Meet Mike Manning, 22, from Thornton Colorado. He got on the show after his friend invited him to lunch, plus a Real World audition on some random Saturday. “He said, ‘Do you want to audition for Real World with me?’ And I said ‘uh, yeah, okay.’ I hadn’t planned this out, I hadn’t picked the show…”

Mike felt like he clicked with the producers, to the displeasure of his buddy. “He was staring me down as he was walking out.”

MTV describes Mike as “the typical jock,” “a star athlete, prom king, popular with all the girls” and an “all around golden child from a Christian family.”  So, naturally, you can see where this is going.

“Mike realized several years ago that, for him, love knows no gender. He dates guys and girls…” according to MTV.

So why was his friend left out in the cold, while Mike got the invite to Dupont Circle? “I think they had an idea of the kind of people that they wanted to have come to D.C., and I think that I had done a lot of community service and I’m more driven. But, at the same time, I know how to have a good time.”

And, as has been reported before, Mike interned at the Human Rights Campaign while in D.C. Other cast members also mentioned to me that, of all the roommates, he seems to be the one most likely to return to Washington later.

Photo credit: Kyle Gustafson / www.photokyle.com.