Two Takes on the Unapologetic Man

Editor's Note: These pieces are in response to an earlier essay, "Opinion: The Unapologetic Man is Extinct," published on Esquire Philippines on June 19.

Men diminish themselves because complicity is safe.

I am at OTO in Poblacion, watching a bartender set my drink on fire.

The cocktail is called a Grey Poupon. A hollowed lime shell is balanced above the glass, filled with overproof rum and lit like a torch. The bartender dusts it with cinnamon, and a pillar of sparks erupts toward the ceiling. It is excessive. Theatrical. Beautiful.

The drink is strong, spicy, and impossible not to notice. I am not drinking it for the ‘gram, but I am not afraid to be seen with it either.

A few minutes later, I leave my drink to line up for the gender-neutral toilet.

That's where I see a foreigner. European, maybe. Tall. Confident in the way some men become when they believe money and distance from home exempt them from ordinary rules. He starts talking to a woman in line.

She's wearing jeans and an oversized denim jacket with tan suede trim. The sort of outfit that says she dressed for herself, not for anybody else's approval.

He tells her she's beautiful. She smiles politely. Then she shrinks, not dramatically, but just enough. Enough for another man to notice. Maybe not him, me. I noticed.

My instincts tell me I should say something. The calculations begin immediately. He's taller than I am. I'm probably more fit. Would he back down? If this turns ugly, am I willing to get punched for a stranger? The conversation continues while I stand there conducting risk assessments disguised as thoughts.

He compliments her again. She tries to disengage. He persists. Finally, he asks if he can buy her a drink.

"No, thank you," she says. Then more firmly, "Please don't."

He mutters something condescending and walks away.

Only after he's gone do I speak. I tell her I should have said something sooner.

She smiles. "It's okay," she says. "I can handle myself."

Then she adds, "I'm used to it."

I know she intended it as reassurance. But I was even more outraged. Not at the tourist but at myself.

She wasn't helpless. She was practiced.

Somewhere between adolescence and adulthood, women had learned the choreography. Smile. Deflect. Stay polite. Calculate risk. Escape cleanly.

And I hate that.

Because normalcy, for women, often means becoming fluent in situations that should never happen in the first place.

Lately, there has been a lot of talk about what it means to be an unapologetic man. The popular answer seems to be that men have become too cautious. Too considerate. Too willing to ask permission. Too worried about making people uncomfortable.

Standing in that bathroom queue, I realized my frustration comes from the opposite direction.

I don't want men to be less considerate. I want us to be less comfortable watching other men cross boundaries.

I don't want fewer apologies. I want men to have fewer reasons to apologize.

The man who harassed her wasn't suffering from an excess of self-doubt. He wasn't trapped by therapy-speak or social approval or fear of offending strangers. He felt entitled to her attention from the moment he opened his mouth.

The problem was not that he lacked confidence. The problem was that he had too much of the wrong kind.

And the rest of us often benefit from treating that as somebody else's problem. The easiest thing in the world is to stay silent when another man is being inappropriate. Maybe that's why patriarchy survives so easily. Not because men consciously gather in smoke-filled rooms to oppress women, but because too many of us discover that looking away is convenient.

When people say "not all men," I agree. Not all men harass women. Not all men threaten them. Not all men make them feel unsafe. But if the phrase means anything useful, it should begin as a challenge rather than a defense.

Not all men. So which men? And what are the rest of us willing to do about them? 

Because justice is not a gendered instinct. Neither is courage.

Filipino women have spent generations asserting their rights, defending communities, leading movements, and carrying burdens that the history that men wrote once claimed belonged exclusively to us. They did not wait for permission to do so. Joey Guerrero. Maria Orosa. Maita Gomez. Gina Lopez.

The least we can do is stop pretending that accountability somehow diminishes masculinity.

I still think about that moment in the queue. Not because of what happened. Because of what didn't.

I want to be the unapologetic man, the sort of man who acts. Instead, I became another witness who hesitated.

