Most dating advice tells men to try harder. Text back faster, plan the perfect date, say the right line. In one of the most-watched clips London Real has ever published, Dan Bilzerian says the opposite: stop chasing.
Bilzerian sat down with Brian Rose in 2019, at the height of his fame as the poker player and Instagram personality with tens of millions of followers. Brian asked him what one or two things he would teach men about women. His answer took less than ten seconds: “Don’t chase, and don’t be afraid of rejection.” The rest of the clip unpacks what he means, and it’s more practical than the headline suggests.
▶ Watch the full episode: Dan Bilzerian – Pleasure Is Not Happiness
Rejection is a numbers game
Bilzerian’s first point is about volume, not technique. In college, he says, he simply talked to any woman he found attractive, wherever he was, “in a grocery store, in a library”. No cheesy compliments, just conversation.
Most of those conversations went nowhere, and that was the point. Every one made him more comfortable. He contrasts himself with a cautious friend who only approached women he knew were already interested: the friend had a perfect strike rate, but far fewer dates. The lesson is that fear of rejection costs you more than rejection itself.
Build a life that does the attracting
The second idea is the one the clip is named after. Bilzerian says the better long-term strategy is to set up your life so that people come to you. When you are not chasing, he argues, the whole dynamic changes, and “everyone has more fun.”
This isn’t really about women. It’s the same principle Brian Rose returns to with guests again and again: build something worth being drawn to, then stop begging for attention. Bilzerian ties it straight back to work. He talks about logging his “10,000 hours” at the poker table, playing up to 18 hours a day across ten tables, and using the money to buy back his time.
Buy back your time
That part of the clip may be the most useful for anyone who will never own a yacht. Bilzerian describes hiring staff so that he does not spend his hours on chores, and compares that with the average working week once you subtract sleep, commuting and errands. His claim is that he has “lived ten lifetimes” because almost all of his time goes on things he actually chooses to do.
You don’t need his budget to apply the idea. Look at which hours of your week you would happily pay to get back, and start there.
His one rule: honesty
The final section turns to how he manages relationships that are, by his own description, unconventional. Brian asks if there are rules. Bilzerian says there is only one: “The rule is honesty. That’s my one rule.”
He tells partners the truth even when the answer is uncomfortable, and argues that this is rarer and more valuable than the “pretence” of a relationship built on hiding things. Whatever you think of his lifestyle, the underlying point (say what is true, and let people decide with full information) is a fair test for any relationship, romantic or professional.
Who is Dan Bilzerian?
Dan Bilzerian is a professional poker player, entrepreneur and social media personality. He went through Navy SEAL training, studied at the University of Florida, and became one of the most-followed men on Instagram by documenting a famously lavish lifestyle. He later founded the cannabis and CBD company Ignite. On London Real he talked about women, cannabis, his poker career and even a run for president.
This clip comes from his first sit-down with Brian Rose, recorded in 2019. In the full conversation he goes much deeper on why, in his words, pleasure is not happiness. He returned in 2022 to talk about his philosophy on life, women and money.
See everything Dan Bilzerian has done with London Real on his guest page: Dan Bilzerian on London Real.
More on London Real
Transcript
Transcript: Dan Bilzerian – Why You Shouldn’t Chase Women (And What To Do Instead)
0:00 Brian Rose: If you could teach guys one or two things about women, what would you tell them?
0:09 Dan Bilzerian: Don’t chase, and don’t be afraid of rejection. My strategy in college was that every time I saw a girl I found attractive, I’d just go up and talk to her. I didn’t care if it was in a grocery store or a library. I wouldn’t go up and say “I think you’re beautiful” and all that cheesy stuff. I’d just talk to her about whatever and see where it went.
0:48 Dan Bilzerian: Sometimes it didn’t go anywhere. Sometimes they wouldn’t give you the time of day, or you’d have a casual conversation that led nowhere. But because I did that, it made me more comfortable talking to girls, and it was a numbers game.
0:57 Dan Bilzerian: I always used the example of one buddy who was really conservative. He would only talk to a girl he knew really liked him, so maybe he’d talk to two girls and sleep with both of them. I’d talk to a hundred girls and maybe sleep with four of them. He’s batting a thousand, but I’m still with twice as many girls. So I just put in the time and interacted with tons of girls.
1:35 Dan Bilzerian: Now I realise a better strategy, if you can do it (and a lot of guys don’t have their life set up to do it), is to set up your life so the girls have to come to you. Then you don’t have to pursue them, and the dynamic is different when they’re chasing you as opposed to you chasing them. Everyone has more fun.
1:57 Dan Bilzerian: It’s better for the girl too, because she feels like she accomplished something. She’s a little bit invested, and if you hook up with her, it’s because she’s going with it, not because you were chasing something. So I think it’s better for both people.
