First Date Hell - Being Frank

I once had a blind date with a man who led me to believe for an entire month via email that his name was Steve Warner. Then he called me and said, "This is Frank." When I questioned him about the name change, he said his middle name was Steve but his real name is Frank.

It wasn't the most charming first phone call, but considering that my online dating name is "LovelyBrunette" and I had only given him my first name and my cell number at that point, I didn't think I could make a big deal about it. After all, the guy seemed nice and he was being honest, or should I say--FRANK--with me, so who wasI to judge? We online daters must be careful, if nothing else.

After the date, which was fine, and in which he seemed reasonably normal, he sent me an email saying his name was neither Frank nor Steve, and in fact, his last name was not even Warner, but this was only because he is a "fiction writer" (he'd told me he was a nurse) and as a fiction writer, he uses several pen names for dating and writing. He signed the last email "S.F. Barack" and told me that I could now tell everyone that I'd been on a date with a guy named Barack.

While I am in no way opposed to fiction writing (it was my major in undergradl) I do require actual identities of my dates to not be fictional.

The irony (is it really irony?) is that I've now posted a real story about a guy using multiple fake names but I can't actually use the REAL fake names he has given me, because what if one of them is partially real? I have no way of knowing what was true and what was not. So I've changed all names (including mine) for anonymity purposes, but I kept the two that seemed important: Frank, and Barack.

Those names are the real fakes. I think.