That Trista’s suitors arrived on-set with crushes firmly in place adds to the credibility factor, which is not to say that the boys aren’t, you know, nuts (one aspiring groom turned down a contract to play professional basketball in Germany for the “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” to be chosen by Trista). But at least they appear to be nuts in the old-fashioned sense: obsessive, delusional, given to flights of imagination tinged with undercurrents of barely suppressed rage at the mere thought of being rejected. After all, they’ve been watching Trista. And they’ve been waiting. And they’ve been telling their friends — while watching her get rejected by Michel in favor of the slightly less inhibited and considerably more pneumatic Amanda Mash — “I’m going to date that girl someday.”

Could it happen in the real world? No. But it could happen on “The Real World,” or some genetic variant thereof. And anyway, “You can meet a husband through any process,” Trista murmurs sweetly to the show’s host when he asks her if she finds the situation in any way strange. Plus, this particular process fits nicely with the age-old maternal exhortation to “shop around” before settling down. Our bachelorette is now strolling around the man supermarket, a one-stop shop stocked exclusively with Trista-approved merchandise.

You almost get the sense the network is trying to make it up to her. “We’re hoping that you find the man of your dreams,” host Chris Harrison assures her during an introductory heart-to-heart talk. “And to that end, we have selected 25 fantastic men with your specific tastes in mind. You’re going to meet all kinds of guys. We have a couple of pilots, several firemen, a few pro athletes — including a bull rider! — and even a breast-implant salesman.”

“Really?” Trista intones with a saucy smile. A breast-implant salesman! O brave new world that has such people in it!

The role-reversing concept of “The Bachelorette” had its share of detractors when it was first announced. But seeing Trista in the driver’s seat (of a bumper car on a closed course, sure, but at least she gets to turn the steering wheel) it’s impossible not to bask in her Fahrvergnügen. Unlike on “The Bachelor,” in which two dozen self-centered beauties were removed from their natural habitats and placed in a holding tank with a bevy of other “popular girls,” Trista is free to sit back, relax and bat her eyelashes. As an added bonus, this bachelorette gets to shed tears of pity and compassion — not humiliation and despair — as she ruthlessly eliminates her suitors for not measuring up to her ideal.

After watching the girls line up for the chance to win the hardened little heart nuggets of an Ivy League MBA, a banker and a would-be millionaire developer on “The Bachelor,” “The Bachelor II” and “Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire?” it’s nice to see a woman whose romantic dreams have remained unsullied by adulthood. As Fox has perversely and brilliantly set out to prove, meanwhile, those who look for love in televised places aren’t looking, exactly, for love. On “Joe Millionaire,” one girl will outclaw, outscratch, outbitch the competition for a chance at Evan Marriott, a $19,000-a-year construction worker and former underwear model who has been sold to the aspiring future dowagers as the hot heir to a $50 million fortune. Only after Evan has selected a mate will she be told the truth about his tax returns. Will love survive?

Trista’s earnestness and apparent lack of guile actually add to the viewing experience. She likes firemen. They ride around in big red trucks. You might see why creator Mike Fleiss was, as he recently told Newsweek, “sort of dragging my feet on this one … but the network wanted to silence some of our feminist critics, and rightfully so … It’s much better than I thought it was going to be.” Actually, the new format seems to have restored television mating to the natural order of things — the natural order being, of course, high school.

The WB’s “High School Reunion” gets this, and gets that nothing forges future sexual hang-ups and romantic dysfunction like high school. “High School Reunion” takes a selection of classmates from Oak Park (Ill.) High School’s class of 1992 and offers, in lieu of punch, streamers and thinly disguised pissing contests, two weeks of psychosexual torture in a mansion on scenic Maui.

“High School Reunion” is reminiscent of the first “Temptation Island,” in which a paradisiacal setting provided the backdrop for extreme psychological torment. Each member of the class is identified by their high school persona, distilled to its barest, most visceral essence. Among them are the Popular Girl, the Player, the Bully, the Nerd, the Flirt and the Misfit. As you may have already surmised, the Nerd has nursed a 10-year crush on the Popular Girl, and the Tall Girl seems to have developed a borderline-psychotic fixation on the Player. In fact, Oak Park’s Class of ’92 seems to have had a particularly hard time letting go.

