Getting candid.

As Bachelor Nation fans know, the most recent season of “The Bachelorette” is currently on pause.

As viewers wait to see what happens, the men from Season 22 have been appearing on the “Bachelor Happy Hour” podcast to exclusively discuss how they’re feeling and share more of their stories.

This week, Doug joined the podcast and opened up about constantly getting compared to Taylor Frankie Paul’s ex online. 

With regard to how it makes him feel, he said, “It’s interesting because our initials are similar, or the same. Me being Doug Mason and he is who he is. But you know it’s funny, it goes back to the same thing: I don’t know the guy. I only know what I’ve heard about him, which I don’t really love what I’ve heard. So I hate to be compared to somebody who has treated Taylor like that.”

Doug went on and revealed that he also dealt with the comparisons while on the show.

“I don’t know him. I can’t judge him. I just hope that people can see me for who I am,” he shared. “But other than that, it doesn’t really bother me. I’ve gotten past that. On the show, it got a little silly… It was not just the boys, it was the show in general. Just the whole, people would bring him up, I would be there thinking, ‘I’m right here.’ And then of course as we went on with the show, I expressed clearly [to Taylor] that there may or may not be some unfinished business.”

Without saying exactly what he told Taylor, the “Bachelorette” cast member expressed some of the concerns he shared and teased maybe meeting her ex one day. 

“It was just clear, I don’t know, maybe it’s because I’ve been in toxic relationships before and I think you start to sense, you start to get a little bit of information,” he said. “I never judged her when I went into it. I just took a lot of facts and I gave her the opportunity to kind of show me who she really is before I had these blanket statements. But as we went on, I started to recognize that maybe I was a little bit more willing to open up. More willing to express how I felt. Especially once we got further, and I kind of thought you know, somebody that is really ready for something in this situation may resemble the attributes that I’m expressing.”

“And so over time, I would… [go] over everything constantly. I’m turning the thing over, flipping that stone over a thousand times. But neither here nor there, her and I had a wonderful connection. But yeah, it doesn’t bother me that people compare me to him. Eventually you know, who’s to say, maybe we’ll meet.”

Doug also shared he felt like he had a target on him by getting compared to Taylor’s ex. 

“There was a point… where I felt that they were targeting me, yup. But not the guys,” he stated. “The guys, at the end of the day, we all were there to see what happens. So even if there were little, I don’t want to call it envy or jealousy because [everybody] had so much to offer. Those guys are my closest friends now. So we all had something great to offer Taylor. And to be honest with you, I’m pretty good at disarming… I moved around my whole life, so I’ve constantly locked in to people who don’t know me and they judge me. So I’m very used to that.” 

Hear the rest of Doug’s interview in the full episode of “Bachelor Happy Hour” below!