Blake's arrival on Katie's season of The Bachelorette promises many things — the OG contestants being mad at this newcomer, a Say Anything boombox moment, Blake's lick lipping, etc. And from the previews, Katie seems happy (arguably suspiciously happy) to see him. So how well did Katie and Blake know each other before The Bachelorette? Is this a case of mutual friends, social media DMs, or something more?

Katie Thurston is from Renton, Wash., near Seattle, which isn't too far away from the border of Blake Moynes's homeland of Canada. But he's from Ontario, and if you're not up on your Canadian geography, that's a cool couple thousand miles away from Seattle. So it's not like these two bumped into each other somewhere in the Pacific Northwest pre-Bachelor fame. Instead, it seems it's a tale as old as social media since Katie made it seem to Us Weekly that Blake had reached out to her after she was eliminated from Matt James's season.

"We had chatted before, but usually what happens is, like, the guys will reach out to the women once they're eliminated and be like, 'Good luck, you did great.' Like very generic, you know?" Katie said. "And so to see him, I was like, 'Why is he here? What's happening?'"

Katie was being cagey in the Us Weekly interview, not even committing to the fact that Blake is there to win her heart. ("I mean, we have to see if that's even why he's there," she said.) But from the promos, it looks like Katie will not only accept Blake to join the contestants unlike what happened to Heather in Matt's season (sorry, Heather!), but that he might do fairly well since, in this photo, it looks like they're on a one-on-one date.

Nick Viall confirmed Katie's side of the story on Us Weekly's Here for the Right Reasons podcast. Nick's more than familiar with being a late arrival on a season of The Bachelorette (back with Kaitlyn Bristowe) and receiving the ire of the other men. "It sounds like there was some dialogue between Katie and Blake. I don't think it was to the degree that it was with Kaitlyn and I," Nick said. "But I do think Blake will go far."

Katie clearly can't say how far Blake will go. But she did admit on Barstool's Chicks in the Office podcast that she did a little digging into Blake before he came onto her season. "I will say, coming off my season with Matt, people were really shipping [Blake] and I before. So I was a little familiar with who he was and his background," Katie said. When host Francesca Mariano mentioned Katie Instagram stalking Blake to "see what he's all about," Katie simply laughed. That's not a denial! And with his cat-related thirst traps, why wouldn't she have taken a look?

Officially, Katie and Blake don't follow one another on Instagram and they haven't appeared to like any of each other's combined 227 posts. (Yes, I looked at all of Blake's posts (99) and Katie's posts (128) to review because I'm thorough like that.) Blake doesn't appear to be on TikTok where Katie has nearly 350,000 followers.

Blake does follow her on Twitter, but she doesn't follow him back — which isn't all that eyebrow-raising considering she's the current Bachelorette and is a bit more popular on social media due to her leading status. They did have one, and only one, public Twitter exchange in January when Matt's season of The Bachelor was airing. Ahead of Week 3's group date where the contestants had to write erotic fiction inspired by Chris Harrison's romance novel, Katie tweeted, "Mom, if there is an episode to skip, please let it be this one." Blake replied, "I know this feeling Katie, I know this feeling..." Katie liked his tweet.

As for Blake, he's been known to DM before... after all, he messaged Clare Crawley before appearing on her season. And he confirmed to Chicks in the Office in February that he's a bit of a serial DMer when it comes to Bachelor Nation. "I've slid into DMs, but like not in the way you would think," he said. "Once you get into the Bachelor Nation world, it's kind of like, everyone's on the same side, everyone shoots the shit." Whatever you say, Blake.

He also told Chicks in the Office how there were many women he found attractive on Matt's season of The Bachelor... but he didn't name any specific person (cough cough Katie). But! He did give an unprompted shoutout to Katie when talking about his openness when discussing sex. "I like what Katie's about on Matt's season because she's just very open."

Now, a person Blake was friends with before being a part of Bach Nation is none other than Kelley Flanagan. She caught some flak during Peter Weber's season of The Bachelor for having a run-in with him at a hotel before joining the show. (She ended up dating Peter after his season was over.) As both Kelley and Blake made clear in the comments on this Instagram post (beware some potential Reality Steve spoilers if you dive into the comments yourself), they are "pre 'journey' buds."

As the Blake and Kelley connection makes clear, it's a small world. But Bachelor Nation makes the dating world for its members even smaller. So if Blake wants his third chance at love on national TV with a person he found intriguing on Matt's season of The Bachelor (and apparently, with his "ex" Tayshia's blessing), then so be it! Sure, he may have an advantage over some of the guys because Katie may be familiar with him, but it's not like a DM exchange makes them intimate acquaintances. With that said though, as fans have seen many many times before, a little DM can still cause a whole lot of drama.

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Images: ABC, Craig Sjodin/ABC, Blake Moynes/Instagram