The Tall Girl, in particular, seems entirely convinced that the object of her obsession will propose to her before the second week is out. The potential for damage is higher than ever. And as we are learning, damage is what it’s all about. For regular people (or, at least, for people as regular as reality-show participants can ever be), the hurt still seems to come as a surprise, as a recent spate of lawsuits filed against reality shows has demonstrated.

There are those among us, though, for whom humiliation is a way of life. And who speaks for the has-beens?

Well, the WB does. The show is called “The Surreal Life,” and it gives people who will never reclaim their glory days (or day), and yet will never enjoy the comforts of anonymity again, the chance to move in together for an experiment in on-camera living.

What does it take to go on “The Surreal Life”? The first and most painful step is admitting you’re a has-been. 1980s teen idol turned rehab habitué Corey Feldman, early ’90s rap star turned laughingstock bankruptcy case MC Hammer, tragic child star turned tragic has-been child star Emmanuel Lewis, and Vince Neil from Mötley Crüe bunk together (literally, bunk — there are bunk beds in three bedrooms for the seven inhabitants to share) in Glen Campbell’s former residence, which is going for Warhol-cool, but ends up at Chuck E. Cheese. As the tag line goes, “When the rich and famous fall from sight, this is where they’ll crash.”

Perhaps the saddest member of the cast — not quite famous-for-no-reason, but just missing tragic fallen icon status — is former “Beverly Hills 90210″ cast member Gabrielle Carteris, who admits rather sheepishly that not a lot of people remember she was on “90210″ and mentions her husband and two kids no fewer than three times in the first five minutes. But compared to the has-beens, the never-weres have it easy. Sharing digs with Hammer, et al., are Jerri from “Survivor” and Playboy model-turned-”Baywatch” babe Brande Roderick. Hardly a vertiginous tumble between them.

The first episode, which premiered Sunday and was repeated Thursday night, is rife with heart-tugging moments. Feldman calls his fiancée to ask if she’ll marry him on the show, to which she hesitantly agrees, and which the other inhabitants find troubling. Corey’s emotional stability, which he vouches for repeatedly at the start of the show, is perhaps not the unshakable bedrock he claims it is.

In another scene, the guests are treated to a sushi dinner, attractively laid out on the body of a naked girl who must lie very still on a table. It’s a rare surprising moment for any reality show. Three of the men — Hammer, Lewis and Feldman — leave the table in a huff. For reasons ranging from Christianity to vegetarianism to monogamy (Feldman will not eat sushi off the body of a naked girl unless his fiancée is present) the three wind up going inside and ordering a pizza. Gabrielle Carteris tucks in to the toro with gusto and a somewhat glazed expression.

What sets “The Surreal Life” apart from “The Real World” and “Big Brother,” its spiritual precursors, is that the title doesn’t describe the temporary living arrangement and contrived situation so much as it nails the inhabitants’ entire post-fame existence. And it’s something. The word I am searching for, I believe, is “bathos.”

The actress says she was shocked and appalled never to have heard back from the singer — and has apparently spent many long hours trying to figure out where it all went wrong.

“She could have written me or called me,” she points out, concluding, somewhat bitterly, that Morissette “must have just lumped me in with her fans.”

Then again, “Maybe she thought I was a stalker or that I have violent tendencies,” Silverstone wonders. “I certainly hope not. I was just trying to show my appreciation.”

But now she’s ready to show the musician something else.

“When I see her,” Silverstone warns, “I am going to give her a hard time.”

Watch out, Alanis … jagged little pill headed your way.

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Kids say the darnedest things

“I’ve had 5-year-old girls come up to me repeating lines from the film I can only hope they don’t actually understand.”

