ORONO – Think you’re hot stuff?

John Jacques of Skowhegan may just have you beat.

Jacques, a 20-year-old University of Maine junior, will be the state’s entrant in Cosmopolitan magazine’s 50 Hottest Bachelors feature.

The November issue doesn’t hit newsstands until Oct. 16, but from now through midnight Thursday, readers will have a chance to vote for a finalist online at www.cosmopolitan.com. From that group, editors will choose the winner of the $10,000 prize.

For the contest, female readers nominate single friends, co-workers or relatives. Jacques, a mechanical engineering major, was nominated by his roommate’s girlfriend, Meghan Bartlett.

“I was a little surprised at first,” Jacques said Monday. “I kind of got entered as a joke.”

But what started as a whim turned into reality. Editors contacted him recently and asked dozens of questions about his likes and dislikes. For the record, he likes all sports – soccer in particular – as well as hiking, fishing, rafting and going to the gym. “Pretty much all the stuff a normal college student does.”

As for his taste in women?

“I like an easygoing girl who likes to have fun, someone who is fairly active, in sports and in life,” he said.

In the November issue of the magazine, each of the 50 entrants will reveal what makes him unique, his top turn-ons and the female behavior he finds baffling. Readers will be able to contact their favorite bachelors directly by e-mail.

“At Cosmo, there’s nothing we love more than a group of superhotties with personalities to match,” Kate White, Cosmopolitan’s editor-in-chief, said in a statement. “This year’s bachelors definitely fit that bill, and I predict that once the word gets out about these guys, they won’t stay single for long.”

Jacques’ friends at the University of Maine are doing their best to spread the word. When he first found out he was a contender, he was a little embarrassed. But he’s coming around to the idea of being Maine’s most eligible bachelor.

“Everyone else says it’s awesome,” he said. “I’m starting to get a little more comfortable with it.”