2:15 Brian Rose: Do you think we’ll see more Dan Bilzerian-type scenarios in the future, where there’s one guy and lots of women?
2:23 Dan Bilzerian: I think there are a lot of people trying to copy what I’m doing. I don’t know how effective they’re going to be. There are eight billion people in the world, so I’m sure somebody will pull it off at some point. It’s not easy.
2:41 Dan Bilzerian: I’m in a very lucky situation, and I say lucky not because I didn’t work hard to get where I’m at, but because there’s definitely a degree of luck with super successful people. You have to be at the right place at the right time, and then figure out a way to capitalise on it. A lot of people are given an opportunity and they squander it.
3:06 Dan Bilzerian: With poker, I got in at the right time and the right place, and I put in the hours. You know the 10,000-hour theory? I logged my 10,000 hours. I paid my dues: playing 18 hours a day, six or seven days a week, ten tables at a time. It was a grind and it sucked, but it paid off. I made a bunch of money.
3:38 Dan Bilzerian: I used that money to hire staff, and now I’ve got 90-something people working for me. I don’t spend any time grocery shopping, making my bed or washing my clothes. All my time goes on business, hanging out with girls or friends, travelling, or doing the things I want to do. I really don’t spend any time doing things I don’t want to do.
4:00 Dan Bilzerian: So I’d say I’ve lived ten lifetimes, at least compared to an old person. A normal person spends 40 hours a week working plus the commute. Take out the eight hours a day they sleep, the shower, brushing their teeth, all the stuff they have to do: how much of their day is actually usable? And how much of that goes on work that isn’t anything they really want to do? Sorting mail, TPS reports, flipping burgers, whatever it is.
4:45 Dan Bilzerian: Everything I’m doing is something I want to do. It’s interesting to me, it contributes to my life, and I’m learning something from it. Even with girls: every time you interact with a girl you learn something and figure out more of the psychology.
5:08 Dan Bilzerian: Girls want to do what they’re not supposed to do. I feel like they kind of get off on that. If you understand that premise, and the whole competitive piece of it, the stuff they do makes sense. It’s still surprising sometimes.
5:26 Brian Rose: How do you keep them all happy? That must be hard.
5:30 Dan Bilzerian: That’s actually probably the most difficult piece of this. There’s definitely a big sexual obligation, I would say. I think it’s two to three months, and then they usually get too attached and can’t deal with the situation.
6:12 Dan Bilzerian: Up until that point, you can’t spend too much time with one girl, because that accelerates things. She gets too invested and can’t deal with the other girls. So you spend a somewhat limited amount of time with them, but enough that they’re happy, and you keep the rotation going. If some of them leave, it doesn’t matter.
6:39 Dan Bilzerian: Because you’re okay with letting them leave, and they can date other guys and do whatever they want, it makes them not want to do that as much as if you told them not to and tried to control them. It’s a whole crazy dynamic, pretty much uncharted territory. I was just talking to a girl about this last night.
7:01 Brian Rose: You should write a book about this. Are there rules?
7:06 Dan Bilzerian: The rule is honesty. That’s my one rule. You have to be honest with me and I’ll be honest with you. You can lie to your boyfriend, you can lie to whoever you want, your friends, I don’t care. But you have to be honest with me.
7:22 Dan Bilzerian: If she asks me a question, I’m going to tell her the answer. Don’t ask scary questions, but I’m going to tell you the truth. I think they’re so unused to that. When they ask, “How many girls have you hooked up with this week?” and you tell them the truth, at first it’s “What the…?”, and then part of them is a little relieved: this guy’s going to be honest with me. I can ask him any question and he’ll tell me the truth. I think that’s really rare.
8:02 Dan Bilzerian: I don’t think many people are being honest. In LA now they have this whole sugar daddy thing, where the guy’s got five girlfriends and the girl’s got four guys paying the same bills. They’re all lying to each other. It’s a whole nutty situation.
8:29 Dan Bilzerian: I think the rarest thing is honesty, and a lot of people ask why the girls are okay with it. It’s because of the honesty. I would choose it too. I’d choose honesty over the illusion, the hope of monogamy. They know if they ask me a question I’ll tell them the truth, and I think there’s more value in that than in the pretence of “I think this guy’s monogamous”, always trying to catch him cheating, and then two years down the line finding out he’s been cheating the whole time.
9:19 Dan Bilzerian: Then they end up an emotional wreck, they’ve been deceived, and they have all this animosity. I never really have bad breakups or negative fallout. Sometimes they’ll implode and get upset, but I never lied to them. They never got swindled or sold a bill of goods. So there’s usually no animosity at all, and I think that’s kind of a cool thing.
