Vita.mn's most eligible bachelor: Big Ben

"I tried to be a hipster, but I wasn't very good at it."

Ben Shardlow chuckles a little at his own quip, but the sentiment behind it is pretty convincing. Shuffling his sensibly shoed feet, which dangle from the hems of a pair of blue jeans he "probably bought at Macy's," the proud winner of Vita.mn's Most Eligible Bachelor title is noticeably different from his fellow semifinalists.

We're sharing an ottoman at Soundbar, surrounded by Most Eligible Bachelor runners-up sporting trendy belts and man-danas. Ben, 27, is patiently waiting for his photo shoot to end. The face he makes as stylists fuss over his tousled, product-free hair reminds me of my 5-year-old nephew enduring a face-washing from his mom. The photographer asks Ben to adjust his gray pullover hoodie, and he politely obliges with a sideways smile and another wisecrack I can't quite hear.

Coy, fidgety, wholesome, boy-next-door. After 10 minutes of knowing Ben, I'd already jotted down a few reference words in my notebook. But there's more to the guy you can't wait to bring home to meet your parents.

First, there are his parents. Ben attributes a love for global cities to his father's career as an urban planner, and a love for words to his mother's career teaching English. When pressed about the latter, Ben says being able to express yourself verbally is important. "I've always been friends with people who can make you laugh just by how they turn a phrase. I love it when someone knows how to tell a story."

Ben can tell a story, too. He's fiercely creative, with an entrepreneurial spirit to match his constant flow of ideas. If he's not busy working as a real estate developer, running a marathon or playing with his 4-year-old bluetick coonhound Harper (named after novelist Harper Lee), Ben is probably capturing a song or story on paper.

The ideas seem to flow out of him as fast as he can verbalize them. Over one drink at Martini Blu, I hear excited plans of a punk a cappella group, a play about the Gadsden Purchase, a solo singing enterprise and a face-to-face social networking project for his neighborhood. Can he do it all? Ben admits he has "way more ideas than time," but his track record -- which includes organizing a campus-wide win-a-date contest for his best friend in college, complete with evening-wear competition -- suggests his ideas are much more about follow-through than fantasy.

"What I need to reconcile is my interest in meeting interesting women and avoiding the sitcom-y, relationships-as-entertainment thing," he says. "I don't believe in keeping things light for its own sake. It's just that getting seriously emotionally involved is a big deal, so the trick is the balance between light and heavy."

So what kind of girl is Ben looking for? "She has to have something big going for her," he says, "goals, projects." Music is also important, and Ben appreciates all kinds. On weekends you can find him at his favorite local venue, the Turf Club. Scan the crowd for the 6-foot-3 David Duchovny lookalike with an easy confidence that sets him apart from the flock of inked-up, Parliament-puffing guys that typically lurk there.

A date with Ben might involve a pint of Grain Belt, a passport, or both. "I'd definitely fly to New York or Chicago for a date if inspiration struck," he says. "I'm looking for a girl who'd have a good time in Havana or Hibbing."

That's our boy next door.