Carey Ahr, of Frederick, was 29 years old when Judd Apatow’s movie “The 40-Year-Old Virgin” came out in theaters.
“Eleven more years and they’ll make a movie out of me,” he thought to himself then.
“Instead it was six more years and they made a TV show,” he said Thursday.
Ahr, a 35-year-old mortgage analyst for Wells Fargo, will be featured on the TLC network’s one-hour special “Virgin Diaries” when it premieres Sunday at 9 p.m. The program offers a look into the lives of adult virgins who are either saving themselves for marriage or who are virgins by circumstance, like Ahr.
Ahr said he simply has never dated someone seriously enough to consider losing his virginity to them. He knows he could probably have done it by now, if he really wanted to, “but that’s not the type of person I am,” he said. He wants to have “a level of trust” with someone first.
Because he is not great at talking to women and has never gotten past a second date, getting to that level has yet to happen, he said.
“It’s not something I’m ashamed of, but it’s not something I’m particularly proud of either,” he said.
And it’s not something he usually tells people he doesn’t know well. But last December, he decided to post anonymously about his virginity on an online social forum. Over the summer, someone working on the TLC show found his post and contacted him, he said.
In four days of shooting in September, the show’s creators filmed him doing a lot of things, including telling his mother that he was a virgin.
“I ordinarily would never have told her that,” he said.
He was also filmed dining with friends at The Roast House Pub & Restaurant, trying to meet women at Bentz Street Sports Bar and going to the now-defunct Danielle’s restaurant for a blind date that he had set up specifically for the show, he said.
The show’s producers could not be reached for comment.
All in all, doing the show was a good experience for Ahr.
First off, he lost 30 pounds on what he calls the “holy crap diet,” which he started when he first realized that he was going to be on television. He also gained a new perspective on his own introverted personality by talking to shy women while shooting scenes for the show. That gave him a clue about what it must be like for women to talk to him, he said.
“I just have to be … more comfortable with being me,” he said. “Be me, but louder.”
But most of all, doing the show was enjoyable for Ahr because “I realized what a great group of friends I have,” he said. “They were all there to support me.”
Ahr’s friend of eight years, Josh Rhoderick, was one pillar in that support system.
Rhoderick did not know until a few years after meeting Ahr that he was a virgin, but said he was always open about it.
“He’s just a really open, honest person,” Rhoderick said.
Even so, when Rhoderick learned Ahr was participating in the show, he was surprised.
“I thought, ‘Wow, he’s really putting himself out there,'” he said.
“I don’t care if someone in Kansas or someone in California knows these details about me,” Ahr said Thursday. “I don’t know them.”
But he is a bit nervous about being recognized locally after the show airs.
“It’s out there now so I just have to get used to it,” he said.
While Ahr has been on only one second date, he hopes his appearance on the show could change that.
Being on the program “is like a perfect icebreaker,” Rhoderick said.
“I think I maybe could get a boost to my love life,” Ahr said.
He also hopes it will show other men like him that they are not alone, he said.
“I’m definitely not the only guy in this situation.”