– Verne Troyer, who plays Mini-Me in the Austin Powers flicks, sharing fears that he’s been party to the poisoning of American mini-minds, in the Calgary Sun.

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The boob tube

Anna Nicole Smith, naked?

It’s nothing the world hasn’t seen before, but whether the world is ready to see it on the zaftig widow’s new “reality” TV show is something the suits at E! are not too sure about.

Racy shots of Smith in various states of undress — skinny-dipping, for instance — are reportedly already in the can, but in the interest of good taste, they may never make it onto the tube.

“She’s very open, very uncensored in her real life,” executive producer Jeff Shore tells the New York Post.

However, he cautions, “It’s not just a question of: If she flashes us it’ll go into the show. I wish it were that simple.”

I bet he does.

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Ground control to major bummer

“I don’t think we, as a species, actually evolve at all. I think we’re as cruel and as awful as we were 10,000 years ago.”

– David Bowie disputing the theory of evolution, in the Toronto Sun.

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Juicy bits

More quality television is headed your way: ABC, in its infinite wisdom, has seen fit to sic a six-part, behind-the-scenes special on the making of “The Bachelor,” that curiously controversial reality dating show. The host? Original bachelor Alex Michel, of course. It’s airing in August, which sounds like a great time to take a vacation from your TV.

“Dumb and Dumber” … and now dumbest? New Line Cinema is putting together a prequel to lowbrow laff-fest “Dumb and Dumber.” According to Variety, the new movie will focus on the characters during their wacky high school years and will not feature either Jim Carrey or Jeff Daniels, both of whom starred in the original flick. Well, that seems fittingly dumb.

Not a good week for Britney Spears — and her father’s not helping matters much. According to the New Orleans Times-Picayune, four teenagers who visited Jamie Spears at the house Britney grew up in — in which he now, having separated from Britney’s mother, lives alone — in hopes of having a brush with fame and maybe getting a signed poster out of the deal, were not exactly greeted warmly by Mr. Spears. Instead, he unleashed a pack of snarling dogs on them and brandished a shiny revolver in their direction. “I had never seen a gun pulled in anger before,” one of the girls told the paper. “And I never thought that if it happened to me it would be Britney Spears’ dad.” Indeed.

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Miss something? Read yesterday’s Nothing Personal.

“I have to admit I stole this groaner from another author,” King says of the decidedly tasteless jar story.

The Scottish reporter “looked appropriately shocked” by the tall tale, which King says amused him greatly.

But in recent years, as his self-initiated rumor has taken on a life of its own, the author has become decidedly less amused.

“Since then, every few months, an interviewer asks me about my little boy’s heart preserved in a jar” he says. “For the record, there are no preserved body parts in the King household.”

Then how does he keep them from rotting?

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Hair today, gone tomorrow

“Someone told me that you have to regularly massage your scalp [to keep from going bald], so I do that all the time. You look like a jerk but it’s got to be worth a shot, right?”

– Jon Bon Jovi on how to stay ahead of hair loss, in the U.K. Sunday Mirror.

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Kissing a few more rumors goodbye

And while we’re on rumor patrol, Enrique Iglesias would also like to debunk one: He and Anna Kournikova are not — I repeat, NOT — dating.

But it’s not for lack of interest on his part.

“I wish!” he tells the British Mail on Sunday.

The singer says he came to appreciate the Russian tennis babe while working with her on the video for his single “Escape.”

“She’s crazy, but in a cool way,” he says, somewhat bafflingly.

Iglesias himself claims to be baffled by tabloid reports that there were pucker problems on the set.

“I heard rumors that I would not kiss her because she had a cold sore,” he says, “but that’s not true.”

And if it is true, they’ve apparently managed to kiss and make up.

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Juicy bits

Rev up the multicolor bus: It’s apparently time for “The Partridge Family,” the next generation. David Cassidy’s 15-year-old daughter, Katie Cassidy, has recorded a hip-hop version of her dad’s trademark single, “I Think I Love You.” USA Today reports that the single will be released by Artemis Records in June. I think I never liked that song much in the first place.

