I have a confession to make. Now this is just between you and me, okay? I am absolutely in love with Russell, the 30 year old IT consultant/writer who was tossed from The Bachelorette series. Given the fact that I've experienced every situation and date along with Trista, the bachelorette, and of course, the American viewing public, I believe I have every right to feel what used to be a delicate personal emotion, based upon a couple of episodes of edited 60 minute action.

You're thinking this is all pretty foolish, right? How could I possibly fall in love with a man I don't really know? What about the new genre of love, reality television style? Is it anymore sane to think that a person can find true love within 50 men or women plucked from their normal lives by the hands of money hungry television producers?

Reality television has done for love what fast food chains did for the square meal. It has re-shaped, re-structured, and simplified the process in order to sell a quick-fix version of the real thing. But like that two-minute burger that just isn't as plump or juicy as that which has been slowly marinated and cooked over the coals, much will be lost in quality with a love found in six episodes.

Reality television and shows like The Bachelor, its "I'm going to pay back the scum that dumped me" sister show The Bachelorette, and Joe Millionaire are here to stay. They're cheap to produce, there's no million-dollar face by means of already famous talent to pay for, and of course, they're wildly popular.

The problem here, these reality shows have nothing to do with love, as the sacred emotion is used only as a guise for what lies at the real heart of the men and women who vie for a chance at being on these shows. It's hard not to think, as a message eliciting suitors for the next series flashes upon the screen, just what would a stint on a show like this mean to my life and my career?

In the United States the hierarchy of those who've reached the pinnacle of celebrity and those of us ordinary Joe's or Jane's once seemed a steep journey. Reality TV changes all of this. America's fascination with this type of television entertainment stems from the ability to propel that everyday nobody to instant stardom. No climb needed. Just call the network and let them know you want a chance to find love Hollywood-style.

Those of us not living the life of glitz and glamour have long harbored a secret resentment, a relentless envy for those who belong to the Hollywood elite. Reality TV is our payback; it's our revenge for having been blessed with a life of normalcy. Now it's our turn in the spotlight, and we don't even have to bust our butts waiting tables or memorizing lines to get there.

So what's the real prize that comes at the end of the new millennium's answer to The Dating Game? Yes, on the surface it looks to be love, but the only true prize is that of fame. If finding love by way of unconventional means is what you're looking for, why not try the on-line dating websites that provide a plethora of prime for the picking women and men. Sure there's no prize money to be had for finding love, but supposedly the same goes for the television shows. The only outwardly different variable between the two forums is the fact that finding love in the on-line dating world is not going to get your name in lights. It will not land you stints on talk shows. Katie Couric will not ask you how it feels to have been booted off the show, and skits will not be fashioned after your dating antics on Saturday Night Live. But that stuff doesn't matter anyway, right? You're in it for the love after all.

Who can blame viewers for being sucked into wanting to have their chance to take part in one of these shows? The phenomenon has hypnotized six-figure Wall Street analysts, grocery clerks in Lawrence, Kansas, and everyone in between. We can't get enough of watching Evan Marriott of Joe Millionaire hot-tubbing with a bowl full of beauties, or Trista from The Bachelorette whining about the hardship of having to eliminate one after another of these men. As the Nielsen ratings skyrocket, so does the addiction we feel in keeping a voyeuristic eye glued to the television for the next phase of the elimination process.

Since the debut of MTV's The Real World in 1992, reality television has infiltrated the veins of the boob tube-watching populace like a wide-sweeping plague. It's fed off our curiosity and our innate need for sensationalized gossip. And what has it taught us of love? In the world of reality television, love can be had for the price of a new ruby necklace or a single red rose. It can be had for fooling the bachelor or bachelorette into thinking you're the catch of the day. How hard is it to keep up the nice guy/girl charade for a matter of six weeks, after all?

It's not so much the concept of reality TV that I have a problem with, it's the fact that Americans are eating this stuff up by the bushel, all the while unaware of what they're being fed. We find ourselves tuning in so that we can find out whether Trista will find the man she's going to marry, or Evan will find the one girl of the bunch that isn't in it for the money. We just want this normal everyday Jane and Joe to find their one true love and live happily ever after. At least that's what the marketing moguls for the networks have tricked us into believing.

Author Clive Barnes proclaimed television to be "the first truly democratic culture, the first culture available to everybody and entirely governed by what the people want. The most terrifying thing is what people do want." And what is it that we want? Is it the search for love that has us all hanging at the edge of our seats waiting for the next chapter to unfold, or is it our wanton desire for secret observation and peering into the lives of those we don't know? inlineAd(alRight);

Maybe it's something much simpler in the fact that the people who today act out "real" situations upon our television screens, were just yesterday living out our lives of normalcy. We could easily be tomorrow, where they are today. It's therefore not so irrational for me to engage in transference, to imagine myself upon the screen in place of Trista, Evan or any of the contestants.