Gerry Turner Says the Women on The Golden Bachelor Got Along Except One 'Insignificant Incident' (Exclusive)

Golden Bachelor Gerry Turner admits it didn’t take too much convincing from his daughters and granddaughters to sign up for the show.

“When they sent me a text about it, I had seen the ads throughout the show. In the back of my mind, I thought, ‘That would be quite an experience. That would be a lot of fun,’” Turner, 72, tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue. “So when they really hit me up hard with it one night, they didn't have to push as hard as what they maybe thought. It was a back-and-forth in my head before I decided to actually fill out a questionnaire online, but I'm certainly glad I did.”

On Thursday, Turner will take the lead as the first-ever Golden Bachelor, looking for love after the unexpected death of his wife and high school sweetheart Toni.

“She'd worked her whole life, getting to that spot where she deserved her time in retirement and her time of fun, and she got cheated out of it,” Turner laments. “That was the thing that always bothered me.”

Turner sold the lake house where he planned to retire with his wife and sought grief counseling, which he calls a “life-changer.”

“About three years in, I wasn't sure I was on track. I wasn't sure I was mending properly,” says the retired restaurateur. “I remember having two sessions with the counselor, and he goes, ‘You're fine. You just got to give yourself credit for being OK.’ I changed my mind about counseling during that time. That is something I would recommend to anyone who's had loss, that just doesn't feel like they're getting over it quickly enough or in a healthy way.”

The Illinois resident has tried dating since Toni’s death, but without any success, he resigned himself to being alone.

“One failure led to another for a variety of reasons,” he says. “It was actually about three and a half or four years, I just finally realized that, ‘OK, I'm happy with myself. If I am going to be alone, I can deal with it.’”

Eventually, Turner became “more optimistic” and “more positive” about dating to the point that he figured he’d give searching for love on TV a chance.

“I never felt uncomfortable in front of the cameras,” the reality TV newcomer says. “In delivering the speeches and doing the things that I was given to do, for some reason, those things just didn't bother me at all because I was so much more preoccupied about learning the women and the nuances that each of them brought to the table.”

That enthusiasm made Turner’s first night — which, between the limo arrivals and first rose ceremony, typically stretches into the AM hours — as the Golden Bachelor a breeze.

“But it was literally like Christmas morning,” Turner says. “Every package [that] gets opened is better than the previous. At 7:30 the next morning, I was still wide awake and still wired that the producers told me and almost literally took me by the arm and said I had to leave. I can't tell you how much fun I had in those nine hours.”

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Turner kept his eyes on the prize the whole time, trying to figure out who he could actually see a future with.

“There were very specific characteristics that I was looking for,” he says. “I met some of the women and recognized they were beautiful and gracious and intelligent, but they weren't the right woman for me. I had to find the right person.”

According to Turner, the women vying for his heart developed friendships with each other and, for the most part, didn’t partake in the drama that usually plagues the suitors on The Bachelor and The Bachelorette.

“In general, they were very supportive of each other,” Turner says. “To the best of my knowledge, there was only one minor and almost insignificant incident. It was remarkably problem free. It was literally after the first or second rose ceremony that they made a comment that they've already made plans for an annual reunion.”

While The Golden Bachelor might not have as much drama as its franchise counterparts, Bachelor Nation will recognize one familiar trope from the series: the lead falling in love with more than one person.

“I headed towards the end, I was really in conflict about several of the women,” Turner teases. “As very specific events occurred, it really helped me gain clarity on what I wanted to do.”

Turner can’t say how his season wrapped up, but when asked if he’d describe himself as happy right now, he simply says, “I am. Yes.”

Turner acknowledges, “There's still an awful lot of unknown in the next phase. I don't know where I'm going and what's going to happen That would be a great question to ask me retrospectively in six or eight months.”

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The Golden Bachelor premieres Thursday at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.