It had to happen sometime, but who knew it would happen so fast? The producers of the surprise hit reality TV show “The Bachelor” are putting the call out for their next milquetoast victim. If you think you have what it takes to be the next Alex Michel, you can call 866-739-3150 or go onto ABC.com’s Web site. But I warn you, we’ll all point and laugh.

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Miss something? Read yesterday’s Nothing Personal.

And Kingston disagrees with those of you who think pity is more in order than fury.

“These people aren’t stupid. They’ve seen ‘Survivor’ and they want an agent and they want a chat show,” she says. “It makes me so mad. That girl is just a hooker who didn’t put out.”

Of course, that’s rather big talk from someone who makes a living playing doctor.

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The doctor is out?

“There’s something nice about 10 years in my head. It’s a nice round number.”

– Kingston’s fellow “ER” star Noah Wyle on his intention to leave the show in two years, after spending a solid decade as Dr. Carter, in TV Guide.

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Slay this

And speaking of star opinions of reality TV shows …

Sarah Michelle Gellar has yet to share her opinion of “The Bachelor,” but the “Buffy” star is none too impressed with “Fear Factor.”

“$25 million would not make me go on ‘Fear Factor,’” she tells Movieline magazine. “You couldn’t pay me enough to eat a pig rectum.”

Then again, there are certain other things she thinks she might do for money.

Like pose nude for “Playboy.”

“Right now I can’t [picture posing], but I don’t believe in saying never,” she says. “There might be a time when I got pregnant and felt really beautiful and wanted to have a nude picture.”

Just don’t ask her to pose nude and pregnant while eating a pig rectum.

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But he never ate a pig rectum

“To quote our president, ‘When I was young and crazy, I was young and crazy.’”

– Rob Lowe on his young and crazy crazy-youngness, on Biography.

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Juicy bits

Here’s hoping Jewel is better at recuperating than she is at writing poetry. The pop singer/poet broke her collarbone and a rib and got bumped and bruised when she was thrown from a horse at her boyfriend’s Texas ranch on Wednesday, her record company has told the Associated Press. “Nothing was life-threatening,” Atlantic Records co-president Ron Shapiro said. “But she is badly hurt.” Jewel is expected to recover enough to go on her U.S. tour in June. And I’m sure she’ll manage to milk some tormented verse out of the accident, too.

I’m not sure exactly what it takes to get pulled over for reckless driving in New York, the diagonal-driving capital of the world, but D’Angelo apparently managed to do it. According to the New York Post, the neo-soul singer-songwriter got stopped for driving hazardously this week while cruising FDR Drive in his BMW SUV and was subsequently charged with driving with a suspended Virginia driver’s license. Maybe he should take the soul train next time.

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Miss something? Read yesterday’s Nothing Personal.

Already, the genre includes titles like “Otherwise Engaged,” “See Jane Date,” “Amanda’s Wedding,” “Animal Husbandry” (the one made into “Someone Like You” starring Ashley Judd) and “Getting Over It,” to name just a few. So popular, in fact, is this Wacky Career Girl Finds Love formula that Harlequin has just launched Red Dress Ink, a whole line of wedding porn intended to bring us “stories that reflect the lifestyles of today’s urban, single women” that show “life as it is, with a strong touch of humor, hipness, and energy.” See also: Zany, sickeningly sweet fun with a big diamond on top.

Reflecting its indisputable ability to march to the leaden beat of mainstream America, ABC offers us TV’s version of wedding porn, “The Bachelor,” in which a dull but ultimately supernice fella navigates his own neuroticism to choose between 25 fluffy females in order to find his wife. It’s “Who Wants to Marry a Multimillionaire” but without the harsh game-show format and the tacky participants. Alex went to Harvard, we’re reminded 50 or 60 times per show. Alex is a sweet guy. Alex wants a woman to spend the rest of his life with. Alex has been pre-selected for his ability to live up to the fantasy of kind, pretty, hollowed-out provider.

