired of being so desperate to be loved that I turn myself into a fool and a puppet for your and everybody else’s entertainment.

Desmina de Vil as a Bloodsucking Vampire

Desmina de Vil as a Bloodsucking Vampire

But I’ll do it! Because I have nothing better to do then turn my emotions into Ghosts. I have nothing better to do than scream and cry and wail and sing at all of the Ghosts that haunt me asking for answers, even if their responses are nothing but a figment of my imagination. I have nothing better to do than fall in love with monsters because even the Devil is human, risking it all for a taste of blood. I have nothing better to do than spill the blood of my broken heart onto dresses and the internet. I am crazy and delusional too but at least I turn that shit into satire and art.

So there we have it everyone! Ghosts suck. Demons suck. Vampires suck. Humans suck. Love sucks.

Fuck love. Love is disgusting, wild, gross, thrilling, hard, twisted, intoxicating, painful, consuming, sad, addicting, and bloody. Like life and like death.

So bleed me dry.

I will martyr myself for a taste of blood for eternity.

Xoxo Desmina de Vil

P.S. I will be debuting the Desmina de VIl fashion line at New York Fashion Week on September 8, where I spill all the blood from my heartbreaks unto pieces of clothes. Maybe I can sell them for more than all the money you stole from me, fucker!

desminadevil.com