Well, this is one way of avoiding the dating scene

Those scamps at Lifetime have cooked up yet another fin de siècle reality series (though for some reason, they prefer to refer to it as a "docudrama"), this one involving individuals who are willing to participate ... wait for it ...

... in an arranged marriage. In fact, the show is called "Arranged Marriage."

So, yeah, a reality show where you're guaranteed to get lucky, if you don't have performance anxiety when cameras are around, that is. And then, perhaps, incredibly unlucky.

And they're looking for participants right now! So hie thee over to this website and apply now!

David and Elizabeth Weinlick - themselves the product of an arranged marriage and who will serve as consultants on the show - appeared on the "Today" show to talk up the notion.

David said: "The traditional dating realm did not seem conducive to finding a long term life partnership that was healthy and successful and happy." Dude, in L.A., the dating world isn't even conducive to dating.

Elizabeth said: "I just recognized that dating in my experience always resulted in a relationship that just wasn't very fulfilling. So I thought maybe this will be a different way to have that fulfilling relationship." If you want a fulfilling relationship, get a dog. You date because you don't want to look like a loser sitting alone in restaurants and movie theaters. Oh, and other reasons, too, I'm told.

Producers of the show note that while half of all marriages end in divorce, 85% of couples in arranged marriages stay together. Now, I'm not a psychologist, but I'll play one for the purposes of this blog and suggest that this may be because if you're too passive to get actively involved in the selection of your life mate, you're probably not going to want to stir the waters with a divorce, no matter how miserable you are. Plus, maybe you figure belatedly that if you were silly enough to marry someone you don't know, you deserve whatever you get.

When you apply at the website, you're told, "If you are chosen, cameras will be a part of your life, off-and-on, for one year. ... (Y)ou will lead your life and we will be the fly on the wall.

"This will be a tremendous, exciting and, as in all relationships, sometimes difficult journey. ... (I)f you're ready to be part of something big - to take a leap, be a cultural pioneer and enter a lifetime partnership - then you might be one of the fantastic people we're looking for."

Plus, you get to be seen on the TeeVee yelling at your new spouse!

Because that's how reality shows work - if you actually get along, that's boring television that no one wants to see so there's no point in showing that. But scream and stomp and throw tantrums and you could become the new Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag!

So apply today! What do you have to lose? Except, of course, half your property in a bitter divorce settlement.