I woke up with the distinct feeling that my skull had shrunk during the night and was now squeezing my brain like a lemon. My throat felt like I’d gargled glass, my nose was clogged like someone had crammed a sponge up there, and the pressure behind my eyes was so intense it felt like a precursor to spontaneous combustion. Maybe it was another COVID variant, or bird flu, or whatever new pre-election virus they were cooking up to keep us all indoors. And as if that weren’t enough, I was also hideously hungover from an overzealous encounter with a bottle of Pinot Noir. The gods were cruel, but at least they were consistent.

In this glorious state of bodily failure, I had a date at the best Italian restaurant in the city—because of course I did. Reservations at this place were harder to get than a kidney transplant, and it was all my date, Emily, had been talking about for weeks. The whole thing was set up to be perfect. Perfect lighting, perfect food, perfect wine. Except, of course, I was about as far from perfect as humanly possible.

I had thought about canceling, but there’s a certain humiliation in admitting defeat. So I told myself, You can do this. You can make it through one evening of socializing. Just smile, nod, and hope you don’t sneeze directly into the burrata.

I met Emily outside the restaurant, hoping she wouldn’t notice my bloodshot eyes or the faint tremor of nausea lurking beneath the surface. She looked amazing, naturally. The kind of woman who doesn’t need to do anything except exist to look effortlessly chic. Me, I was a disaster of tissues stuffed into coat pockets and a constant, low-level urge to dry heave.

“Hi!” she said brightly, as if there was any other way to say hi than brightly. My head pounded in response.

“Hey,” I croaked, my voice a hoarse whisper that suggested I’d either been chain-smoking or reciting Shakespeare in a wind tunnel.

We got inside, and the place was as beautiful as I’d heard—a cozy, dimly lit shrine to Italian gastronomy. The smell of garlic, basil, and truffle oil hit me immediately. Normally, I’d be salivating, but today it was like a cruel reminder that I couldn’t taste anything. My sinuses were so clogged that I was lucky to be breathing through one nostril. Every attempt at inhaling through my nose was like trying to suck a milkshake through a coffee stirrer.

“Isn’t this place amazing?” Emily said, glancing around with the wonder of someone who could still appreciate beauty in the world. Meanwhile, I could barely keep my eyes open without wanting to die.

“Yeah, totally,” I mumbled, then immediately regretted speaking. It felt like a thousand needles in my throat.

She started talking about her day, her job, her latest yoga class—I wasn’t sure. My attention drifted in and out, mostly preoccupied with the sheer task of survival. I nodded and made vague noises of agreement at what I hoped were the right moments. Every word she said bounced around my skull, amplifying the throbbing headache that was determined to make this meal an endurance test rather than a romantic evening.

“How was your day?” she asked, clearly not suspecting that I was internally collapsing in on myself like a dying star.

“Good,” I lied. My hangover throbbed in protest. “Yours?”

“Oh, you know, same old, same old,” she said, launching into another monologue about something that required more focus than I could muster. I smiled and nodded, like one of those dashboard bobbleheads, praying she couldn’t see the deadness behind my eyes.

The waiter appeared, some young guy with a slick mustache and an accent that sounded vaguely European, maybe real, maybe performance art. He rattled off the specials, but I could barely hear him over the sound of my own misery. When it was my turn to order, I went with something safe: lasagna. Easy to fake enjoying, even when you feel like you’ve been hit by a truck.

“Do you want some wine?” Emily asked, her eyes twinkling in that way that suggested she was gearing up for a good time.

“Actually, I think I’ll stick to water tonight,” I said, which might have been the most depressing sentence I’d ever uttered. Even the waiter looked at me with pity, as if sensing that I was a man in deep, unfixable despair.

Emily didn’t seem to notice. She ordered a glass of wine, of course, because why wouldn’t she? She was normal, healthy, functioning. I, on the other hand, was playing a game of how long I could stay upright without vomiting or passing out.

The food arrived, and I stared at it like it was some sort of test from the gods. The lasagna looked incredible—layers of pasta, cheese, and meat, bubbling and golden. I took a bite, hoping for some brief reprieve from my suffering. But of course, I couldn’t taste a damn thing. It might as well have been cardboard. I smiled weakly anyway, pretending to enjoy it.

“So good, right?” Emily said, her fork hovering midair as she savored her first bite.

“Yeah, delicious,” I lied, like a man condemned to eternal tasteless purgatory.

She continued talking, filling the air with her words while I struggled to keep up the façade of being a competent human being. My headache pulsed in rhythm with her voice, each syllable a tiny hammer pounding away at my temples. I wondered briefly if I could just excuse myself to the bathroom and climb out the window. But no, I had to endure. I had to finish this date, even if it killed me—which, at this rate, seemed increasingly likely.