The unapologetic man is not the one who refuses to question himself. He is the one who can look directly at the failures of society, beginning with himself, call them by their proper name, and decide to do better next time.

I want to be the unapologetic man who doesn't perform masculinity for the ‘gram, but is not afraid to be seen with it.

A single moment seen from across a crowded room can tell a story. But sometimes, it only tells the story we are already prepared to believe. 

I recently read a piece where a writer was observing a young man ask his date if it was okay for him to pay the bill, serving as proof that the “unapologetic man” was disappearing. It was meant to paint a powerful image—a reminder of an older time when men opened doors, pulled out chairs, and reached for the check without hesitation.

But as a father watching young men grow up in today’s world, I wonder if I would have seen and felt the same thing.

To pass sweeping judgment on today’s young men based on who pays for a cocktail isn’t just unfair, it misses the point of how masculinity is evolving. If that were me eavesdropping, I wouldn’t have seen the death of chivalry. I would’ve seen a young man trying to figure out what respect looks like in a world where many of the old rules no longer apply.  And maybe that deserves a little more understanding, not an obituary.  

The truth is, young men today are navigating a world that is very different from the one their fathers grew up in. If they even grew up with their fathers to tell them about that world. 

A New Generation, A New Definition of Being a Man

For generations, the script for men was simple: provide, protect, endure. A man’s worth was often measured by how much he could carry without complaint. But today’s young men are growing up in a world where relationships, gender roles, and expectations have been upended—and that change is a good thing.

Women today have more independence and agency, and rightly so. But for a young man entering the dating world, this can sometimes feel like navigating a conversation where the rules are still being rewritten.

Paying for the entire bill can be an act of generosity. But offering to split it can also come from a place of respect—an attempt not to assume, not to impose, and not to treat a woman as someone who needs to be taken care of.

Sometimes what looks like a lack of confidence is actually someone trying very hard to do the right thing. The problem is, we often judge the action without understanding the intention behind it. And this is why I usually mind my own business. 

The Weight Young Men Carry Today

Every generation thinks the next one is screwing it all up, and it is so easy to romanticize the past. We remember the confidence of men from previous generations—their certainty, their swagger, their ability to move through the world with fewer questions.

But we sometimes forget what came with that certainty. Many men were never taught how to express fear, ask for help, or admit they were struggling. They were told to stay strong, even when they were breaking.

Young men today are carrying a different kind of weight. They live in a world where every opinion can be challenged publicly, every mistake can be recorded, and every insecurity can be amplified online. They are surrounded by endless ideas of what a man should be—from being emotionally aware and sensitive to being dominant and successful.

Somewhere between those extremes, they are trying to figure themselves out.

And they are doing this while facing economic realities their parents never had to deal with in the same way. The cost of building a home, starting a family, or simply finding stability feels further away for many of them.

So maybe expecting them to perfectly embody an old version of masculinity is asking them to live in a world that no longer exists. 

The Danger of Writing Men Off

What worries me is that when we constantly tell young men what they are doing wrong, we forget to ask what they are struggling with.

A generation of men who feel constantly judged may eventually stop trying altogether. We already see signs of young men withdrawing—from relationships, from communities, from conversations. Not because they don’t care, but sometimes because they feel like they have lost the game that has not even started.  

And when men retreat, everyone loses.  We lose future fathers, partners, friends, leaders, and the good things that healthy masculinity can bring.

A Call for Grace

As a father, I don’t want my sons to grow up believing that being a man means never apologizing.  A man who cannot say sorry or ask for help is not strong. He is simply unwilling to grow. What I hope for my sons and for young men everywhere is something better.

I hope they become men who are kind without being weak, confident without being arrogant, and strong enough to be vulnerable. They will make mistakes. They will have awkward dates. They will sometimes get the bill wrong. 

If we want young men to become better, we have to give them something that every person needs when they are still figuring life out. A little patience. A little wisdom. And a lot more grace.  So instead of standing at a distance and declaring that they have failed, maybe we should pull up a seat beside them and share what we have learned. Over a drink. Rhum Coke lang for me, please.

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