Erin Harper didn’t find true love on reality TV. But the dating show contestant can’t say she left it a sopping tearful mess, either.

After only two episodes on ABC’s “The Bachelor: London Calling,” the former North Bend resident departed the reality TV dating show with a laugh — her humor and pride still intact.

“As crazy as it sounds, I, like the rest of the world, watch these shows and see these girls crying and heartbroken, and it’s as entertaining and as humorous to me as it is to anybody,” said Harper, 25. “I went into it thinking, what if I’m that girl? You just never know.”

Anyway, Harper said, if she had left in tears, it would have meant she’d had one heck of a time.

“Stranger things have happened than falling in love on television,” Harper said.

The event coordinator, who now lives in the Seattle area, said she’s never been a huge fan of “The Bachelor” or reality programs in general, so joining the “Bachelor” cast was somewhat of lark. In fact, she didn’t even go to a general casting call for the show. Instead, she auditioned for VH-1’s “Rock of Love 2,” with Bret Michaels, the front man of 1980s hair-band Poison, when a girlfriend begged her to come with her to the tryouts. Harper got cast but her friend didn’t, so she backed out.

But Harper’s reality show adventures didn’t end there. Last fall, somehow, representatives for “The Bachelor” got her information and asked her to fly to Los Angeles for an audition.

“It kind of fell into my lap,” Harper said, laughing.

Even then, the brunette said she didn’t care if she fell for the bachelor or not — she just went into it with an open mind.

“With great risk comes great reward,” Harper said, explaining that joining the show was a step out of her comfort zone. “My goal was really to just have fun. I didn’t really have expectations for the show.”

The first time she met Matt Grant, a 27-year-old investment banker from London and the show’s featured bachelor, Harper hugged him and then flashed a diamond ring on her left hand.

“Just in case you are wondering what this is,” Harper said coyly, wiggling her hand. “It’s a placeholder, just until you put the real thing on.”

“I like that. I like that a lot,” he replied, before greeting the next contestant.

But during the short week she spent at the Malibu mansion with Grant and the 24 other bachelorettes who vied for his attention by singing, arm wrestling, stuffing lingerie in his back pocket and behaving badly, Harper said she never felt a real connection with the Brit. She blamed this same lack of chemistry on why she didn’t get a rose at the end of the second episode.

“When I met Matt — I didn’t have butterflies, I didn’t think he was the one. But there were other girls who were clearly just smitten with him,” Harper said, adding she’s not the type of woman to chase after a man. “For me, I kind of felt like I was more than happy to go home and give the girls who did see that as an option to pursue that. I was laughing when I left.”

On the show, women who don’t receive a rose from the bachelor by the end of an episode are asked to go home.

Even in such a pressure cooker of a dating scene, where some contestants are looking for love and others a chance at fame, Harper said she believes it is possible to find love, whether or not it’s being broadcast in front of a national audience.

“If they find love in the process, I guess it’s a small price to pay for some women,” Harper said.

Now that she’s off the show and her episode has been aired, Harper can freely speak about what happened during her short stint on “The Bachelor.” But up until a few weeks ago, she had to keep the entire business to herself. Only her mother knew she’d been on the show. These days, Harper gets recognized while out on the town.

“People will have a few cocktails and will have the nerve to ask,” she said. “I think it’s just hysterical.”

Prior to her moving to Washington as a teenager, Harper spent her childhood in North Bend, where she attended Bangor Elementary School, North Bend Junior High and North Bend High School until she was 16. She said she identifies North Bend as her home town, but loves living in bigger cities. She spent about three years living in Seattle and Las Vegas, where she started up her own business, Erin Harper Models Inc.

“I kind of have glitter in my veins. I was just ready to ... take on the big city,” said Harper, who is working on writing a comedic memoir of her life and misadventures in Las Vegas.

Childhood friend Junia Caley, who has known Harper since they were both in the first grade, said she wasn’t terribly surprised to learn of Harper’s foray into reality TV.

“I was excited for her. Erin is always up for a challenge or an adventure,” Caley, 24, said. “I thought she was hilarious, I thought she was totally herself.

“I was sad when she left but I knew it was for the right reasons.”

Despite her friend’s willingness to push her own limits, Caley said she doesn’t think Harper is the type of person who needs to find love in a reality show.

In an exit interview on the show’s Web site, Harper seemed to agree.

“I saw. I might not have conquered but, you know what? There was nothing here that I wanted to conquer.”