Cocky Dublin man Aaron meets his match in fitness model on First Dates Ireland

Aaron (33) says his checklist for a partner is “obviously, good looks like” and has his dream girl in mind: blonde hair, curvy and small.

“Being rejected or anything like that, that does not phase me in the slightest – probably because it’s such a rarity as well,” he laugh, confessing that some people might call him “shallow” for his confidence.

“Girls might think that like, ‘he loves himself, he’s a d**khead’ and all this… which sometimes I am but I would be completely a gentleman when it comes to being in a relationship.”

Aaron is “shell shocked” when he is sent on a date with Limerick lady Judy (31) – a fitness model and Miss Bikini Ireland 2014 – in this week’s episode of First Dates.

Arriving at the restaurant “confident and cocky as hell,” Aaron is hit with the unexpected when he sets eyes on glamorous Judy.

“F**k,” he later says, admitting he wasn’t expecting “someone in Ireland” to be prettier than him.

And the Dubliner “wasn’t always this pretty,” he admits, revealing he used weigh 23 stone before discovering his love of fitness.

The “independent” blonde bombshell is looking for somebody she can “build a little empire” with, though she thinks she is sometimes “too intimidating” for men.

Aaron is set with the challenge of impressing his date just hours before she jets off to the US to represent Ireland in fitness modelling.

Judy is preparing to achieve her “goal” of competing on the world stage when she arrives for her date.

“So I’ll go out in a ball-gown and then I’ll go out in a bikini,” she explains, revealing she has taken heat for her job from “feminists” in the past – especially after becoming the Miss Bikini Ireland queen in 2014.

“I was in the papers and promoting myself in a bikini.

“Feminists were saying that I was exploiting women… but if you go into fitness modelling then people can’t say you’re exploiting women because you’re showing off a physique that you worked hard for.”

The blind-date show put the pair together, but it is up to them whether sparks fly in this week’s episode on RTÉ 2.

Other daters arriving at the restaurant next week include a student nurse, a musician and a make-up artist as they hope to follow in the footsteps of past First Dates love stories.

Happy couple Carla Maria and James Gerard ‘Shez’ Sherry found each other on the show over two years ago – and are planning on walking down the aisle this November.

Restaurant maître d’ Mateo Saina and waitress Alice Marr will be attending the ceremony, credited as the people in the room when the First Daters romance bloomed. They are the first married couple to emerge from the show, though waiter Pete Ungless has also walked down the aisle recently.

He married Tallaght nurse Megan McHugh last September after matching on Tinder before the pandemic.​

First Dates Ireland continues on RTÉ 2 this Thursday at 9.30pm.