When I typed "lads' pampering weekend" into Google, there were no results. "Did you mean ladies' pampering weekend?" asked the sexist search engine. At that moment I knew I was about to enter uncharted territory.
Everyone seems to think that the ingredients for a lads' weekend are beer, football and lechery, while the recipe for a pampering weekend involves face packs, a bubbling spa and the babble of women's voices endlessly discussing how to align their inner chi.
Why, apparently, do only women undertake the latter, occasionally accompanied by a man under sufferance who spends all weekend holed up in his room watching Sky Sports? In the spirit of a pioneering explorer, I took a crack team of two male friends, Matt and Rob, to map out the undiscovered terrain that is the lads' pampering weekend. We chose Cardiff because it features great sport, fine nightclubs, Chip Alley - and a big fat spa by the sea.
As you'll have noticed, the problem with the two concepts - "lads" and "pampering" - is that they sit at contradictory ends of the "weekend away" spectrum. Worse, I realised as I chomped on my extra-large kebab in Chip Alley (Cardiff's Caroline Street) at 4am on Sunday, a kind of electric charge is created by their collision. In other words, the spa side of the weekend only encourages more excess in the laddish portion. So our Saturday dancing at the Sodabar was followed not just by that kebab but, for some unknown reason, a 5am Big Mac meal, an alcoholic power nap and then a 9am greasy fry-up.
It meant that Melanie, my masseuse at St David's Hotel and Spa, was confronted by a uniquely toxic prospect when the spa side of things began in earnest on Sunday. It was also a tense one because I'd never had a proper massage before. In separate treatment rooms, Matt and Rob had the same problem: they found it hard to relax because they kept tensing up. "If you had a regular massage and your back was like this, I'd be really worried," said Melanie, as she applied a "fitness oil" blend - including clove buds, eucalyptus and peppermint - to the knots in my back.
This reluctance to surrender your body to others' hands is, I reckon, connected to the (often male) hang-ups of not wanting to lose control or admit that we may need the help of others to properly relax. According to Melanie, 40% of her clients are men. They just don't like to talk about it. And prefer the - more macho - term "sports massage".
What men certainly don't admit to is having facial treatments. "I'd like to know what my nose would look like without blackheads," said Matt beforehand. Perhaps we'd find out. Melanie applied oils (smell approved first by me) with some vigorous massaging of my jaw and temples. A hydrating cleansing milk, an uplifting pepperminty oil and a floral blend of rose and geranium helped treat my horribly dehydrated skin. After the 30-minute "express" treatment (you can also have an hour), I was newly aware of warm, tingly skin on my face which somehow felt plumper and more lustrous than before. How did I look? Glowing. But fairly normal. That, however, was a fantastic turnaround from the morning, when my hangover and XL kebab had put 20 years on me.
The massage took another hour, but it felt more like a rebirthing experience. The darkened room was filled with the kind of music you might find on the Greatest Meditation Album in the World - Ever! Faced by this rubbing in the dark, uneasy men tend to conflate massage with sexual stuff, but I found it intensely relaxing rather than erotic. It was, however, a weirdly unburdening experience: you feel a rush to talk about yourself and your issues with a complete stranger. My massage involved hot stones, which I assumed was mumbo jumbo, but Melanie explained that she used small smoothed stones of volcanic rock because they retained heat better. Whatever they did, they felt amazing - as soft and warm as a human hand but firm and smooth, too.
Afterwards I truly felt as if my life had changed. I probably looked pretty weird, shuffling in my towelling robe between St David's gloriously large Jacuzzi and sauna with aching shoulders and a blissful sense of relaxation, but I felt fantastic. The pedicure and manicure I then had were, to be honest, almost as excessive as that Saturday night burger, as I haven't got callused feet or the honestly worn hands of a manual worker. My hands, however, looked imperceptibly different afterwards; a bit like Hollywood hands.
We watched the sun set over the waters of Cardiff Bay from the hotel's very fine restaurant and chatted, in as manly a fashion as we could muster, about our treatments. Matt said he had learned valuable lessons from his salt scrub. "Apparently rubbing your back with a big brush is like vacuuming your skin, so that's what I've got to do now," he said. His masseuse had also passed on all kinds of useful advice about gifts for his girlfriend. Rob looked 10 years younger after his facial. And I vowed that, instead of wasting £75 on a night of beers and kebabs, in future I'm going to spend any indulgence dosh on a damn good massage.
• St David's Hotel and Spa, Havannah Street, Cardiff Bay (029-2045 4045, thestdavidshotel.com). A range of spa breaks and packages are available. Express facial (25min) £35, salt and oil scrub (25min) £35, hot stone full body massage (55min) £75. Day packages, with three-course lunch and full use of gym and swimming facilities, include City Slicker (160min of treatments) £175, and Chill out for Men (80min of treatments) £99. Also see visitwales.com and thesodabar.com.