The real question is, what’s his motivation, or theirs? Why do the fluffy girls of “The Bachelor” and the bland heroes of wedding porn long for Egyptian cotton bath towels more than hot sex? Unlike Bridget, the lead character in wedding porn never recklessly indulges her sexual impulses — no way! Having a normal sexual appetite would make her unlikable. While even recently canceled “Ally McBeal” sweats and fantasizes in her own disturbing Skeletor way, wedding porn takes all the dirtiness out of romance. Each scenario is meant to get our hearts (but not our parts) fluttering. This isn’t about sex, it’s about shopping. For men. Maybe, just maybe, there’s some passing reference to a nice butt, but the comment is made from a great distance, like the appreciative but almost clinical observations of a mother in her mid-60s who considers herself out of the game. Instead, we’re supposed to get hot over the fact that Prince Charming has his own posh bachelor pad, that he buys fresh flowers and nice dinners, that he’s earnest and doe-eyed. “Sweetness” is the Holy Grail, the ultimate turn-on. Can this man fuck his way out of a paper bag? Maybe not, but he recycles!

We meet our heroine at a low point in her man-seeking life — not a Dostoevski low, mind you, but a “Darn it, my hair is being so weird today, and why can’t Mr. Everything ride in on a white horse already?” low. Her media job is so hectic and nutty, her friends are so hectic and nutty and she’s so adorably scattered and sweetly disheveled. She’s our own private idle ‘ho (as played by Meg Ryan): deliciously flawed, sneezing cutely and wrinkling her nose over cheese (she’s lactose-intolerant, get it?), and she’s come to make the world safe for uptight, mediocre yuppies like herself! She’s spunky, not gloomy. After all, readers don’t need to get more depressed than is necessary to set up the elation of finding true love in the final chapter. We don’t ask, “Will she throw herself into the river?” but rather, “Is she really gonna have to eat that whole hot fudge brownie sundae all by herself?” Aw, look. She’s got hot fudge on her cute little button nose! Poor peanut.

Does she need a swarthy pirate to wipe that fudge away? No, sir. She needs a hand-holder, a chirpy little professional boy who’ll tell her that, in this light, her eyes look as blue as the waves that lap the beaches at Club Med Belize.

The wedding porn genre applies the Madonna-Whore complex to men: If he’s sultry and charismatic, he’s dangerous, not a man you’d want to marry. But if he’s soft and harmless and borderline-laughable? Yes! Tag that wildebeest and track him until he’s lost his will to run, and his will to live, and is therefore ready to be propped up at assorted couples’ brunches and holiday dinners, presented to the world as the slightly deadened but hopelessly devoted provider.

Sure, our female lead always has her madcap career in either magazines, publishing or TV, but it’s nothing that can’t be forsaken at the drop of a hat for a chance to pursue true love. The career is merely a subplot: Our heroine is already fairly successful, but there’s an undercurrent of sentiment that her life will never be complete without a man. Plenty of women go through stages of feeling this way in spite of their best intentions, but there’s some Final Resting Place feel to the prize these characters are chasing. “I’m so tired,” they tell us. “Tired of my zany job, tired of chasing flat male characters without getting laid.” Their real message to each and every man they meet is, “Get me a ring and plant me in your penthouse.”

It’s not hard to see why our hopelessly neurotic heroines dream of sitting in the sun like a ficus all day long: They long for a final escape from their own self-defeating, circular thoughts. Driven by ego and self-doubt, they share an unquenchable desire to be “chosen,” once and for all. They imagine a glassy post-wedding reality in which all naysaying voices and stabs of rejection or defeat are erased from the picture, replaced by glazed-over, hazy warmth from the unconditional love of Mr. Nice & Safe.

