Valentine’s Day may have passed, but love is still on the air. Or is it?

This season of ABC’s “The Bachelor” just came to an end; single-dad Jason Mesnick proposed to one girl then dumped her on the reunion show so he could ask out the runner-up. Even though Mesnick didn’t find a happy ending with Melissa Rycroft, the first girl he picked (here’s hoping Molly Malaney doesn’t meet the same fate), he wasn’t the first, and he certainly won’t be the last to enlist the help of television to find true love.

Over the past decade, reality television has changed the face of dating. According to Wikipedia’s listing, no less than forty reality dating shows have been launched in the US since 1999. All of these shows have essentially the same format: someone unlucky in love goes on a show where an entire harem of potential mates, ripe for the picking, is presented to them.

As the show progresses, the potential mates are kicked off one-by-one (unless the show producers decide ratings are low and throw in a shocking double elimination) until the last one standing claims the grand prize: love.

For some reality dating shows, like MTV’s “Next” the prize is a second date, while for others the reward is a lifelong mate. Yet, all reality-born romances seem to only end in heartbreak. Of the 13 seasons of “The Bachelor” and four seasons of “The Bachelorette,” Trista Rehn is the only to have found a lasting relationship with her last-man-standing, Ryan Sutter. The couple is happily married and expecting their second child, but they are a reality-TV oddity.

If your dating ambitions include a stint on a show like “The Bachelor” or “Rock of Love,” don’t get your hopes up. Odds that you’ll find a fairy tale ending are not in your favor.

Finding love in a simulated environment is unrealistic. When a season of “The Bachelor” airs, we get about 10 weeks or so of sabotage, backstabbing, and general mayhem. However, reality TV is usually filmed in as little as three weeks, meaning someone is eliminated almost every other day. Love at first sight aside, I find it hard to believe people can actually find the love of their lives in three weeks or less.

Another obstacle to building a real relationship on TV is those nasty curveballs thrown in by the producers or the writing team. In “Joe Millionaire,” Evan Marriot posed as the heir to the Marriot fortune. When it came down to the last girl, the show asked her to choose between him and $1 million. Of course she chose the guy (although, had she known they would break up in a few months, she probably should have gone for the money). The current season of “Rock of Love” separates the contestants on two tour buses: one for blondes, one for brunettes. Putting 20 love-sick women together is a recipe drama to begin with, but separate them by hair color, and the claws really come out.

Albeit vastly entertaining, do people really go on these shows expecting to find their prince/princess charming? It’s not too hard to see why dating shows would be appealing. People are busy these days, and dating is time-consuming. Going on a dating show means that other people pick potential mates for you, meaning you have to spend less time searching.

The problem with this is how well do random casting directors know you? If being set up on a blind date by your best friends usually results in failure, strangers who have ulterior motives besides your happiness won’t do much better. So how exactly do people end up on reality TV? They must be actively seeking it. Websites like Realitywanted.com post casting calls for upcoming shows, with very broad requirements for potential casts. Their motives for joining the show aren’t always clear: are they looking for love or just looking for exposure? Even if they are looking for love, do they want a real commitment or just a quick dating fix?

In the interest of saving time in the dating world, even in real life, people have a tendency now to base love on compatibility of attributes. Are you attractive, are you successful, are you a certain religion, are you vegan, etc? In doing this, it’s easy to overlook the perfect person because they don’t meet your criteria. The pressure to be compatible in a setting where you’re competing against 15 or 20 other people is even greater, which leaves room to wonder whether people will lie about their attributes to seem more compatible.

No matter what the motivation, television is not the ideal place to find a lasting relationship. Finding happily ever after is not as simple as Cinderella would have you believe. It takes patience, compromise, but above all, time. Love should be allowed to fester and grow, it shouldn’t be imposed as a goal of any type, it’s just too much pressure.