Why 'Rizz' Is Overrated: The Case for Radical Honesty
Forget the pickup lines and performance. Discover why authentic connection beats manufactured charm every time, and how radical honesty leads to better dating outcomes.
Somewhere between TikTok trends and dating app culture, we collectively decided that "rizz" was the key to romantic success. If you could just deliver the right line with the right timing, attraction would magically appear. The whole internet became obsessed with teaching people how to perform confidence, manufacture mystery, and deploy strategic charm.
But here's the thing nobody wants to admit: rizz is mostly theater. And while theater can be entertaining, it's a terrible foundation for actual human connection.
Let's talk about why the rizz approach is fundamentally broken, and what actually works instead.
What Is "Rizz" Anyway?
Rizz—short for charisma—has become the catch-all term for someone's ability to attract romantic or sexual interest through charm, wit, and smooth talking. It's the art of the pickup, the clever opener, the perfectly timed compliment that makes someone's defenses melt.
The concept isn't new. We've had pickup artists, smooth operators, and silver-tongued charmers throughout history. But the internet age has turned rizz into something teachable, shareable, and endlessly analyzed. There are tutorials on rizz. Rizz compilations on YouTube. People rating each other's rizz like it's a competitive sport.
The underlying assumption is that attraction can be engineered—that if you say the right things in the right way, you can manufacture chemistry with anyone.
It's a comforting idea. It suggests that dating success is a skill you can grind, like leveling up in a video game. Just learn the scripts, practice the delivery, and watch the matches roll in.
Unfortunately, it's also largely wrong.
Why the Rizz Approach Fails
1. It's Obviously Performative
Here's the first problem with manufactured charm: people can tell.
Humans have evolved over millions of years to detect authenticity. We're social animals who depended on reading each other's intentions for survival. Our brains are constantly processing micro-expressions, tone of voice, word choice, and behavioral patterns to determine whether someone is being genuine.
When you deliver a rehearsed line or perform confidence you don't feel, most people pick up on the incongruence—even if they can't articulate what feels off. There's a mismatch between your words and your energy, between your script and your authentic self.
This is why the smoothest pickup line often falls flat while a nervous, genuine interaction creates sparks. The nervous person isn't hiding anything. What you see is what you get. That transparency itself is attractive.
2. It Attracts the Wrong People
Let's say your rizz actually works. You deploy the perfect line, the other person is charmed, and you start talking. What have you accomplished?
You've attracted someone who responds to performance over substance. Someone who's drawn to a version of you that isn't quite real. Someone whose interest is based on your ability to entertain rather than your authentic self.
This creates a fundamental problem: you now have to maintain the performance. The clever, witty, always-on persona that got their attention is what they'll expect going forward. Any deviation from that character—any moment of being your real, imperfect, sometimes boring self—will feel like a letdown.
People attracted by your authentic self, on the other hand, already know what they're getting. There's no facade to maintain, no character to keep playing. You can just... be.
3. It's Exhausting
Performing is work. Anyone who's ever been on stage knows this—even a short performance requires significant mental and emotional energy. You're constantly monitoring yourself, adjusting your delivery, staying in character.
Now imagine doing that every time you interact with someone you're attracted to. Every message, every date, every conversation requires you to be "on." You're not just having a conversation; you're running a real-time evaluation of your own performance.
This is unsustainable. Eventually, you'll be too tired, too distracted, or too comfortable to maintain the act. And when the performance slips, your carefully constructed image cracks.
The irony is that dating burnout—something many people experience on apps—is often caused by this exact dynamic. It's not just that dating takes time and energy. It's that performative dating takes exponentially more time and energy than authentic dating.
4. It Doesn't Scale to Real Relationships
The biggest problem with rizz is that it's designed for first impressions. It might get you a response, a number, or even a first date. But it says nothing about your ability to build an actual relationship.
Relationships aren't built on clever openers. They're built on consistent presence, genuine vulnerability, shared experiences, and the ability to navigate conflict together. None of these require rizz. All of them require authenticity.
The person who's great at the initial spark but terrible at everything after is not actually good at dating. They're good at performing. Those are different skills, and only one of them matters for long-term connection.
5. It Focuses on the Wrong Goal
At its core, the rizz approach is about getting someone to like you. The goal is their response, their interest, their attraction. You're performing for an audience of one, trying to produce a specific reaction.
This is fundamentally backwards.
The goal of dating shouldn't be to make people like you. It should be to find people who like the real you—and to determine whether you genuinely like them. Dating is a sorting process, not a sales pitch. You're not trying to convince everyone you're great. You're trying to find the specific people with whom you have genuine compatibility.
When you approach dating as performance, you optimize for the wrong metric. You're trying to maximize responses rather than maximize fit. And more responses from the wrong people is actually worse than fewer responses from the right ones.
The Alternative: Radical Authenticity
So if rizz isn't the answer, what is?
The alternative is what I call radical authenticity—being genuinely, unapologetically yourself from the first interaction. Not performing confidence, but being honest about your actual state. Not delivering lines, but having real conversations. Not trying to impress, but trying to connect.
This isn't just a feel-good philosophy. It's actually more effective at producing the outcomes most people want from dating.
Here's why:
It Filters Efficiently
When you're authentic from the start, incompatible people self-select out. If your genuine personality doesn't appeal to someone, they won't engage—and that's good. You haven't wasted either person's time pretending to be something you're not.