The challenge comes in trying to locate something real beneath the hollow, faceless fantasy of the ring, the fantasy of being chosen by somebody, anybody. As the back cover of “Animal Husbandry” puts it: “Commitment: Every woman wants it. Men can’t even spell it.” But what does it mean to want “a commitment” in the general sense, without having any idea of the person you might be committing to? And shouldn’t the things that you want from someone depend, at least in part, on what that particular person has to offer? If you fall in love with an unemployed house painter who makes you laugh, wouldn’t you adjust your expectations slightly and take him for what he has to offer while providing for yourself in the areas that he might not provide? In the language of wedding porn, there’s an unspoken expectation that a man will squeeze comfortably into a preset role: handsome, sweet, neutered wage earner. He works hard so you don’t have to.

The pretty contestants on “The Bachelor” reflect their desire for a faceless hero repeatedly. One particularly deluded contestant, Rhonda, performs a face-plant on a bed, lamenting the fact that she and Alex are perfect for each other. Sure, she met him two days ago, but she can just tell! “I wish we had met in different circumstances!” she cries, sounding about as realistic as a drunk at a topless bar who’s convinced that each dancer on stage is hot for him. Rhonda’s post-dismissal interview is cut short by a panic attack, but in the other interviews, each woman tearily repeats the unending search for that special anyone, reassuring herself out loud that “maybe the timing is wrong, but someday I’ll find the right man,” someone who’ll “love me for me.”

Not surprisingly, despite the fact that the show focuses on a running competition among the women, Alex seems to struggle the most with whether or not the women actually like him. He can’t tell, because they uniformly want him to pick them — instant, public validation, the engagement fantasy of being “chosen” writ large. These women want to win — not just the ring and the Harvard guy, but the promise of being publicly redeemed from every rejection they’ve ever experienced on the road to this moment. While Alex’s interest in them comes across as quite sincere — he’s already The bachelor, after all; now he just wants a relationship that’s good enough that he won’t feel like a jerk for being on the show — their interest in him is debatable at best, downright dehumanizing at worst.

And when Alex drops character and expresses a quite reasonable hope that he and his future wife will have good chemistry (see also: hot, raunchy sex), he is openly chastised and reminded of the difficult situation he (not the producers, but Alex himself) has put these poor girls in. The one exception to this rule is Amanda, who mentions that she loves dressing up and has a Wonder Woman costume, to which Alex, attempting to mask his enthusiasm, replies, “That’s good news.”

That good news seems to make her far less appealing than the competition, however, who require much more work from Alex, parading their high-maintenance needs and dysfunctional tics as if a real prince will naturally recognize them as assets. But even as many contestants reveal those flaws that complete the picture of them as princesses — “See how bruised this pea made my ass?” — they refuse to disclose aspects of their personalities that could actually give Alex some indication of the mundane qualities and flaws that reflect who they are as human beings. As the dates become more intense and the number of contestants is cut to four, it’s clear that Alex is the real victim of this insane setup, partially because he seems to have an even stronger desire to be America’s sweetheart than they do. Even when he performs a clumsy, cursory cost-benefit analysis, instead of shaming or objectifying the women involved, it seems to reflect his respect and sincere concern for them (an impressive feat, given the circumstances). But more than anything, Alex’s assessments hint at his own dysfunction and prejudices. Overall, he seems to vastly prefer women who refuse to fool around with him, who can’t look him in the eye and/or who criticize him outright.

In one brilliantly edited “Bachelor” sequence, we see one of the four finalists, Shannon, return home to introduce Alex to her parents. First, we witness an awkward, faux-warm greeting in which Shannon begs her mother not to make her cry, purportedly because there’s so much love in the air. Meanwhile, the two seem about as anxious to touch each other as homophobic teenage boys. (Note to self: If you hire actors to play your parents, get some who can actually feign warmth and unconditional love for you.) Then Shannon rushes out to greet the family dog with more affection and feeling than we’ve witnessed in any of the contestants up to this point. Next, Shannon, Alex and the parents sit in the den and attempt to chat casually. Shannon insists on sitting next to the window, so the dog will be able to see her. The conversation is stifled at first, but Alex and the parents start to hit their stride, at which point Shannon leaps up and dashes out to hang out with the dog again. This happens two or three times. Next, Alex waits in the limo as Shannon and her parents discuss him.

