Farmer Wants a Wife: Why John and Claire Won’t ‘Put Pressure’ on an Engagement After She Was ‘Surprised’ to Be His Pick (Exclusive)

Farmer John Sansone doesn’t want a wife… just yet.

In the season 3 finale of Farmer Wants a Wife, fans saw Claire accept John’s proposal — to continue their relationship. As they get to know each other off camera (which they say has consisted of “a lot of nights in” and “a lot of movies”), the pair tells PEOPLE that they have no plans of rushing into an engagement.

“That’s a massive thing of pressure that we were dealing with throughout the whole show, and we wanted to just take this time after the show to go through this without any pressure whatsoever,” John, 25, explains. “That’s just what we’re doing. We’re just going day by day, seeing how it goes. I think that’s the best way to do it because if we start putting all this pressure and timelines and stuff on our relationship, it’s just bound for trouble.”

Still, on the last day, Claire says she wasn’t sure that she would be John’s ultimate pick, so she prepared herself for any outcome.

“I was going to put on my best smile because I love Lily so much,” she notes of the runner-up, who she still considers a close friend. “I knew if he picked Lily it would be a great choice. But no, I had no idea. [I was] pleasantly surprised.”

When it came down to his final two, John says he made his decision based on his gut feeling.

“I don’t think there was a specific moment in general, but towards the end, Claire and Lily and I were able to spend a lot more time together offscreen,” he reveals. “Because we all had this kind of understanding with the wranglers at the time that we weren’t going to talk about anything important and vital for the show, so we were very just casual in how we would hang out. We’d go on sunset drives in the Polaris and stuff, and go down to the creek. I ended up finding myself more just drawn to Claire and just being able to get along with her in a very casual sense.”

“So I feel like it built some sort of a friendship, which I think is a great foundation for a relationship,” he concludes.

Farmer Wants a Wife is now streaming on Hulu.