I was once on a reality show.

I know. Nowadays that's not so unique.

You actually have to crawl into a cave and live there for the rest of your life in order to avoid being filmed by reality show cameras. Except someone might tip a Hollywood producer about the person who moved into a cave to avoid reality show cameras, and they'll want to document your life story.

Even in a relatively small city like Austin, it's tough not to happen upon a reality show taping.

My reality show, which I will neither tell you the name of nor will it ever see the light of day ever again, was an interesting learning experience.

It taught me that reality shows are made up — even the ones you don't think are made up (I'm a slow learner). It also taught me that I will never want to be on a reality show ever again. Not only is it a huge invasion of privacy, but you have such little control over how you are perceived.

The reality show I was on? I didn't really have any say in whether or not I wanted to be on it. Well, that's not entirely true. The show was about the company in L.A. that I worked for, and most of my co-workers had already opted out. I thought it would be a good life experience; something I could use later for ice-breakers at parties. I quickly surmised that that is not the case. Telling people that you were on a reality show is like telling them that you eat out of a toilet bowl: They scrunch their nose and slowly back away from you.

I was one character amongst many in three separate story lines on the show. We had our own field producer, camera operator and sound operator trailing our every move. The show tested how well I could handle holding a job while having a camera in my face and microphone strapped to my back 10-plus hours a day. Imagine trying to do your normal work while having a TV crew all up in yo bizness, asking you to repeat your every day speak over and over.

Producer: "Can you just repeat what you just said?" Me: "I don't know what I just said. This is life! Not a scripted show!" Producer: "Ok, well make something up then."

When I say that reality shows are made up, if they're not 100 percent fabricated, the dialogue and editing can often make something happen that never did. For instance, there was very little drama or suspense at the company I worked for, so the producers tried to create it. They have to do this, otherwise if all reality TV shows were shot and edited as-is, it would be the most boring programming on the planet.

Our producer would ask me how I felt about certain situations knowing full-well he was trying to rile me up. It didn't work. I not only didn't want to look like a bitchy and whiny diva on TV, I also had my job to look after! On the very few occasions that there was juicy drama in our storyline, the footage was ultimately cut because our team didn't want to be perceived as idiots.

Being on a reality show can also be dangerous. In one moment of drama that had nothing to do with our team, I was almost bitch-slapped by a famous Hollywood producer who bore a tank top sporting the words, "I Have Issues." She didn't like something I said, and in front of the camera ran up to me to start a fight. We weren't even in a setting that lends to fighting — we were at a casual Hollywood party. It just proved that being around reality show cameras can bring out the worst in some people.

The best part about working in reality TV is meeting the wonderful folks who work on them, and there a lot of them. Lots of hard-working folks who put in long hours and long days. When I say long, I mean up to 48 hours straight with irregular eating and sleeping. There are so many reality shows out there nowadays that a freelancer never has to worry about finding work or paying the bills (reality TV pays well). Though it sometimes comes at a price: I had one friend who went into the hospital due to what he thought was a heart attack, and I knew another person who did have a heart attack and died.

It wouldn't be fair to point all fingers at reality TV production as the culprit, but I know it must have played a part.

Though reality TV is often viewed as the ugly step-child of entertainment, it doesn't look like it's going away anytime soon. I asked a reality show producer friend of mine his thoughts on the genre and if it holds any merit.

"I think that in the scope of entertainment, the reality show world is important," he says. "It fills the niche that game shows filled in the 1970s. Real people who could be you or me or your neighbor, thrust into big situations to see how they react. Is it an art form that will be remembered as culturally important 40 years from now? Probably not, but in 40 years people will probably pull up funny clips of reality shows in the same way they still pull up that clip of the Newlywed Game where the host asks the bride about the strangest place she's made whoopie, and she replies 'in the butt.'"