Confessions of a Fainting Man

My whole life, any time something has unnerved me — from high school math to childbirth class — my heart rate slows, the blood stops pumping to my brain, and I drop like a rock.

Illustrations by Franco Zacharzewski | Edited by Estelle Erasmus

Kathy and I were getting serious. We’d talked about everything — we wanted to get married. We wanted children. But we hadn’t yet had “The Talk.” I was nervous, but I knew it was time to come clean.

I had to tell Kathy that I was … a fainter.

I’ve passed out enough times in my life that I don’t have an exact count. A few experiences stand out. When I was 10, my family went to Disney World. At Epcot Center, we saw the movie The Making of Me, which I now know was my parents’ way of teaching my brother and sister and me about the birds and the bees.

I don’t remember a lot about the video, just that it was family-friendly and did not show graphic sex. We were in Disney World, after all. In the movie, when the couple turned out the light in their bedroom, the camera panned to the roof, where our cartoon character host was waiting for us, ready to narrate the next scene, which involved a very pregnant lady and the trip to the hospi…