‘The Bachelor’ Season 27 Lead Revealed

The Bachelor has chosen its next leading man. Zach Shallcross, who found a connection with Bachelorette Rachel Recchia on the most recent season of The Bachelorette was officially named the next Bachelor during Tuesday’s After the Final Rose special, even coming face-to-face with some of the women who will be pursuing him in the upcoming 27th season of the ABC show. 

Shallcross, 26, and Recchia, also 26, made it all the way to overnight dates before their split after the tech executive felt like he saw a different side to the Bachelorette and thought Recchia questioned his readiness for an engagement at his age. “I’ve taken the lessons I’ve learned and want to apply it for myself and find my person now,” Shallcross told PEOPLE of his split from Recchia. “Heartbreak is never fun, but it didn’t deter me. And I’m ready to go again.”

“There’s really two main things that I look for and first is how kind and compassionate they are. I think that’s something that’s pretty rare nowadays,” Shallcross continued of the kind of woman he was looking to find on his season. “The other thing is having someone that loves to do fun, adventurous stuff with me, whether it’s traveling, trying cool food.”

Starring as the Bachelor, Shallcross hopes audiences see a bit more of his “fun, goofy” side than they did on The Bachelorette. “I like to think I am a romantic, but it’s not all serious with me,” he insisted. “I like to have a good time.” That romantic side really came out during his relationship with Recchia. “One of the biggest lessons I learned was I’m a guy that typically wears his heart on his sleeve,” he said. “If you can show your emotions and not be scared about it, I really think that’s an important attribute, but in my case, I think I fell in love really hard and really fast and I didn’t necessarily take a step back and look at the entire situation from her perspective.”

The new ABC leading man said he doesn’t have any regrets about how things ended with Recchia as he continues to search for a partner in marriage. “My take on that is when you know, you know,” he said. “I don’t think that there’s anything where there’s an age limit on when you decide you want to fall in love and get married. if you are ready and you feel well equipped with yourself, you love yourself, you trust yourself and you want to share that with someone else, it doesn’t matter how old you are.”