The Dating Game: Student competes for the love of a Maxim model on MTV’s new reality show

By Andrew Straub

For many students, August usually symbolizes the end of summer and a time to start preparing to head back to school.

This was not the case for Ryan Creighton, a senior business management major from Flemington, N.J. At the end of August, Creighton’s summer was just beginning to heat up.

Creighton was selected to fly out to Los Angeles and be a cast member on MTV’s new reality dating show, A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila, which airs next week.

This isn’t Creighton’s first MTV venture. Previously, he tried out for another dating show that never made it to the airwaves. But Creighton remained friends with a fellow contestant who had connections with casting agencies.

“I found a link on Facebook that one of my buddies, who I met from another pilot show on MTV, showed me,” said Creighton. “I filled the form out and started going through phone interviews, then I sent in a videotape and next thing I knew I was flying out to California.”

A Shot at Love centers upon 16 men and 16 women who compete with each other to win the affection of Maxim and Penthouse cover model Tila Tequila, who is bisexual.

The catch? Tequila’s sexual preference was not revealed to the male contestants until a few days into the filming of the show. This twist came as a complete shock to Creighton and his male competitors, he said.

“We were a few days into it and we had a pool party at the house,” he said. “Tila said that she had a surprise for us. All of a sudden, 16 girls walk out on the back patio and we were all just stunned. We had no idea what was going on.”

Creighton found the entire experience incredibly eye-opening. He affectionately describes Tequila as “crazy, like no woman I have ever encountered.”

It wasn’t only Tequila’s dynamic personality that threw Creighton off-guard. This was the first time he found himself competing for a woman’s affection against other women.

“The [women] on the show had a whole different set of emotions,” said Creighton. “They were aggressive and didn’t want anyone to have who they were going after, so they were protective of their boundaries.”

As the premiere of A Shot at Love approaches, Creighton’s friends are still “astonished” that they’ll be seeing him when they tune in.

“When they see the commercials run, they can’t believe it,” he said. “This show is the biggest TV show MTV has ever done. It’s a groundbreaking show.”

When he’s not vying for the attention of gorgeous bisexual cover girls, Creighton can be found on the Lawrenceville campus making full use of the SRC’s fitness center or playing intramural football and basketball. When looking back on his experiences with such a large, diverse cast of contestants, Creighton attributes his outgoing sociability to the relationships he built at college.

“Everyone is just very open with each other at Rider,” said Creighton. “The whole campus is almost like one big family, so you get to get close to a lot of people very quickly, and that’s what I had to do.”

Although he is contractually prohibited to give away too many inside secrets on A Shot at Love, Creighton can offer just one teaser.

“A lot of hooking up is going to be going on,” he said. “On my part, her part, everybody’s doing a lot of spit-swapping.”

A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila premieres Tuesday, Oct. 9, at 10 p.m. on MTV.