Men are proving their masculinity by ... staring at nothing for hours on end. Could I hack it? | Rich Pelley

I wonder if Heston Blumenthal gets free sandwiches at Heston service station? Didn’t he have a partnership with Waitrose? Or was it M&S? There’s an M&S at Reading. Don’t they do this in Gavin and Stacey – rate the services down the M4? Leigh Delamere … there’s a character called Lee Delamere in that thing I’m watching, Your Honor with Bryan Cranston. Love Bryan. Think I love Kiefer more. They should make more 24. When does Jack Bauer go to the toilet ? Now I need the toilet. At least a wee will relieve the boredom …

If you’re confused by the above ramblings, that would be understandable. I’m investigating the TikTok trend of “ rawdogging ”, which, I must emphasise, isn’t as vulgar as it sounds. Once crude slang for sex without a condom, the term is now being used as a way to describe doing practically anything without entertainment or assistance. And it’s become the latest way for men to prove their masculinity.

Social media is full of posts by men bragging about how they have “rawdogged” international flights, meaning they have endured long journeys with no phone, music, films, books or (for the hardcore) food or drink. The idea is that without stimuli, you can reach a state of ultimate zen. Why it might appeal to a masculinist clique is baffling to me, but one psychologist explained it as: “Men are often socialised to value stoicism and mental toughness, so sitting alone with their thoughts can feel like a test of endurance.” Of course, it might also be because women simply wouldn’t be that stupid.

“Just rawdogged a 7-hour flight (new personal best) no headphones, no movie, no water, nothing,” one TikTok user posts. “Rawdogging the flight map, the only thing to watch while flying Virgin Atlantic,” another said of his herculean 11-hour effort. I don’t know how these people do it. I’m barely an hour into my entertainment-free journey from London to Swansea and I’m about as far from zen as you can get.

Rawdogging is normally credited to long-haul flights, but to get a feel for the trend, I’ve taken the longest, cheapest and most exotic route I could find on the budget bus service Megabus. It costs me £5.99 to “rawdog” it 185 miles – a bargain, if you ask me. My journey of nearly six hours is shorter than the seven hours it takes to fly to New York, but surely long enough to get the gist. It’s not quite the free transatlantic holiday I was hoping for, but at least they have an on-screen map to stare at, with a little coach instead of a plane. My phone is off and embargoed inside my bag (except when I take it out to take some selfies). I have no stimuli other than a notepad to record my thoughts, and a bottle of water because it’s boiling in here.

There’s nothing to see out of a plane other than clouds and UFOs, so I worry that even looking out of the bus window, with all those inviting road signs to read, is cheating. Occasionally you get different shaped electricity pylons which is interesting and … oh look! There’s a cow. Talking is cheating (the bloke next to me is busy yakking to his girlfriend on the adjacent seat anyway). Sleeping is definitely cheating. Clearly listening to music, which I would normally use when travelling to turn my brain into semi-conscious mush, is verboten. Without my headphones, I feel wired. My thoughts all revert to: “Are we nearly there yet?”, like I’m five.

I’ve been to the toilet twice out of boredom. Whatever Margaret Thatcher is supposed to have said about travelling by bus should have been about how completely and utterly tedious it is. As we pass junction 19 – 78 miles to go – my brain goes into overdrive. Now that Bristol Zoo isn’t a zoo any more, what’s happened to the gorillas? They were only kept on Gorilla Island by a moat. Had they watched Tim Burton’s Planet of the Apes, they could have overcome their fear of water and escaped. The Prince of Wales Bridge looks a bit like the Golden Gate Bridge. Now the road signs are in Welsh, what’s the Welsh for Godzilla? ( Gormofil , I later Google.)

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We pass Newport (“Whatever happened to Goldie Lookin Chain ?”). Cardiff (“Do they still film Doctor Who here?”). Port Talbot (plenty of chimneys; no sign of Michael Sheen). But disappointingly not Merthyr Tydfil. Didn’t Tom Jones used to work in the Hoover factory there? No, he sold Electrolux vacuum cleaners door-to-door in Pontypridd, I remember. Now all I have in my head is a gif of Freddie Mercury doing the vacuuming in the I Want to Break Free video as mirages of Swansea bus station appear at the side of the A483 like I’m dying of thirst in the desert. It turns out, without the comfort of screens, my brain starts producing my own personalised social media timeline.

As we arrive in Swansea, I have one thought left: I just don’t understand how these rawdoggers do it. One thing’s for sure, I’ve never been so utterly bored in my entire life. They say that the key to enjoying your own company is to silence your mind, as your native state should be one of peace and contentment, but my mind is anything but silenced. For some who have tried the trend, the experience equates to “an insane dopamine detox”, but all I’ve got is withdrawal symptoms for my phone. Some experts have warned it can lead to fatigue, stress and dehydration. If it wasn’t for my bottle of water, I’d be suffering from all three. I check my notepad which is now covered with the scrawl of a mad man. Hardly a masculinist ideal. I add: “Rawdogging. Never, ever, again,” triple underlined. Now, how am I supposed to get home?

• Rich Pelley is a freelance writer