What You Need to Know About the New Bachelor – Arie Luyendyk Jr.

If you’re like me, you woke up to approximately 30,000 phone notifications from friends and family and that one neighbor whose dog is always barking telling you that ABC announced the next Bachelor. I love you too, guys. If you’re like the majority of people I’m seeing on social media you were asking, “Who is Arie Luyendyk Jr. and why isn’t Peter the Bachelor?” Don’t worry, we are all in this together.

Here’s what you need to know about our next Bachelor.

He’s a grown-up with a real job

A post shared by Arie ? (@ariejr) on Oct 19, 2015 at 9:12am PDT

Let’s just get right to it, Arie Jr. was born in 1981. That’s an 8-1, as in he probably knows what it’s like to have an epic aol instant message flirt session get interrupted by his mom picking up the landline. He probably remembers turning on the TV guide channel and waiting 5 years for it to get past the pay per view channels he didn’t have to get back to the beginning. He’s a grown-up. Okay so he’s a 36 year-old semi-successful indy race car driver (his dad was a very successful indy race car driver) turned real estate agent in Scottsdale, but at least he’s not an aspiring social media influencer.

He was Runner-up on Emily Maynard’s Season

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Back in 2012 when hair was big and men wore bootcut jeans, The Bachelorette had it’s 8th season starring single mom Emily Maynard. Emily and Arie hit it off, but she sent him home heartbroken with a second place finish before the final rose ceremony. Emily found temporary love with her future ex-fiance, Jef Holm but Arie took the break-up hard. At the After the Final Rose special he admitted that he flew to Emily’s home in Charlotte post-breakup to win her back, but ended up just leaving his journal behind for her to read.

He was in the running before

A post shared by Arie ? (@ariejr) on Jul 27, 2015 at 12:32pm PDT

According to his former castmate Sean Lowe, Arie was going to be the 19th Bachelor. He had filmed introductory packages, told his family, and was ready to make the big public announcement when it was decided that Chris Soules would be the bachelor instead. At the time the producers thought it had been too long since he had been in the public eye. Arie was apparently very disappointed but this gave him plenty of time to let the gray grow in his hair, so we should all be thankful.

He can kiss

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Arie may be Dutch (and bilingual) but he kisses like the French. His penchant for holding Emily up against walls, thrusting his hands into her hair, and being overall sexy as hell is probably what he’s best known for from his season on The Bachelorette. More of that this season, please.

We have no idea what he looks like shirtless

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I’ve scoured the depths of the internet for a picture of Arie shirtless and have come up with next to nothing. At this point I’m fairly certain “next to nothing” is also an apt description for his abs. Are we going back to the days of bachelors with dad bod? Fingers crossed.

What do you think about our new Bachelor? Don’t lie and say you aren’t going to watch, you know you will. I’m excited! Let’s talk in the comments.

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