A Bachelor's Diary: Why say yes to maybe

Chilling at my family cabin in Northern Quebec Canada, life was calm as I regrouped from my last adventure. This past one, a crazy two months in France and Italy found me searching for a new job in the yacht world. It was a great experience...... that was all consuming and tiring. At my cabin however, the world moves slow, which was exactly what I needed. I was unplugged from it all, hanging out with my pops and trading stories by the fireplace. Me with newly acquired ones and him with old ones I've heard a thousand times before but willing to hear again. Chopping wood, building things and doing woodsy guy-type stuff, it was everything I needed to slow the blood and reconnect with my Canadian-ness after a Euro overload of too much bread, cheese and the wrong kind of football.

After a while being MIA from the "internets" I decided it was probably time to check in and see what was going on in the online world. Can't be having everyone forget about me after all. Besides, if a model chops wood in the forest but doesn't Instagram it, did it even happen?

No. 

The answer is clearly no.

Chopping wood? Just let me go get my new white dress shirt

 “Use my phone, just be careful about not going over on data.” my dad foreshadowed. So, of course as soon as I logged in, the phone exploded with beeping and notifications, each laughing at my dad's data limit. It went off like Trump on a lie detector. It beeped like Snoop dog going through airport security. It was beeping so much that I worried it was having a stroke.....so naturally I did what anyone would do in that situation: I laid the phone on it's side, smushed an Aspirin into the mouth piece and told it to remain calm as I waited for the its blood pressure to return to normal.

I took first aid. This is all standard procedure.
Obvs.

Anyways, it was then that I saw this message, in one form or another, over and over and over.

“DUDE YOU'RE ON THE BACHELORETTE!?!?!?!”

Ohhhh ya. That. 

Goodbye calmness of cabin, hello social media sh*t storm.

My secret had been revealed. A secret I had been holding in my back pocket for the last 8 months. One I had put on the back burner while in Europe and that I had mostly stopped thinking about.... but now that was over and it was public. A secret no more.

This just in:

I am now "Kevin P" one of too many bachelors on The Bachelorette Canada

Yup. That happened.
So break out the snacks, put your feet up by the fire place and grab a seat besides my pops, because......it's story time. 

It all started back in December when a good friend of mine called me up and said:

"Hey Kev, I'm working with the Bachelorette Canada and I thought you might be a good bachelor. Interested?"

Now I know this isn't a normal thing to have happen to most.... but my life seems to attract randomness so I've become oddly 

                     Comfortable in chaos

But to this idea however, my first reaction wasn't great.

Nope

"No this is not for me. I'm not your dude. I don't really watch reality TV and I'm probably not the kind of guy you would want." I told her. And that was that. Story done. 

That time I was almost on The Bachelorette....

Juuuuuust kidding. Don't get up just yet.

Weeks later she came back to me, this time pressing it and wanting to know more about why I wasn't interested. "Well, don't they want the opposite of me? Some guy with a good career, who y'know.....owns things and has stuff? Someone with a number in front of all the zero's in their bank account? Someone who wants a white picket fence and a shiny car? Shouldn't you be looking for a firefighter or a doctor or something?"

To which she replied "But that's why we think you're perfect for this. You're different from the other guys. You have an interesting story to tell!"

Playing to my vanity. Well done friend. 

Well done.

So, this went on back and forth for a while with me not knowing what to do until one day I finally asked a good friend for her opinion. 

Should I do this?

Her response?
"Why are you saying no? You like adventure. THIS is adventure! You want to push yourself and do new things. THIS is all that!"
"What's the issue?"

What's the issue?! How about: How would they portray me? Would I make an ass of myself on national television? Would I forever be known as that guy on that show? 

I had valid reasons to be wary of something like this. I don't want to be painted as someone other than me. I want to be known for who I am. I don't want to look like a jerk and be forever remembered for it. There's no end to the list of those dudes.

I could see arguments for both sides though. Part of me was really interested and excited at the idea but what if it was a mistake I would regret later on? Was I misreading this?

You don't want to be that guy who misreads a situation....like, for example: when you offer someone gum and they don't take it.

Trust me bro, take the gum.

So yes, I know I sound a bit gun shy, focussing on what could go wrong....
But I've been talked into mistakes before.

Do runway they said....

