At a function at one of the High Commissions one night a few weeks ago, the attractive twenty-something female member of staff I was chatting-up, or actually conversing with about her high-powered job, kept glancing at her watch.

Nothing odd about that, you might say. Lots of young women have far more pressing engagements than with old, married guys keen to question them about their work, as this one finally admitted.

"Sorry," she said, seeing I'd noticed how edgy she'd been getting, "I'm just wondering if I can get home in time to see this week's episode of The Great Race Asia."

I suppose I should have been devastated by somebody's rating my riveting company so low as to prefer the banality of 'reality' TV. But instead, I started wondering what it is about this stupid, contrived and superficial 'entertainment' that gets so many otherwise apparently sentient people so addicted to it. And what's wrong with me that, on the few times I've forced myself to sit and watch some for experimental purposes, I've found it so downright depressing.

Downright nasty too, it struck me, with much of its appeal evidently springing from witnessing other peoples' admittedly self-inflicted discomfort or embarrassment, or the suspense and satisfaction surrounding the power of a panel of faded-celebrity 'judges' or viewer SMS voters to eliminate. and if possible humiliate, less favoured participants.

So strong is the humiliation factor, in fact, that even die-hard fans of reality TV are seemingly starting to share my aversion to it. Witness the recent storm of criticism in the US concerning the cruelty of American Idol judges, Paula Abdul, Randy Jackson and especially Simon Cowell, a trio reportedly characterised by ABC talk show co-host Rosie O'Donnell as 'three millionaires, one probably intoxicated'.

And you'll recall at around the same time an incident involving the allegedly racist abuse of formerly obscure Bollywood starlet Shilpa Shetty by fellow 'housemate' Jade Goody in an episode of the UK's Celebrity Big Brother that was so hyped by the British and Indian media as to almost assume the proportions of an international incident.

Desperate vs Desperate

Perhaps its was this diplomacy factor, it now occurs to me, that has my aforementioned friend at the High Commission so hooked on The Great Race Asia, and that therefore her preference for the programme over my company was professional rather than personal.

Wounded feelings aside, however, my ultimate problem with reality TV is how fake a lot of it clearly is. The real behaviours of the people appearing in these offerings are often obviously scripted and directed as well as taped and edited for maximum impact, and I strongly suspect that the results of voting by viewers are rigged or simply disregarded when they fail to jibe with the judgements and commercial interests of the producers.

In other words, so-called 'reality' TV shows, or at least the few I've become fleetingly familiar with, are actually no more than interactive soap-operas starring 'ordinary' people, and it's easy to foresee the day when some advertainment genius comes up with a hideous hybrid of the two genres, like Desperate Housewives Meets Desperate Housemates, or Desperate Exhibitionists Meet Desperate Voyeurs.

But who am I to come on all hoity-toity and high-minded about television, real or otherwise? As aware as I am of some deathlessly damning definitions of the medium - 'chewing-gum for the eyes', 'television is called a medium because it's neither rare nor well done' I still sit and watch far too much of the stuff. In fact. I'm as helpless a victim of the craving for vicarious visual stimulation that I'm so inclined to decry in others.

The news and current affairs programmes I compulsively watch these days are, when I think about them, no more 'real' in many ways than Big Brother or any of the countless varieties of Idol.

Numbness dumbness

And the idle enjoyment I derive from watching cars drive around in circles in Formula 1, or from goggling at gangs of guys in padded costumes and helmets playing a game called American Football, is no more or less genuine than the thrill my fellow tele-victims feel when they view events that bore me witless, like cooking shows, soccer, tennis, golf and World Championship Wrestling.

What it all comes down to is that much of what most of us seek in our 'spare' time is not reality, but 'reality-avoidance'. Anything to help dull the predictability, relieve the repetition, ease the pressures and distract us from the often dismal realities of ourselves and our everyday existence.

The best we can do, as we're all very well aware, is to engage in healthy or otherwise improving recreation. Sports, exercise, creative pursuits or helping-out our less fortunate fellows. But if we're too tired, jaded or lazy for any of these, achieving escape into numbness or dumbness via reality television, or surfing the Net, or playing mindless computer games, or by following the fortunes of our favourite soap-opera heroes and heroines, is at least less dangerous than some of the alternatives, like drinking, gambling or doing drugs.

So the next time you and I are deep in conversation, or at least I am, and I notice that you're looking frequently at your watch, casting furtive and frantic glances over my shoulder, or otherwise showing symptoms of impending flight, don't worry.

I'll just take it that you've overdosed on my particular version of reality, and that you're desperately craving a fix of your own version of confrontation, stimulation or avoidance, as unreal as that may seem to yours truly.