My crush on the “Bachelor of the Year”

If my high school had been a John Hughes movie, Simple Minds would’ve boomed from the lockers as Ryan Chenevert walked by. Or maybe The Smiths. “Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want” seems appropriate.

He was the definition of what all the girls wanted. He had the looks, the personality, the football uniform. He even drove a Mustang.

Of course he did.

Shiny red.

Then there was me—tall, gangly, painfully shy, and worst of all, a freshman.

Of course I had a crush on Ryan.

Halfway through the year, the older girls on the dance team asked if I knew who he was. I panicked.

“Do they know I like him?” I thought. “Does he know, too?”

This was bad. I wondered if it was too late to start home schooling.

“Yeah, I think I’ve seen him around,” I said. Real smooth.
Yeah, right.

He was clueless to my secret, but he had seen me around campus and took a similar interest. Cue my happy dance and our first date to a friend’s party. I was shy and self-conscious. Older girls there shot cold stares my way. An already awkward date got worse.

We hung out some in the next few months and chatted on the phone and online, but our shaky relationship hit a final impassable wall with the help of a high school phenomenon just as clichéd as a first crush. A small clique of mean girls.

He asked someone else to prom, and I was heartbroken.

Years later we would catch up when we ran into to each other at parties and weddings. It was always fun, and things were far less awkward when we were friends than on that first date.

When the news broke that Cosmopolitan magazine was going to feature Ryan in a photo shoot and interview him as a finalist for “Bachelor of the Year,” I couldn’t help but think of high school, the Mustang and the John Hughes soundtracks in my head. Yep, my friend, my former crush, is perfect for this, I thought.

I congratulated him, and we met at a local yogurt shop to discuss the news. Apparently, a friend of Ryan’s from LSU Law School had submitted him to the contest. When Cosmo called Ryan, he thought it was a prank. At a Hamptons photo shoot, they posed him shirtless in a pool and in a Jeep.

“The photographer asked me to give a sultry look,” he told me. “I don’t even know what that means!”

The winner was announced on The Today Show and given $10,000. Guess who won?

It’s easy to see why. At 25, Ryan recently passed the bar exam and is clerking for a judge in Gonzales. He’s a great conversationalist with a good sense of humor and strong Christian values. Half of the stories and “tips” teased on Cosmo covers probably make him blush.

Recently, he told me that it was a great experience, but he was happy to be back home. All that attention was a little intimidating, he said. And no, he doesn’t think this means he’ll have a girlfriend soon.

Although I’ve kissed a few frogs since we dated, I thank Ryan for making me remember that there are good guys out there. Knowing this has helped me to wait for and appreciate the love and support of my personal nominee for “Bachelor of the Year,” my boyfriend. Sorry, girls, that’s a secret ballot.