Real Men Reveal Their Ordeal

Gareth, 37, from London.

“I was a skinny teen and I hated my body. I saw the covers of Men’s Health and Flex and wanted muscles like those guys, so I started lifting weights. But it wasn’t enough, I began taking steroids; the biggest mistake of my life. I can now tell you, they have rendered my infertility. It’d gone from 13 stone to 21 stone. I was only 21. It took over my life. I couldn’t go on holiday for fear there wouldn’t be a good gym. What I saw in the mirror wasn’t what anyone else saw.”

Sam Rega, 32, from New York.

“I started using dating apps around the time Tinder came out. I had used them about five years before I realised I had a problem. They kept getting more exciting. Each – Hinge, Happon, Lovefluttter – had a new gimmick. I would swipe and it didn’t matter who I was looking at, I wasn’t even reading the profiles. I thought of it as a numbers game. It gave me a psychological boost every time I matched with someone. It was being wanted and I liked that.”

Dan Felton, 29, from Dalston.

“I knew from day one that I wanted to be covered in tattoos. My first tattoo was a big dagger on my calf. It felt like a long time coming. I remember quite vividly the day after it was done, bugging the guys at the shop to do more. I was hooked. Even now when I look in the miror I don’t see someone covered in tattoos, I just see the gaps. Seeing the finished tattoo is the fix, it’s about feeding an urge.”

(Shortlist Magazine, Issue S31. July 26, 2018. Adapted.)