Men In The Mirror
“IS THAT WHAT A MAN LOOKS LIKE?” As a 16-year-old boy, I didn’t really think about this question – posed by the narrator in Fight Club, while sizing up an advert for men’s underwear – because I was preoccupied with trying to look like Brad Pitt. I did, however, think about how doing so might make me more attractive to girls.
If you were to ask me where my interest in working out came from, that’s probably how I’d answer. But if I really think about it, my obsession with body image was born much earlier. A child of the 1980s, I grew up watching He-Man cartoons and reading superhero comics, which inspired in me an admiration for physiques that couldn’t exist in real life. When I was old enough, my dad would let me stay up to watch Arnie films, which presented me with physiques that could exist in real life thanks only to pharmaceutical assistance.
An ex-soldier turned mechanic, my dad was into motorbikes and tattoos, not working out. He wasn’t a big guy, but he wouldn’t back down from one either. He worked with his hands and settled arguments with his fists. He was not like other dads, nor I like him. He took me to my football matches and instructed me to take the man (or the eight-year-old boy in this case) instead of the ball. To be hard. Nearly three decades later, I’m still trying. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say compensating.
