Pete Wicks on why TOWIE fame makes it hard for him to find a girlfriend
EXCLUSIVE: TOWIE hunk Pete says being in the limelight makes dating harder because everyone already has a perception of him
Pete Wicks has spilled all on why being famous actually makes it harder to find love.
The TOWIE hunk, 31, has signed up to the Celebs Go Dating agency once more.
He took part in the show last year, but is back again for another crack at finding lasting romance.
Only this time, things are a little different with stars dating over video calls and adhering to social-distancing rules in Celebs Go Virtual Dating.
During an exclusive chat with Mirror Online, Pete confessed that his time in the limelight has made finding 'the one' so much trickier.
Pete confessed that he's ready to settle down, but finding someone who doesn't already have misconceptions about him is increasingly difficult.
He told us: "I haven't got the best reputation so I doubt anyone wants to be with 'Pete Wicks from TOWIE', but I think people have a perception of what you're like and that's maybe not necessarily what you are like.
"People know different things about you and they presume that that's really what you're like and sometimes that isn't the full truth, it's just maybe what you allow people to believe or what people believe based on headlines.
"I think I'm very different in person to how people think I'm going to be. So you do have to negotiate around people assuming you're a certain way. It's like anything, I think people automatically judge people regardless.
"I'm really fortunate to be in the position I'm in, but I do think people have a very different opinion of me than what I am actually like.
"When people meet me they say I'm very different to what the public think I'm like."
Pete, who had a famous on-off relationship with his TOWIE co-star Megan McKenna, reckons he's "knocking on a bit" now that he's nearly 32, and says he's trying to keep up with the world of modern dating.
He said: "You've got to keep with the times so I'm trying to do the video dating and all that stuff but it's very difficult.
"The whole social landscape has changed and while I've always enjoyed going out and meeting people rather than talking over the internet and that sort of stuff, I'm a dinosaur so you have to keep up with the times and people in lockdown have been trying to date this way because things may not change as quickly as people want them to.
"But in a good way it means you'll probably develop more of an emotional connection with someone rather than just the physical. Don't get me wrong though, we all love the physical connection. You've got to have both."
MirrorCeleb