Scott McGlynn is effortlessly sociable. He lives in a nice house in Cardiff with his partner, Justin, a pet groomer, and their dogs Belle, Cleo, Faith, Bridget and Buffy. McGlynn, who is 34, regularly goes out with friends, and engages with more than 250,000 followers on Instagram. Life is good. But, occasionally – and, he says, I’ve caught him on one of these days – all he wants is to be “by myself, in my own head”.
McGlynn’s social retreats are, he is sure, a hangover from his teenage years, when the soul-destroying impact of bullying left him all but mute. He grew up in Barry, not far from Cardiff, and went to two secondary schools in the towns of Dinas Powys and Penarth. “For five years of my life, five days a week, from 8.30am until after 3pm, I could barely speak,” he says.