This means fewer but higher-quality matches. Instead of casting a wide net and hoping something sticks, you're attracting people who are genuinely interested in who you actually are.
It Builds Trust Immediately
Authenticity signals that you're trustworthy. When someone senses that you're not trying to manipulate or impress them, their defenses come down. They feel safe being authentic too.
This creates a positive feedback loop: your authenticity invites their authenticity, which invites more of yours. Within a few exchanges, you're having a real conversation with a real person—something that might take weeks of performance to achieve.
It's Sustainable
Being yourself requires no effort to maintain. You can do it when you're tired, distracted, or having a bad day. You don't have to remember what character you're playing or which lines you've used.
This sustainability means you can engage with dating as a marathon rather than a sprint. You're not burning out from the effort of constant performance. You're just... living your life and occasionally connecting with interesting people.
It Attracts the Right People
The people who respond to your authentic self are the people who will enjoy your authentic self long-term. There's no bait-and-switch, no reveal of a "real" personality that's different from the charming one.
These are the connections most likely to develop into something meaningful. They're based on genuine compatibility rather than initial attraction to a performance.
Practical Authentic Approaches
Okay, so radical authenticity sounds great in theory. But what does it actually look like in practice?
Opening Authentically
Instead of a clever line, just say what you actually thought when you saw their profile.
Performative: "On a scale of 1 to 10, you're a 9 and I'm the 1 you need."
Authentic: "Your photo at the farmers market made me miss living somewhere with good produce. Where was that taken?"
The authentic opener isn't trying to be clever. It's just expressing genuine curiosity. It gives the other person something real to respond to rather than a line to evaluate.
Expressing Interest Authentically
Instead of playing it cool, just... say you're interested.
Performative: Waiting exactly 3 hours to respond, crafting the perfect casual-but-interested reply.
Authentic: "I'm really enjoying this conversation. Want to continue it over coffee sometime?"
Playing hard to get is a game. Games require both people to know the rules. Straightforward expression of interest respects both your time and theirs.
Handling Nerves Authentically
Instead of performing confidence, acknowledge the vulnerability of the situation.
Performative: Forcing eye contact and delivering rehearsed stories to seem confident.
Authentic: "I'm a little nervous—first dates are weird—but I'm glad we're doing this."
Acknowledging nerves paradoxically makes you seem more confident, not less. It takes self-assurance to be honest about vulnerability. And it usually puts the other person at ease because they're probably nervous too.
Sharing Opinions Authentically
Instead of agreeing with everything to seem agreeable, express your actual thoughts.
Performative: "Oh yeah, I love hiking too! We should totally go sometime!" (You hate hiking.)
Authentic: "I'm more of an indoor person, honestly. But I'd love to hear what appeals to you about it."
Authentic disagreement creates more interesting conversation than performative agreement. It also prevents you from accidentally committing to a hiking relationship when you just wanted to stay home.
Exiting Gracefully
Instead of ghosting or making excuses, just be honest about mismatched interest.
Performative: Slowly fading out responses until they get the hint.
Authentic: "I've enjoyed chatting, but I'm not feeling the romantic connection I'm looking for. Wishing you well out there."
Honest endings are kinder than slow fades. They give both people closure and respect everyone's time.
The Paradox of Trying Less
Here's the strange truth about dating: the less you try to impress, the more impressive you become.
When you stop performing, you become more present. When you're more present, you notice things about the other person. When you notice things, you ask better questions. When you ask better questions, they feel seen. When they feel seen, they're drawn to you.
This is the paradox of authentic connection. By focusing less on how you're coming across, you actually come across better. By releasing your grip on the outcome, you're more likely to get the outcome you want.
The person straining to be interesting is usually less interesting than the person who's simply curious. The one delivering clever lines is less compelling than the one genuinely laughing at their own awkwardness.
You can't manufacture chemistry through technique. But you can create the conditions for chemistry by being genuinely present with another human being.
Making the Shift
If you've been operating in performative mode, shifting to authenticity takes practice. Here are some starting points:
Notice Your Performances
Start by just paying attention to when you're performing versus when you're being genuine. What situations trigger the performance? What are you afraid will happen if you don't perform?
Practice Low-Stakes Honesty
Start expressing authentic thoughts in situations where the stakes are low. Tell the barista you're having a weird day. Admit to a coworker that you don't know something. Get comfortable with honesty as a habit before bringing it to dating.
Embrace the Cringe
Some of your authentic expressions will be awkward. That's fine. Awkwardness is part of being human. The more you can tolerate cringe-worthy moments without retreating into performance, the more freedom you'll have to be yourself.
Redefine Success
Stop measuring dating success by response rates or match counts. Start measuring it by the quality of connections and how you feel during the process. A dating life where you're comfortable being yourself is more successful than one with more dates but constant performance anxiety.
The Bottom Line
Rizz is a shortcut that doesn't actually lead where you want to go. It might get attention, but it won't get connection. It might spark initial interest, but it builds relationships on unstable foundations.
Radical authenticity is harder in the short term but infinitely easier in the long term. It requires you to be okay with not everyone liking you—which, honestly, you should be okay with anyway.
The goal isn't to be universally attractive. The goal is to find your people. And your people are looking for the real you, not the polished performance.
Drop the lines. Ditch the strategies. Just be yourself—genuinely, imperfectly, authentically.
That's more compelling than any rizz could ever be.