    

So forgive me if I'm a wee bit hesitant.

But for all the reservations and soul crushing runway outfits aside, the more I thought about my friends advice, the more I realized that maybe she was right. Why was I pushing this opportunity away? I've said before that one of my biggest fears is that I won's seize the opportunities my life gives me.... and yet here was this opportunity sitting

                                                                             RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME

Just waiting for me to see it. Sure, I wanted this to be on my own terms and had my doubts but the truth is you can't control everything. So are you going to turn down opportunities just because you can't control every angle?
It's important to  See things for what they are and not just what you want them to be
Yes, it's a TV show for ratings and they might portray me in a way that I don't like. That's a possibility. Yes, I very well could totally embarrass myself (if there's dancing, this is an absolute certainty) but who am I kidding? There's a ton of embarrassing stuff that Google could find on me anyways so what difference does it make? At what point do you have to laugh at it all and let go of your desire for perfection? 

Because it just doesn't exist.



So just let go already

And as for being remembered as that guy from that show? Well, maybe the people who don't know me may remember me that way.... but for anyone who does know me (the people I actually care about) they know that this will be just another chapter in my already improbably weird life so far. 

Just another story for the cabin if you will;)

How's that popcorn treating ya btw?

Putting all my own personal fears aside, I took a real look at it: Travel the world, crazy adventure..... and maybe even......find love?
Now the first two are easy yes's... but that third one... love. Well that's mucho más complicado mi amigo. It's like Inception: I really like it....but I'm totally lost.

Love is and has always been hard for me. I've never been great at opening up to fully let someone in. The mall cop security guard that protects my heart shaped box has been a bit too strict on the old guest list.

But this situation was bringing to light something that I've already been needing to face.
              The real adventure IS love

It's not just where you go and what you do, it's who you do it with.
So what about love then? Well there's no certainties there either but if ever there was a time to let go and go for it, isn't it in the search for love? Isn't that what this whole thing is about?
Who knows...... Maybe she'll like me, maybe she won't. Maybe it will just be as simple as making a new friend? Or maybe the improbable will happen and we'll actually hit it off? Maybe we'll even fall in love together? 

......or maybe I'll get dumped on national TV and it will hurt like the day after Burning Man.

But either way, isn't it worth it to try? 

My travels have taught me a lot about life but more than anything I've learned that this whole thing isn't worth much if it isn't shared..... and I know now more than ever that I want to share my life with someone. For a long time I wasn't so sure about that, wasn't even sure if I deserved it but I've been Han Solo for long enough to know that I need more to move forward. To keep growing. I've done life on my own. I've proved I can do that. But I don't want to live that way anymore.

Be strong enough to do it on your own, be stronger in knowing you don't have to.

I'm at a point in my life where I want to take care of someone. I want to know everything about each other. I want to let her in to see me for who I am. I want to build each other into the best versions of who we can be. To be stronger together and take on the world as we push ourselves into the unknown. Off into adventure.


Co-pilots of our own journey.

I know..... there was a lot of feels in that last paragraph. 

But it all comes out sooner or later and the truth is, 

I'm a romantic at heart.

Just don't you tell anyone alright meow?

The point of all this is there are always countless reasons not to do something. Ways in which your perfectly laid plans of how this is all supposed to work out could come crashing down but realistically it's not going to work out the way you planned anyways.

There's a lot of maybe's in life.... but doesn't it make more sense to look at what could maybe go right instead of always looking at what might maybe go wrong?

Because the truth is...

Better things happen when you say yes than when you say no. 

So look past the safety net of saying no and potential perceived failures and

Hurry up and make the decision that your life is going to be awesome. 

No matter what turns you find down the road. Because it's the only life you get.

As for me, I have a path to walk in my life and it's damn sure going to be one that follow's my possibilities and not my fears. One that sees maybe as a good thing and not a reason to say no. And maybe, just maybe I'll find someone to walk that path with me......and that would be really great. 

In fact, you could say...

That would be roses;)

So I'm looking forward to this next adventure and I'm excited that you will get to experience it with me my friends. If you still own a TV that is.
If not, you can catch me here because I'll be writing about it. 

See you in September:)

Long story long; 

The end.

               

My dad:

 "So what you're saying is that you went over on my data?"