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"The last time we saw Ben Flajnik on our screens he had just proposed to Ashley Hebert on The Bachelorette, only to be turned down when she decided to pursue a relationship with JP Rosenbaum instead. Now the 29-year-old winemaker from Sonoma is hoping to find love again on the new season of The Bachelor, which premieres Monday, January 2 at 8/7c on ABC. Digital Spy joined reporters on a conference call with Ben today to talk about his experience as The Bachelor:  Did you find love? &amp;quot;I obviously can&amp;#039;t tell you that but I&amp;#039;m happy with my decision in doing the show. It was another good experience and cathartic, therapeutic adventure for me.&amp;quot; Are you happy with the outcome? &amp;quot;I can&amp;#039;t tell you that. I&amp;#039;m happy with the experience and that I decided to become The Bachelor.&amp;quot; How were you feeling on that first night? &amp;quot;Normally I&amp;#039;m very cool, calm and collected, but when that first limo pulled up it was sheer panic and terror that set in. It took the first few ladies and meeting them for me to settle in. My heart was racing and it was nerve-wracking on both sides.&amp;quot; What makes you different from other Bachelors? &amp;quot;I keep it pretty real, I&amp;#039;m pretty honest and open, at times maybe a bit too open, I suppose. I have a good time with this too. I take it seriously but in the moments where I&amp;#039;m having fun, I&amp;#039;m having fun and goofing around and kind of a jokester. Unfortunately I haven&amp;#039;t watched many of the other seasons so I don&amp;#039;t know all that much about them apart from what producers have told me in the past, but it should be a fun season.&amp;quot; Among your bachelorettes is a &amp;quot;sprite senior citizen&amp;quot;. What can you tell us about her? &amp;quot;Drop dead gorgeous. A beautiful, stunning older woman... I wasn&amp;#039;t sure what to make of it. She was there the first night. I won&amp;#039;t go into too much detail but she is there for a specific reason.&amp;quot;  A lot of the women seem to be in the medical industry. Did you have any input into the types of jobs they had? &amp;quot;It wasn&amp;#039;t so much the jobs they had but I&amp;#039;d asked for a professional woman. A working woman, someone experienced and worldly. Those are things that I find very valuable in a relationship.&amp;quot; What qualities were you looking for in the women and did that change as the journey continued? &amp;quot;No, I kind of stuck to my guns in what I was looking for. It&amp;#039;s important for me to be with someone who is well-rounded, cultured and flexible, not someone who is so used to routine. My life is very sporadic, being in the wine industry no two days are the same.&amp;quot; How much weight did you put on how the women interacted with each other when choosing who would stay and go? &amp;quot;I think that women are very different around each other in big groups than they are with me, and in any case if there was something I thought was pressing or so serious I would address it, and if it was something that continued to be an issue that person probably wasn&amp;#039;t going to be around much longer. I felt I did a pretty good job of that and handling myself.&amp;quot;  What was it like being in control this time around? &amp;quot;The control thing is interesting because what I tried to do from the first night was be an equal, be on that level, not be on the high horse or pretend I was in control. I wanted to stress to the women that I was going to be open and honest and if they had questions to come to me because I&amp;#039;d been in their shoes before and hopefully we&amp;#039;d all get through this all together.&amp;quot; We all saw what happened with Ashley on The Bachelorette. After going through this experience do you understand how it can be possible to fall in love with more than one person? &amp;quot;Yeah, I do. Obviously trying to figure out a lot of things along the way, and it&amp;#039;s a difficult situation. This was easily the hardest thing I&amp;#039;ve had to do in my entire life. The hours are long and you&amp;#039;re always thinking about the relationships you have, each individual relationship and where it&amp;#039;s going and where it&amp;#039;s not going, so it&amp;#039;s difficult.&amp;quot; After your proposal experience on The Bachelorette did you go into this feeling hesitant about possibility proposing again if the occasion arose? &amp;quot;I don&amp;#039;t know if I was hesitant. I said to production before I went on that I&amp;#039;m not going on this show to propose. If it so happens that I meet someone who strikes that chord and I see myself with then there&amp;#039;s a strong possibility [I will propose]... I was still open to it going into the experience.&amp;quot;  How did you convince yourself that this process would work when the odds are against you, as we just saw with Ali and Roberto breaking up? &amp;quot;I don&amp;#039;t know Roberto and Ali personally and it&amp;#039;s hard because relationships end whether you&amp;#039;re on a TV show or not. I think you have to look at the big pool of people and this is a very small number and unfortunately some haven&amp;#039;t worked out, some have. There are some celebrated relationships from the show. And I&amp;#039;m an opportunist and optimist. I feel you can find someone in any way, shape or form. It doesn&amp;#039;t matter if it&amp;#039;s on a TV show or an airplane or at a restaurant, it comes in many forms.&amp;quot; We see you showing your bare backside in one of the promos. How did that happen? &amp;quot;Here&amp;#039;s the thing, when a beautiful woman asks you to go skinny dipping on a beach you don&amp;#039;t say no! I think every guy would be crazy not to. Granted, there are cameras around and I realize that, but a bare butt isn&amp;#039;t the end of the world or that big a deal for me.&amp;quot; Are you nervous or excited about watching the whole experience play out on TV? &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m not nervous about it, I feel good about the way I conducted myself and handled myself. Obviously it was difficult at times but all in all it was another good experience.&amp;quot; The Bachelor returns Monday, January 2 at 8/7c on ABC &amp;gt; The Bachelor: Ben Flajnik&amp;#039;s 25 bachelorettes revealed &amp;gt; The Bachelor Ben Flajnik: &amp;#039;I&amp;#039;m ready to find love again&amp;#039; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/ustv/interviews/a356021/bachelor-ben-flajnik-qa-this-is-the-hardest-thing-ive-ever-done/>