We all experience guilty pleasures we go to great lengths to hide from the rest of the world.

Starting with the present and going back in time, a few of mine:

• Google-imaging “Hellen Mirren” and “bikini queen.” Let me know when you get back from that one. OK, you’re back? Oh, you’re welcome. Really, it was nothing. Glad you enjoyed it. Please, stop thanking me. Enough.

• Regularly reading “Weekly World News,” enticed by headlines such as “Super Earth Found With Super Humans,” and “Facebook Will End On March 15, 2012.”

• Not changing the radio dial when a Neil Diamond song comes on. I never purchased any of his music, but did once play a song on a jukebox.

• Watching “All My Children” for a good portion of the 1980s. Hey, the Jerry Springer Show didn’t start until 1991, what did you want me to watch?

• Following professional wrestling in the early ’70s, developing a genuine hatred for Bulldog Brower and a deep admiration for Johnny Powers. In time, I outgrew the desire to jump into the ring to act out predetermined outcomes.

Lawrence resident Tyler Cook, a personable, articulate young man from Oberlin and a graduate of Johnson County Community College and Kansas University (Journalism/strategic communications), never has stopped dreaming that dream. He has tasted it, but hasn’t achieved the goal of swallowing it whole.

Cook has been wrestling under his own name as a “baby face,” the pro wrestling term for a good guy. The bad guys are heels. Cook is the reigning NWA Kansas champion. He wrestles Friday at Turner Rec Center in Kansas City, Kan., as part of Metro Pro Wrestling’s next show, which starts at 7:30 p.m. If Cook’s lucky, he’ll earn $50, more likely about $30. But that’s better than having to pay for TV time. New episodes air every Saturday at 11 p.m. on Time Warner Cable Metro Sports.

The air time is a nice fringe benefit, but that’s not why Cook puts his body at risk and travels as far as St. Louis and Des Moines, Iowa, for shows. A broken tailbone and another painful back injury didn’t make him find a safer hobby. So why does he do it?

“I have a pure love for it,” he said. “And I hope to go onto something bigger.”

For now, he pays bills working full-time as a marketer and online merchandiser for Ringside, a fight-sports company in Lenexa.

His career dream hasn’t changed since the Saturday mornings he dressed as a ring hero, painted his face and jumped too many times onto his parents’ couch.

“Professional wrestlers seem larger than life and I guess I’m kind of obsessed with chasing that feeling,” Cook said. “I love the heroism of it and the athleticism. The good vs. evil story that we tell, capturing the crowd, capturing the emotions.”

He doesn’t care who can’t relate. It’s his dream. He’s not interested in sharing it.