Guess What? Carly & Evan Almost Met Before 'BiP'

Evan and Carly are the dark horse love story of Bachelor in Paradise Season 3. Against all odds and ambulances, ankle maladies and terrible blood draws, sweat lodges and naked paintings, Evan and Carly came out on the other side — in love. However, this was not always the case. Need I remind you about all the aforementioned "odds" they were against? Carly certainly made her hesitations clear. Though, in the end, I think they'd tell you everything worked out the way it should have. Including the time that the two almost met each other in real life, pre-Bachelor in Paradise.

What? A couple from the Bachelor franchise actually, one that appears to be genuinely in love with each other, could have met before they were subject to the wrath of Chad and the heat of an undisclosed Mexico beach? What kind of unrequited kismet is this? The kind that remains unrequited for a reason. Because, had these two met in real life before Bachelor in Paradise, who's to say what could have happened. Would Carly Waddell ever spent time with Evan Bass in that hospital? Would she have ever realized that Evan might be the one for her?

Evan and Carly recently talked all things Paradise on Bustle's Bachelor inspired podcast, Will You Accept This Podcast? Evan confessed that he once had the opportunity to approach Carly at a bar. Before he was on his season of The Bachelorette, and long before they fell in love on BiP.

If you do recall, both Evan and Carly are from Nashville. In fact, they used to live "minutes away from each other." This helped them after Paradise. (It sounds like it was easier for them to maintain a normal relationship because neither party had to uproot their life to make things work.) But before Paradise, it once put Evan in weird position.

"There's one time when I knew I was going to be on the show [The Bachelorette] and we were at this bar in Nashville," Evan recalled, thinking back to a time where he was out with a friend in his home city. According to Evan, his friend pointed out, "Oh, there's a girl from The Bachelor." That girl was Carly. Evan wondered at that point if he should say something, but he ended up not approaching her.

In retrospect, Carly's "glad [he] didn't." Since everything unfolded in their favor, and as Carly once said, "They all lived happily Evan after," you can't really blame her for that.