And so, I nodded, smiled, and faked it—because that’s all I could do. Today, I was a terrible conversationalist with zero charm, but maybe, just maybe, I could be a halfway decent listener. If nothing else, I’d survive this evening. I just wasn’t sure if I’d ever want to leave my apartment again.

The lasagna sat there in front of me, taunting me with its perfect layers of pasta, lamb, beef, and cheese. A masterpiece that I couldn’t even begin to appreciate. I stabbed at it with my fork, tasting nothing but the faintest whisper of tomato sauce. My sinuses were as clogged as a drain in a frat house, my head pounding in sync with every movement of my jaw. I knew—knew—it was delicious, though, because it looked delicious. The lamb, the beef, all meticulously prepared by some poor soul who’d probably gone through culinary hell just to create this one sublime plate. And here I was, tasting approximately 0.5% of it. What a waste.

Emily was still talking, her words floating around me like those specks of dust you see in a sunbeam—visible but entirely weightless. I caught a few phrases: “workshop,” “sister’s wedding,” “something about cryptocurrency.” It all swirled together into an incoherent blur. I nodded at appropriate intervals, my head a constant metronome of faked interest, though in reality, I was holding on to consciousness by a thread.

Tomorrow will be better, I told myself, the day after better still. This was a temporary purgatory, just something to get through. A state of emergency. A crisis situation. But that didn’t mean I wasn’t judging everything—harshly. With every bite, I judged the food. With every sentence Emily said, I judged her, myself, the restaurant, the whole world. And yet, I was aware that I was completely unfit to judge anything in my current state. My head felt like a wrecking ball had been dropped into it, my taste buds were on strike, and I could barely string together two coherent thoughts. But still, here I was, mentally grading everything on a scale that had no business being applied under these conditions.

Who was I to judge this situation when I couldn’t even smell the garlic or basil? When I couldn’t focus on Emily’s words long enough to form an opinion? The best chefs in the city had spent years perfecting the dish in front of me, and all I could do was chew like a malfunctioning robot, nodding along, pretending to enjoy the meal. I had no right to form any opinion on this evening, let alone an intelligent one. And yet, all I could do was notice every little detail and issue a verdict. Everything annoyed me, from the clink of silverware on plates to the soft hum of the restaurant’s background music. Even the perfect lighting—a warm, flattering glow—seemed offensive in its optimism.

I was a miserable, defective human being at this moment, barely capable of pretending to be present. My taste buds, my head, my entire nervous system—defective. I was operating at maybe 20% capacity, and even that felt generous. The lasagna was probably a religious experience, and here I was, catching a glimpse of it like a man peeking through a keyhole at paradise.

Across from me, Emily smiled, and I smiled back, which I’m sure looked more like a grimace. You’re getting away with this, I told myself. She doesn’t know how close you are to fleeing the scene. She doesn’t know that in your head, you’ve already climbed out of the bathroom window and made it halfway down the street. But then again, maybe she did. Maybe she could tell that I was about as present as a cardboard cutout, just propped up in my seat, going through the motions.

The lamb and beef, finely seasoned and cooked to perfection, might as well have been an old shoe. I was operating on visual cues alone, assuming that it was good because it looked good. What else was I misjudging? Everything, probably. But I didn’t have the spare capacity to care. I was in survival mode, trying to make it through the meal without collapsing into a puddle of phlegm and regret.

Emily kept talking, blissfully unaware of the existential crisis happening across the table. And who could blame her? She was out with a person who only resembled the real me in the loosest sense—a physical shell, empty of all charm and wit, barely capable of holding up its end of the conversation. But still, I nodded and smiled, like some low-budget AI programmed to simulate human interaction.

And then, out of nowhere, a thought hit me: Maybe this isn’t about survival. Maybe this is about seeing how far you can stretch the act of being present while being totally absent. Could I coast through the rest of this evening, pretending to listen, pretending to taste, pretending to care? Could I get away with being a ghost in my own body? I’d made it this far, after all. Perhaps that was the real challenge—not enjoying the meal, but faking the entire experience convincingly enough that no one noticed I was already checked out.

The truth was, I didn’t have much of a choice. I had to soldier through. There would be no great revelation tonight, no moment of clarity where the headache lifted and I suddenly became engaged and present. There would only be more bites of tasteless lasagna, more nodding, more pretending.

Tomorrow would be better, I reminded myself again. Tomorrow, I would be able to judge the world with a clearer head, to engage with reality without the filter of sickness and hangover. But tonight? Tonight, I was a terrible date, a terrible conversationalist, a terrible everything. And yet, I was here, going through the motions, doing my best to pretend.

And maybe, just maybe, that was enough.