We study, for a continuous linear operator T acting on an F-space X, when the direct sum operator $$T\oplus T$$
T
⊕
T
is recurrent on the direct sum space $$X\oplus X$$
X
⊕
X
. In particular: we establish the analogous notion for recurrence to that of (topological) weak-mixing for transitivity/hypercyclicity, namely quasi-rigidity; and we construct a recurrent but not quasi-rigid operator on each separable infinite-dimensional Banach space, solving the $$T\oplus T$$
T
⊕
T
-recurrence problem in the negative way.