When I was in my early 20s, I owned a duffel bag full of sand. Correction: I owned a duffel bag full of sandwich bags full of sand, each duct-taped closed so that I could easily add them to or remove them from the larger bag when I was taking it outside to do squats and hill sprints. In my mind, this was a perfectly reasonable thing to do, a view I questioned only when one of my friends, helping me to move house, said: “Ooh, this is heavy, what’s in this one?” Reader, they were furious.
I mention this not to show off, but to establish my credentials before the next bit. I did a lot of stupid things in my 20s, purely because they were easier than learning to talk to people. A lot of young men do. These days, loads of young men are getting into cold showers and talking about the gym a lot; before that, it was Stoicism and living like a Navy Seal. None of these things are bad for you – some can actually be great – but however hard they seem to be, they are not as hard as doing the things that most young men are scared of, such as expressing your hopes and fears honestly, or ringing someone for a chat.
