Years ago I used to play an online shoot 'em up game called Planetside. Was great fun, played with a good group of guys (and a few gals), most were from England (I lived in Germany at the time). After a few years of knowing these people online, we decided to all get together. One guy and his brave girlfriend decided to host it in England. My wife and I made the trip and when clearing immigration I was asked what the purpose of my visit was... I said "to meet friends"... the officer asked where I knew them from... "umm... an online game", I said... he looked at me funny and said, "the internet?", which got me a strange look from the nice looking woman in the line next to me... then the office asked "what are your friends names?"... I was not prepared at all for this kind of questioning and was a bit embarrassed, especially when I couldn't remember their real names, only their online shooter gaming names
. Now, that was embarrassing.
Once I cleared the airport though, we had a great time, everyone was a little nervous since we really only knew each other by voice and it was odd to put faces to each other, but once we shared a few pints and everyone loosened up, we had a wonderful weekend! Imagine being an immigration officer and asking someone their friends names that they were going to visit in your country and the reply being "umm... their real names?"
