Next month, Jason Mesnick and Molly Malaney are getting married in the same place they met –– inside your TV.

The bride and groom, from the 13th season of ABC’s perennial hit The Bachelor, will likely draw a big audience for their “I dos.” The last televised Bachelor wedding of Trista Rehn and Ryan Sutter had 17 million viewers, and this latest happy ending is far more exciting.

Malaney was actually the runner-up of the show, whom Mesnick brought back on a dramatic follow-up episode. He also dumped his previous fiancé-of-five-minutes in front of the entire television audience.

But it’s totally cool that he found love in a dozen episodes! And dumped someone in front of the world! It’s all in the name of true love!

Okay, maybe not. We’re all smart enough to see through the rose ceremonies and the staged romance of reality shows like The Bachelor, More to Love, and the many date-a-celebrity schlock flooding airwaves these days. And yet we can’t get enough of it, or so ratings suggest.

Romayne Smith Fullerton, an associate professor in the faculty of information and media studies, says we connect with reality shows because the contestants –– or characters, depending on your perspective –– are more like ourselves.

“You start to think of those people as sort of your circle of friends, which is odd and bizarre,” she adds. “The connections that people construct to reality TV […] seem to me to be more intimate.”

The world of reality television is appealing for another reason, too –– it seems to be a better version of our reality.

“They don’t deal with realities of life on reality TV […] they don’t do the dishes [or walk] the dog –– the things that people don’t want to admit are a part of their daily lives,” Smith Fullerton says.

“That might translate into people thinking that when they find the perfect person, [things like] laundry will disappear.”

It’s the same thing as getting your relationship advice from a Disney movie, says psychology professor Guy Grenier.

“Relationships are complicated. Learning about people is complicated. What you’re going to learn about a person in an artificial circumstance… for most of us, in life, is a lot more complicated,” he explains.

Smith Fullerton agrees. Reality shows aren’t very good at exploring subtleties and nuances, she says, and they rely mostly on stereotypes.

“One of the myths they’re portraying is beautiful people dating beautiful people and living lifestyles of the rich and famous,” Grenier echoes.

“It does perpetuate that life is easy and there’s lots of opportunity if you’re good looking –– and those of us who are mere mortals can only hope to have those kind of options.”

But it’s not all bad.

Anything that starts dialogue can have value, Grenier says –– and reality TV certainly starts dialogue.

“It’s supposed to be entertainment and it could be used as a talking point about relationships and developing our social etiquette,” he explains.

“Anything that gets the dialogue about relationship discussion going is not a bad thing.”