Mystery Date

Keith Kormanik of Towson can't kiss and tell. But his search for love with TV's 'Bachelorette' goes prime-time tonight.

Keith Kormanik doesn't look like an average Joe. He's tall, dark and handsome with teeth that are almost too white. He is impeccably dressed - wearing a black-ribbed sweater under a brown suede jacket when we meet for a seafood lunch. I find myself wondering why anyone who looks like this would have to go on a TV show to find love.

But tonight Kormanik, who lives in Towson, will compete with 25 other young men for the affection of Meredith Phillips on ABC's reality show The Bachelorette. The first episode airs at 9, and tonight Phillips will eliminate 10 men, possibly including the 31-year-old Kormanik. After that, she will eliminate one or more men each episode. The program culminates when Phillips bestows a red rose upon one lucky winner who has a chance to become better acquainted with - and perhaps married to - her.

Previous reality-show contestants have landed acting gigs, become authors or, in the case of Phillips, become the star of another reality show. And, of course, Trista (nee Rehn) Sutter and Ryan Sutter, participants who actually chose to marry, became instant celebrities. ABC paid for their multimillion dollar wedding and made it a three-part, prime-time series. Will Phillips choose Kormanik?

"He's a good guy," says Mo Manocheh, the owner of Mo's Fisherman's Wharf, where Kormanik and I dined. The downtown Baltimore restaurant, a Kormanik hangout, was where he first learned (via cell phone) he was a finalist for the show.

"He's good looking, he's smart, he went to college, he's got a good job, he's got tons of girlfriends. I wish I had this problem," said Manocheh. "He loves seafood," Manocheh adds. "All the girls he brings here, they love the seafood, too."

Manocheh has known Kormanik since he was a teen-ager. "The day he's on, all of the televisions in my five restaurants will be on."

Kormanik disputes the charge that he has tons of girlfriends. He says he's had a few serious relationships - but didn't want to discuss his social life.

Reality television is a genre that's increasingly dominating the television landscape at the expense of sitcoms and dramas. The underlying concept is that on reality shows, audiences see real people doing real things. When men are eliminated by the bachelorette we see a human reaction to rejection, not an actor playing a role. Or that, anyway, is the conceptual premise of the genre.