Hi all, Cat Ryan here. I just want to say that I have now exhausted my internet dating exploits and I just give up! I’ve had it with the Nigerian scammers, the married men posing as single men, the married men telling me they’re married and still looking for “a bit on the side”, the weirdos, the psychos, the tightasses who make you pay for your own coffee, the ones who want to make contact with you but are not prepared to send you an email because it costs them money to make initial contact—so yeah, they expect Cat to fork out. And let's not even get into the "gigolos" who tell Cat she looks like she's 25 years of age (just to get her in the sack) when she knows very well she's in her 40s--mind you, a good looking 40! Yes, I still got it. LOL.

God, you name it and Cat’s been through it. For a millisecond, Cat actually considered running off with the lipstick lesbian that propositioned her. LOL! But no, Cat’s a straight girl and she’s looking for a real man. It seems the quest is over though, and Cat hasn’t found “the one”.

 The good news is that Cat is the main character in my novel “Like  Casablanca”, so she’s lucky in that in the end she’ll find the prince; well, that’s if she doesn’t blow it. Woo hoo! But what’s in store for Cat’s creator, novelist Sylvia Massara? Well, she’s now planning “murder and mayhem”, a great  antidote for a broken marriage and a nasty divorce. This means that the lawyers are getting richer and Sylvia is pulling her hair out. Ouch!

It’s too early to have a “divorce party” yet, so Sylvia would like to offer a discount on her two romantic comedies, Like Casablanca and The Other Boyfriend or on her drama The Soul Bearers. The first 10 readers of this blog to comment on any aspect of internet dating or "love gone wrong" will receive a coupon for any of Sylvia's eBooks, which are currently priced at $3.99 on Smashwords (multi-format available). With the coupon, you'll be able to purchase the novel of your choice for only 99 cents! So hurry and leave a comment with your internet dating or love gone wrong experience.  
 
This is Cat Ryan and Sylvia Massara signing off from the Cat Ryan Internet Dating Capers—and we thank every one of you who’ve left comments in the past on Cat’s posts.

Ciao for now!  

If there is one thing that really peeves me (aside from my pinhead ex-husband and bad grammar) it has to be any business that purposely misrepresents itself in order to suck people in and separate them from their money.

In this case, I’m referring to internet dating sites. I’ve been investigating a few sites these past couple of weeks and have found some real bogus ones, promising free usage and then charging if you want to send an email to somebody. The other thing these sites do is inflate the number of members they have, and when you look at a place like Australia, where I live, you’re lucky to find two or three decent guys in there and maybe a camel from Central
Australia thrown in for good measure :-)

Most of these sites originate from either the States or Canada, and you’d think that living in such large countries these people would also know that Australia is a vast continent and that Sydney and Perth are not 20 miles away from each other, but on opposite ends of the country. Think about the distance between New York and Seattle and you’ll get the picture.

I hope you enjoy watching my alter-ego and creator, Sylvia Massara, as she recounts some of my adventures in the world of internet dating. Oh, and guess what, only this morning I caught another Nigerian scammer. I’m getting good at this now—it only took me about 60 seconds to identify him.