First there was “The Bachelor.” No, wait, that’s wrong. First there was “Who Wants to Marry a Multimillionaire.”

With “Multimillionaire,” Fox was taking “The Dating Game” to a whole new level. The winner wasn’t just going to date the bachelor in question; the winner was going to marry him in a live Las Vegas wedding. As it turned out, the wedding was annulled in a time not equaled until Britney Spears’ ill-fated decision nearly four years later.

Two years after Fox’s debacle, ABC decided to try something a little nicer and cleaner with “The Bachelor.” Twenty-five women would compete for one guy’s affection, without a marriage as the finale. (They’d do that later. Maybe.) The first was such a ratings hit that not only was more of the same scheduled, the first “Bachelor” winner, who never did marry the guy, was tabbed as the star of “The Bachelorette.”

Now, “reality” has never been the most applicable tag on these things. If “reality” includes wining and dining 25 women — or being wined and dined along with 24 other men — I need a reality check to see exactly where my universe went wrong.

Unfortunately, in 2004, ABC’s shows occupy the moral high ground, such that it is, when it comes to reality shows dealing with relationships. The networks have raced to the lowest common denominator — and now they’re trying to divide by zero. The ideals of love, relationships and marriage have been spun, deceived, insulted and corrupted in the search for “reality” ratings.

The first illegitimate offspring of “Bachelor” was Fox’s “Joe Millionaire.” True to the network’s word, it wasn’t going to do another live marriage. Instead, it would do what appeared to be a “Bachelor” knockoff until the end, when the contestants found out their client didn’t have as many zeroes to his name as they were led to believe.

It’s just desserts, right? All those shallow women get what they deserve for aiming for money. What about those principles of trust and honesty, the bedrock of a good relationship? Fox’s — and America’s — reply fell along the lines of “Are they supposed to matter or something?”

Then NBC jumped in and took it further. Now it wasn’t just going to be superficial women looking to marry for money who were going to be embarrassed. Now it was time for the nerds, the geeks, everyone wandering this earth bitter about being passed over by the attractive woman for the good-looking guy. Sure, we’ll have a laugh at the poor woman stuck with these guys, but the gist of “Average Joe” is clear: Don’t laugh with the nerds. Laugh at them.

It became high school writ large: The hunks come in to upstage the “average Joes,” who then walk away dejected and unloved. Do we really need a TV show for this? Wouldn’t it be more cost-effective if NBC just attached a camera crew to a couple of high school, college or twenty-something guys across the country in search of love?

The finale might have ended up as more realistic than any of these shows: The woman went for the attractive man introduced late, not the guy she had spent more time getting to know.

So that makes one show based on finding real love, one based on lying about who you are and one making fun of “the rest of us.” But Fox wasn’t done yet: Meet “My Big Fat Obnoxious Fianc‚.” The premise: Insult an entire family by trying to convince them their wonderful daughter is marrying a complete slob. Once again, it’s entirely a set-up. If the family comes apart in the process, well, that’s just more ratings for Fox.

The country still asks for more and gets irate at anything trying to interrupt it. Last week, St. Louis TV station KSTK tried to fulfill its motto, “Where the news comes first.” Rep. Dick Gephardt, D-Mo. and a St. Louis native, was getting hammered in the Iowa caucuses, and KSTK broke in to broadcast his concession speech. The station’s switchboard was immediately clogged. Why? KSTK had broken in, according to the Post-Dispatch, on “a pivotal point” of “Average Joe 2.” Who cares about Dick Gephardt, who only dedicated three decades of his life to the people of St. Louis? We gotta see those hunks come in to shock the average Joes, even though we already knew they were coming in!

Much ado has been made recently about President Bush wanting to dedicate $1.5 billion to promote marriage. The money might better be spent creating TV programs that are not based on degrading, insulting and ridiculing the very process that leads to people wanting to get married in the first place.