THE DANGEROUS CHARISMATIC MAN

Charming boys will always outdo charming girls.

By: Francesca Jaques

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Credit: Paul Mescal

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Charming boys will always outdo charming girls. 

I’ve spent my life observing “cool” men, their ability to hover over a room while having nothing to say, their unexceptional ideas which become mistaken for revelations and how their names linger in conversation, always paired with the same approval: “He’s such a cool guy.” 

Cool girls spend years constructing an image that boys only accidentally achieve — and in nothing more than linen pants. 

Not everyone can be a cool guy; they must first acquire charisma. But charisma is the easiest trait to develop when you’ve spent a lifetime accepting compliments. For women, you must first be objectively hot to an invisible panel before you’re allowed charisma. For men, the range is wider. The ugliest man you’ve ever seen will still have devoted followers somewhere. 

Now that hotness is out of the way, men can get away with feeling incredibly interesting. They learn that attention comes easily to them and grow so accustomed to its abundance that they begin to wield it — redirecting it, redistributing it and using it to win others over.

We should be nauseated by the fallacies of a charismatic boy. 

How Charisma is Built (For Men)

For men, the road to charisma is remarkably short. Sometimes it begins with nothing more than a haircut, a passing interest in women's style or the purchase of a film camera. None of which are inherently meaningful nor representative of a talent, yet they are interpreted as signs of depth. The film camera is perhaps the most reliable shortcut: point it at anything, develop the roll and you are suddenly a person who sees and has interests. A woman with the same camera and twice the technical skill will be asked who taught her.

A friend assumes only cool, charismatic boys could own a film camera.

For men, what charisma does is convert presence into credibility. It is not that charismatic men are more capable. Their presence functions as a preemptive argument in their favor, one that runs quietly in the background of every interaction, shaping how their words land, how their failures are absorbed and how accusations against them are received.

The Working Charismatic Man

Nowhere is social credibility appraised more aggressively than in the workplace.

Before he even started, my coworkers spoke of the incoming bartender effusively. 

“You’re going to love him.” 

“He’s so charming.” 

The enthusiasm preceded him. I was personally preparing to meet a kind of God who would earn us $5,000 in tips. 

He was, in fact, not a God. He was personable and competent, as most good bartenders are. 

I was, too. I treated customers with the same attentiveness, maintained more regulars and consistently made higher tips. But the chefs slid him free fries across the counter, and he was greeted with obnoxious hugs at the door. His arrival always carried a subtle sense of occasion.

I considered including a real photo of Charismatic Boy Bartender. While searching my camera roll, all I found were group coworker shots of him covering me and flexing. I digress. 

Image Credit: Pinterest

What unsettled me most was that I was not immune. I tripped over myself for his attention. I didn’t register the free fries sliding across the counter because I was too busy laughing at his jokes. I participated in the myth of him. Male charisma is dangerous precisely because it persuades the very people it disadvantages, allusive to a deep-rooted sexism that we now pretend is too woke to acknowledge.

Journal entry from the week Charismatic Boy Bartender started. Before I had language for it, I had this.

My shining coworker, the beloved male teachers, the aggressive bankers — all cut from the same cloth, all trading in the same invisible workplace currency that likability so reliably grants to men.

The Credibility Gap

Charismatic men can get away with anything. 

Once a man is widely regarded as charming, accusations do not land the same way, and stories bend around him. Cool guys find a limitless pot of credibility that women spend lifetimes dreaming about. No one will believe that your boyfriend yells at you because he’s “so f*cking cool.” There is a particular sentence that surfaces in these moments. 

"I just can’t imagine him saying that!"

Imagination, it seems, is limited by reputation.

My friend’s reasonable anger at her ex-boyfriend’s belovedness. It's the band thing.

This isn’t me arguing that women aren’t powerful or not taken seriously. That conversation already exists, and it isn’t the one I’m trying to have. Women are widely understood as intelligent, intense, capable — and when they are publicly disrespected, people respond. I don’t believe we’re living in a world where women are dismissed as weak caricatures.

What I’m interested in is something subtler than that: the surplus. That extra inch of credibility. The way a man can hover in a room with nothing to say and still be considered magnetic. The way free fries slide across a counter without anyone questioning why. The way no one can quite imagine him raising his voice. 

I am interested in the lengths male charisma takes men, and I am interested in answering the question that’s never left me: how much more would they love me if I were a man?

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Francesca Jaques is an online writer for Rowdy Magazine. She describes herself as extremely kind, effortlessly funny, hauntingly beautiful and humble. IG: @francescajaques13 EMAIL: tutijaques@gmail.com