At the risk of sounding like Lady Bracknell doing a PowerPoint about popular culture, the word ‘rizz’ is modern parlance for ‘charisma’.
Yes, the kids stopped saying it about two years ago, but some men are so convinced they possess it that they probably still say it while wearing silly shades and carrying a tote bag. Here’s how to spot them…
They slavishly follow trends
Being in possession of rizz means doing your own thing, not waiting for the delivery truck in the loading bay at Zara Men. Also, guys, please don’t try to push the fashion envelope if you do not happen to be Harry Styles or Pedro Pascal. They have professional stylists. You’re an accountant called Mark wearing a frilly shirt and beads while you eye up your Sainsbury’s meal deal.
They claim to be a DJ
Well, a bedroom DJ. OK, they’ve got one copy of Ghost Town by The Specials and a Donna Summer album that their mum gave them when she swapped over to CDs. That doesn’t stop them from ‘spinning their vinyls’ all night long, though, and also mansplaining how a stylus works to any woman who is miraculously still awake.
They have a moustache
Why do men in their 20s and 30s have 1980s moustaches? Are they in league with the Chuckle Brothers? The hipster moustache is usually twinned with tough, vintage Carhartt workwear – even though the hardest work they’ve ever done was some graphic design for a kombucha start-up. If you must grow a horrible ’tache, guys, just do it in November for charity.
They’re wearing a cap
Any man wearing a cap should be offering a useful service, like delivering a sofa or directing everyone to the nearest exit. If you don’t drive a truck or play baseball you have no business putting one on your head. And if you’re over 25, you’re on the highway to looking like Adam Sandler.
They’re socially awkward
Men with genuine rizz will pour the champagne, ask you questions and laugh at your jokes. However, men sans rizz who mistakenly still think they’re cool will sit in glum, aloof silence until you take the bait. If nobody does speak, they’ll get weird, angry and drunk, then go home and write a heartfelt song on the guitar called Everybody Hates Me May As Well Go And Eat Worms. Bye!
They’re rocking a ‘mangle’
That’s a man bangle. Older men who are clinging on to their last vestiges of youthful relevance love a bit of leathery chain-link jewellery. However, they’re now more LinkedIn than Linkin Park, and all that wrist decoration looks a bit out of place at a sales conference in Slough.
They carry a tote bag… and it’s got a novel in it
Did you subscribe to Mubi? Watched any Jodorowsky films recently? DIDN’T THINK SO. Inside their performative tote bag there’s a book they haven’t read but they want girls to think they’re clever, so they’ll pretend to read it in a café. Any minute now she’s going to come over and discuss Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace with you over a flat white! Just make sure to hold it the right way up.
They imagine they’re from another era
‘I wasn’t born for these times,’ they’ll sigh, as they leaf through a coffee table book about French New Wave cinema. Because they’re such cool outsiders, they wear stripy shirts like Picasso and drink espressos and write ideas in their notebooks like Kerouac. Just go to B&Q and buy some rawl plugs, for god’s sake. You’re 45 and you can’t put up a shelf!
They won’t give up on the hair
Look, not everyone is Kris Kristofferson. Sometimes when the Bald Eagle crows you have to listen to its call and shave it off. Otherwise you’ll be rocking a comb-over or a sparse Barbara Cartland fright wig until death. Or worse: wearing a back-to-front baseball cap.
They’re the best cook in the world
And finally, other people cook, but some rizz-tastic men out there put Anthony Bourdain to shame. They really understand flavours and textures. They fry off those potato waffles, plate up those fish fingers, and put the frozen peas in a bain marie. Do they wash up, though? Er… no.
