Nikki Gibson knows the fans are lined up around the corner.
The 44-year-old describes herself as an average, professional, single woman. So why would ABC’s “The Bachelor” star Jason Mesnick of Kirkland even notice her?
He may never look her way, she says. He may end up marrying Molly Malaney, whom he declared his love for on Monday’s final episode. But Gibson believes if you are presented with a chance to do something that could change your life for the better, “you should take that chance,” she says.
That’s why the true Mesnick fan recently contacted the Kirkland Reporter.
She had moved to the Eastside from California, where she was a regional marketing director for a motivational speaker. Thumbing through local newspapers to find a new job, she paused when she picked up a recent issue (Jan. 14) of the Reporter and saw a story about Mesnick.
“This is going to sound completely insane,” the Sammamish resident wrote to the Reporter. Her request? For the Reporter to pass on her name and e-mail address to Mesnick, in the event his relationship does not work out with his new love.
“I would never disrespect him or his future wife by trying to contact him personally,” Gibson said during a phone interview. “They have a lot ahead of them and they can’t have someone show up at the door as a crazed fan or visit a restaurant they frequent just to meet him. They need to have their space.”
But Mesnick and fianceé already “have the odds against them,” she said, adding statistics have proven that televised courtships usually don’t last. So while the new couple has a go at their relationship, she will wait.
Gibson has watched every season of “The Bachelor,” but connected with Mesnick last season, when he was rejected by contestant Deanna Pappas.
“I just think Jason seems to be a down-to-earth, sincerely nice guy,” she said, noting that she could read the sincerity in his eyes every time he had to let another bachelorette go this season. “I love the way he puts his son first and respects his ex-wife and son’s relationship.”
For her marketing job, Gibson has traveled throughout the country and along the way has been looking for her true love. She has also tried dating sites, which she believes are no different than going on a TV show to find love.
“What’s the difference between meeting 12 people on a dating site, dating show or at the post office,” she said. “It doesn’t matter how you meet, it matters how you carry yourself when you’re doing it.”
So the newspaper route seemed as good an option as any for her, she said.
If it doesn’t work out between the new couple, she would tell Mesnick to not give up.
“I would tell him there’s different routes and ways. I would tell him to continue to have dreams and hopes and want to be in a relationship,” she said. “And I would love the opportunity to meet him if that were the case.”
But if Mesnick makes it with Malaney, Gibson said she wishes him and his “lucky lady” all the happiness.
“And if Jason has a single brother who looks a lot like him, let me know,” she laughed.
For more news and information on Kirkland’s Jason Mesnick from ABC’s TV series The Bachelor, check back with the Kirkland Reporter and Kirkland Weblog.