Jacqueline Trumbull and Arie Luyendyk Jr. don't seem to make sense as a couple in terms of their potential to make things work long-term, but they were simply compelled to keep dating each other on The Bachelor.
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"Even though I knew we were worlds apart and that our lives didn't mesh well, I just couldn't let her go," Arie wrote in his People blog.
"The romantic in me saw something more than just the obstacles we would face, I saw a woman with huge, beautiful brown eyes and so much depth. I needed to spend more time with her. Giving her that rose was such an easy decision. I just wanted her to feel confident, because I felt so much for her in that moment."
Arie is a 36-year-old pro racing driver who travels for races and also works as a real estate in Scottsdale, AZ. He confirmed in his blog his "life if pretty rooted" in Arizona, but Jacqueline is a 26-year-old research coordinator from West Virginia, who currently resides in New York, NY.
Prior to appearing on The Bachelor, Jacqueline worked for a psychiatry research lab in order to gain experience before getting a Ph.D. in clinical psychology.
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"My conversations with Jacqueline were real and deep. We spoke of our potential future and how incredibly different our lives were," Arie revealed.
"Going into this, I wanted to find someone with a similar lifestyle, and with Jacqueline I couldn't have found someone more different. She still wanted to complete six years of school without knowing where that would be."
For their one-on-one date in Paris, Arie and Jacqueline drove through the city streets in an old Triumph.
"I was really looking forward to the standard one-on-one after the stressful day before [on the two-on-one]. I really wanted to have a great day with Jacqueline, someone who I had been hoping to connect with for a while," Arie explained in his blog.
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"I know you haven't seen much of Jacqueline on the show, but that doesn't mean I didn't notice her. Jacqueline intrigued me early on, whether it was her feeding me aphrodisiacs by the fire or making me a personalized chocolate Rorschach test."
Arie admitted he "almost felt intimidated" by the bachelorette's "intellect."
"I knew she was smart, classy and beautiful, and I couldn't wait to build upon our solid foundation," Arie said.
"I arrived and picked up Jacqueline, and about 15 seconds into our date, the car decided it had other plans. After about an hour of me under the hood, we decided to abandon our car and do Paris via Uber!"
Arie said as annoying as it was to have his car break down, Jacqueline was a good sport about it.
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"It was amazing that Jacqueline rolled with the punches and laughed it off," he noted. "I was only slightly disappointed that we didn't get to roll around the Arc de Triumph with the top down. That would've been pretty incredible."
During the dinner portion of their date at Maxim's, the pair talked about literature and Jacqueline's "romance with the written word" and how her world related to it.
"Through the grapevine (the other women told me), I found out that Jacqueline really wanted to go to Maxim's, so I planned the date around surprising her with that," he said.
"She told me that it was known for its Art Nouveau collection and it was a place where novelists, artists, playwrights, painters and celebrities would socialize and drink scotch and smoke cigars."
Although viewers didn't see it, Arie shared that he and Jacqueline did partake in such traditions.
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About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski