Male bonding doesn’t have to be about bravado and bros. Dancing on stage naked taught me a better way | Gunnar Ardelius

Friendships based on sport and alcohol don't always allow us to be our true selves. Shared vulnerabilities enrich our lives

In my early 20s, I worked as a naked dancing ghost. I was a late stand-in for a production of Richard Wagner's The Flying Dutchman. A couple of evenings a week I strolled in the dark to Malmo Opera's functionalist home, with its marble-clad columns and huge, warmly lit window surfaces.

Backstage in the dressing rooms, it was almost like the atmosphere before a lower-division football game, the guys shooting the breeze, talking rubbish, except that when they returned one by one from the cubicle where the makeup was being applied, they were naked and corpse-pale, their bodies dotted with splashes of black. Lips were chalky-white and eyes were adorned with dark rings that gave faces a startled expression.