Monday, November 09, 2026
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Today we launched a new (old) franchise: Man At His Best. Last seen in 2017, the section offered advice for men to steady improve their lives emotionally, intellectually, and physically. It’s back. Starting right now, you’ll find Man At His Best stories on Esquire.com, across our social channels, in the print magazine, and in this newsletter every day. –Michael Sebastian, editor-in-chief
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A new (old) franchise to help guys steadily improve their lives emotionally, intellectually, and physically.
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Did you know the American man is in crisis too? Of course you did. For at least a decade, the media hasn’t let up: Men are lonely, friendless, and angry; falling behind in the workplace; dying deaths of despair. Outlets like The New York Times, The Atlantic, and, yes, Esquire have been dutifully diagnosing the problem for years. Starting now, it’s time to offer solutions.
To do that, we’re restoring an Esquire franchise that began in the early 1980s: Man at His Best. It became a section in the magazine that would be a “reader’s resource for finding quality in everyday life.” That section was last seen in 2017, but to deliver those solutions, we’re reintroducing the franchise on Esquire.com, across our social channels, and in every print issue of Esquire. You’ll find a range of dispatches from multiple points of view—some of them from women—on both what it means to be a man in the 2020s and how to steadily improve your life emotionally, intellectually, and physically. We will publish at least one story a day on the topic; it will appear on the right side of our homepage, in our daily newsletter, and on the Man at His Best page.
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I knew men were using AI tools to create their profiles on dating apps and draft messages to women. Plenty of single women have received texts that were clearly written by ChatGPT or Claude. Indeed, a recent study found that 26 percent of adults are using AI for help with dating. But then I heard about Kent, a late-20-something finance worker in New York. Kent is the apex predator of AI romance. He audio-records his dates (one-party-consent recording is legal in New York State) and runs the transcripts through Claude for feedback.
“Claude will show me which conversation topics work best, who talked more, what did we spend the most energy on, how many positive words were used versus negative, what got me the most interested,” he told me. “I’ve always been a data-driven guy, and I’m curious to know how I can do better.”
Yeah, it’s weird, but at least Kent is using AI to improve himself, right? Are other guys this conscientious? Can ChatGPT be an effective wingman?
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I want to tell you about some things that I think you can only understand when you are an immigrant. The first, and most important, is that emigrating is not something you do without a reason to leave. I will tell you mine. In Venezuela, when I would take my daughter to school, she had to ride lying down on the floor of the car. At any moment, someone might knock on your door, point a gun, steal your phone. It was safer to have her flat on the ground, below the windows. She was a great student at a private school, and that is what it took to get her there. I challenge you to imagine being a father and seeing that little girl, not even ten years old, huddling for safety.
That was my reason for leaving, but it is not the reason I and my family have been allowed to stay here. We are asylum seekers, and there are strict rules around qualifying for asylum in the United States. The fear of being mugged is not enough. But political persecution is. In the year after the 2013 election of President Nicolás Maduro, when life in Venezuela was very difficult, the country erupted in protests. I was among the protesters, and I was detained and separated from my family for a week. We decided that when we visited my sister in Miami in 2015, we would request asylum.
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