A 26-year-old faints on a first date—while he’s totally naked

My name’s Sam. I’m a 29-year-old copywriter. I’ve used online dating apps on and off since moving to Toronto five years ago. When I was 26, I went through a bit of a rut. I got dumped and laid off in the space of a month, and I was trying out an anti-depressant with a laundry list of side effects I hadn’t bothered to read. This will become relevant.

I’d been chatting on OkCupid with a girl who seemed awesome. She was incredibly sarcastic and irreverent, and she worked in animation, which was super cool. She often took days to reply, so after a few weeks of glacial small talk, I gave her my number with instructions to do what she liked with it. A day later, she sent me a picture of her butt and we arranged to meet up.

We met at Factory Girl on the Danforth. After we finished our drinks, I asked if she felt like another round. She said she wasn’t much for booze, but that there was weed back at her place. I’m not really a huge weed guy. It makes me feel like everybody can read my mind, which is very stressful because my brain is a horrible minefield of anxiety and self-doubt. I only enjoy smoking when I’m on my own with a pizza and a bunch of Bond movies, and even then, only in very small doses.

However, all that seemed trivial as soon as I heard the words “at my place,” so off we went.

We got to her apartment and she started packing a bong. I faintly remember an alarm going off in my head: there would be no way to regulate this weed experience. With bongs, there are no half measures, no mellow tokes. You just get really fuckin’ high, bud. I didn’t want to be a bad houseguest, though, so I obliged the lady and cleared the chamber.

Everything after that is a bit of a blur, but we got around to having sex soon enough. Shortly into things, I got the distinct feeling that something was not right. I was short of breath, and my field of vision was taking on a purple tint. I called a time out and went to the kitchen for some water. She lived alone, so I didn’t bother putting on any clothes.

I began filling a glass at the sink, wondering if this was some kind of wake-up call: Am I too out-of-shape for boning? I’m gonna start doing more cardio. Tomorrow. Definitely. Then one of my knees gave a shudder and knocked against a cabinet. The next thing I knew, I was on the floor, flat on my back, being poked awake by a foot.

“I think you had a seizure,” my date announced. I glanced around. Everything was dim and blurry. The glass had shattered on the floor when I went down.

“Did I?” was the only response I could manage.

All things considered, she was really great about the whole thing. She didn’t want me to go home on my own—I was still pretty woozy—and instructed me to spend the night. She also insisted on cleaning up the broken glass herself because she didn’t want me to risk tipping over into it. It was a humbling experience. Faced with the sight of a naked dude unconscious in her kitchen, my date showed nothing but kindness and poise. I’ll be forever grateful.

When I got home in the morning, I Googled my medication and found several accounts of people passing out after mixing it with cannabis, though none of them mid-coitus. I called my doctor and told him to put me on something else.

And that’s how I met my wife.

Just kidding. I never saw her again. I tried, but to no avail. I can’t really blame her. It’s hard to live down certain things.