“So what do y’all think?” she gushes. Her parents’ smiles are strained. “Do you have anything in common with him?” Shannon: “Yeah! A lot! We think a lot alike.” Mom: “Like what?” “OK,” Shannon says, “I get grilled 24 hours a day, seven days a week, so I don’t want it from you guys.” “Well, he doesn’t have any pets, so I wonder if he really likes pets … ” her mother says. “What else do you have in common with him?” her father asks. Obviously they’re not excited that she’s on the show, which is understandable. But it’s still pretty disturbing to watch parents who care more about looking reasonable and smart for the camera than they do about the fact that they’re making their daughter look like a shallow asshole.

Cut to Shannon in the limo. Alex wants to know what her “rules” are, rules about not kissing or having sex that she’s vaguely alluded to, that sound a lot like “The Rules,” if we’re not mistaken. Shannon is livid that Alex has asked. Alex says that he feels bad if he’s putting her on the spot. Shannon’s response: “I don’t think that you feel bad at all. I think that you see how awkward I feel right now, but you don’t care.” Wait. Is she talking about her parents now, or Alex? Shannon, can you say “projection”?

So Shannon manages to shield her “rules” from Alex, thereby creating even more mystery and frustration. Instead of telling the camera, through tears, “This poor woman needs therapy!” Alex reports that Shannon “feels like my girlfriend” and that “we’ve had some fights and I want to make it better.” Meanwhile, Kim, who isn’t self-conscious or mysterious at all when she states that she reads self-help books by Dr. Phil, and who seems to genuinely like Alex, is dismissed at the end of the show. Alex pronounces her “too easygoing for me.”

Alex wants to know who really likes him, apparently so he can consistently choose the women who don’t. This isn’t incredibly surprising when you consider the overall goal of the show, and of the glossy ring-shopping culture reflected in wedding porn: If your goal is to trap the poor animal at all costs, why wouldn’t the animal be more attracted to tourists than to trappers? What Alex doesn’t recognize yet is that the best trappers of all are the ones who dress up in Hawaiian shirts with cameras around their necks.

But eventually Shannon’s neurotic shenanigans are too blatant to disregard. Though we suspect Alex likes being tortured by her better than he likes being sexually catered to by the voluptuous Amanda, he announces with no small amount of regret in his voice that Amanda is probably better for him, since she’s sweet, seems to like him, lets him lick chocolate off her naked body, etc., while Shannon pouts and moans endlessly, seeming to blame Alex for everything from her parents’ disapproval to the fact that she agreed to be on this cheesy show in the first place.

While in wedding porn the bossy, self-involved girl always finds true love, in reality — or at least on reality shows — the truth is a little harder to swallow. With the average age of the bride increasing from 20 in 1964 to 27 according to the latest estimates, women have many more years to escape into the fantasy of being chosen, all the while becoming more neurotic and inflexible in ways that seem to lessen the possibility of fostering the kind of openness that’s necessary for falling in love — falling in love not with a gallant poster boy, but with a real human being. Our uptight, scattered heroine can stomp her feet cutely until someone spineless enough to cater to her every whim wanders up, but in the real world, it takes an ability to drop any preconceptions of “the dream guy” and follow your feelings, not your thoughts, to a person who makes you happy. A lasting relationship isn’t indicated merely by the fact that he opens doors and brings home the bacon and accepts an endless stream of demands without complaint. Real love grows from two people accepting each other beyond the confinement of outdated roles and societal notions of what constitutes a desirable mate.

Plenty of women want to get married, and the contestants’ ability to state that goal so directly is actually what makes them appealing; in the end they’re following their dreams unself-consciously. But “The Bachelor” and the wedding porn genre reflect our culture’s tendency to romanticize a courting process that exists in some vapory realm of boudoir tricks, dance cards and expensive rings. When falling in love is painted in such fantastical colors, you can expect marriages that reflect the same limitations — roles that crush our ability to be honest, that keep us from presenting our true, original, flawed selves to each other, and ultimately, that rob us of our own desire.