The Break-Up Diet - Why You're Still Single... (And It's Not Why You Think) | Johnny Cassell

Episode Date: July 29, 2026

Ever found yourself lying in bed thinking, "Why am I still single?" 😅Because same.This week, I'm joined by elite dating and men's lifestyle strategist Johnny Cassell, and let's just say... he had me questioning EVERYTHING I thought I knew about dating.We get into why so many people keep attracting the wrong partners, whether dating apps are actually ruining your love life (or if we're just blaming them 👀), why confidence beats looks every single time, and the habits that might be quietly holding you back without you even realising it.I loved this conversation because it isn't about playing games or pretending to be someone you're not. It's about understanding what actually attracts people, why some dating advice is complete rubbish, and how a few small mindset shifts could completely change your dating life.Whether you're fresh out of a breakup, sick of situationships, or just wondering why everyone else seems to have found their person... this episode is going to make you think.And honestly? You might finish it looking at your own dating life in a completely different way.Go and make yourself a coffee, stick your headphones in, and let's get into it. 💛 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Guys are assholes, women are bitches. Maybe it's you. Maybe it's you and maybe you can get better if you fix what's going on. Buckle up, bitches. It's going to get bumpy. This is the breakup diet. This week I have Johnny Casillan, who's a dating coach and relationship expert. He's spent over 20 years helping people find confidence and navigate the world of dating.

He's also the best-selling author of a book called Elite Seduction. and the star in a documentary, Find Love in Seven Days Inside the World's Number One Dating School. During our chat, we talked about all things to do with confidence, rejection and dating after heartbreak. And without further ado, welcome to the breakup diet. Johnny Kassel, elite dating and men's lifestyle strategist.

You're going to have to tell me what that means because I have no idea. I mean a little bit of an idea, but I need more details. Well, I guess, come up to 20 years now, I've been helping men overcome their issues with understanding the other, you know, in a romantic life, the dating life. And with that, what I sort of understood was it's two parts, right? It's a skill part.

And there's also your environment. And a lot of guys just haven't got the environment sorted out or really understand their positioning in the market. You know, I mean, you're from marketing. You understand that if you've got to, great product but it's not on the right high street or it's not in the right rooms then it's not going to reach its target market so we need to start looking our dating life a bit like that i've never thought of dating like that but i like it i like it yeah so and that's where i get my rocks off really

because it's that you can have a lot of fun with especially if someone's got some resources to play with you know you can create the rooms you can allocate a position in and um i think it's a it's a it's so overlooked. So what does that mean? So somebody would come to you that might be struggling what, getting dates or struggling like in their relationship, like it doesn't matter either all, or is it, what is it? You got a guy, you know, I could take a phone call yesterday, right? The guy's like in like the hillbilly middle of nowhere. He's complaining about he's not meeting anyone. And he's thinking of it as a situation where it's what he's saying, what he's doing. It's like, well, you need to be in a place where you have volume and you need to be in a place where the candidates are qualified, not just from an app or not from the Red Lion down the road because it's convenient.

And people sort of unconsciously just keep this loop going and they, you know, a decade's gone by when really they had to sort out their positioning, they had to sort out their community. and a lot of people think they have this data problem, but really it's that. They have a community and a positioning problem. So if you fix that, it doesn't really matter if it doesn't work out one person because you've already got the foundation, sort of you've got the bedrock sorted out.

We're constantly dealing with people that are on apps, and first of we have to ask yourself, why am I on an app? Why am I seen that as a viable pathway to meeting someone? Again, what shows up is I don't have community. that's why I'm seeing that as a choice. So it's get your social life sorted out, get your positioning sorted out,

and the dating will be the byproduct. And I'm thinking about it as like a woman being on an app, as in my surroundings, I live in London. So it should be quite good. But I'm on apps because I feel like everybody is on app. So if I'm not on an app, I feel like I've put myself at a disadvantage in the dating scene.

I think the disadvantage is being on there because I think that what happens is with the apps, if you think of like a network, Like what a network is, it's many nodes connected to each other. You know, traditionally people used to date people in the village. There was a small amount of nodes to play around with. And now we have a layer of like the digital space. There's more nodes connected than ever.

So what we come to realize, we have this huge paradox of choice. We actually never really make a decision. And we know it's pretty much stacked against you. I mean, men, I'd say, anyway. I mean, the figures that have come out, I mean, it's like 20% of people find success on dating apps. And those people are likely to understand how to sell an image, right? How to, what needs to be shown for the female or the male gaze? A lot of people don't come from that understanding or backgrounds.

So therefore, it's never really going to work for them. Or they're going to be monetized through the roof of whatever the new gimmick is, sending the rose or whatever the thing is, you know? when really if you if you possess the tools there's an opportunity every day as soon as you leave your house you know you just need context it could be picking up a coffee it could be where you have that brunch or you take that meeting a lot of people at home taking meetings on zoom now well i know it's convenient because you can stack them but you could have that meeting at a hotel lobby you know and then between meetings there might be someone a bit curious over there you can give a little flicker

of the eye or you know and something might be how to happen okay so with that like meeting somebody all or as everybody's calling it, IRL at the moment, that's good. But I do feel like nowadays men aren't doing that as much as they used to because of all the social media, because of the apps, because of they don't need to because there's so many options. Like how do we get people to actually do that again? Well, I think yes and why are they not doing it?

Well, the and bit is the other things that have happened in society again in the last decade. I always say this whenever these sort of questions, come up, but a Me Too campaign, again, like it was an important awareness campaign, you know, and the fallout of that was the men that perhaps were giving it a go, were really second-guessing, like, well, am I, is this okay? I've been told it's harassment now. And of course, there was lack of context in what was acceptable and what was not. And what we learn is, you know, the continued pursuit of an unwanted interaction is harassment, not saying to, you know, a

giving someone a compliment on the street or you're at the bar or whatever. The frustrating thing is for women that every day they're looking for a romantic experience and men are bottling it up because they feel like there's a social fallout or consequence to it. So that was something that's happened. The normalization of the dating apps. I say this all the time. I find it funny because, you know, in the inception of online dating, I remember platforms such as like plenty of fish or, you know, it was MSN messenger, like chat windows.

And it was a bit weird. You know, it was like you weren't really telling your friends you were on them. But wow, it's just like it's just so normal now. I don't completely discredit. They are a pathway. I just think where people are in trouble, if they substitute them for a social life. And that's what's starting to get lost. when you start to see the dissonement of traditional high street bars,

you know, parliament, stack and high sort of places, that really that's where you learn your stripes, being a bit rusty, giving it a go, taking at a risk, you know, position yourself next to the guy and maybe who will approach you, all this kind of, like, that's how you learn. And nightlife is getting a lot more curated as well. I mean, WhatsApp groups really matter now. You know, these like part of all apps and stuff like that.

Oh, part of all for like parties and stuff. Yeah, like this is, if you're not on a list, you're not really getting into the events where the people you'd like meet us. So then you're on a sort of, you know, the fringe of all what's really going on. Again, really backs up the point of who you know and what rooms matter.

So how are you going to help people with all these situations now with your agency. So you're getting them out to talk to people more in person. But for example, take the person that was living in the middle of nowhere. What's something that you would suggest that he does straight away? If he's very comfortable in his village or wherever he is, like, how do you get that man who's like obviously done, maybe, I don't know, done that for a while out of his comfort zone?

So initial conversation is like, what are your interests? and I just try to work out what could initially be the more social version of that right? So just to simplify, let's just say you're a jogger, you just go for a jogging a park on your own.

There's a lot of hype and talk around like running clubs and stuff like that. Sure, well that's an obvious more social version of saying. You already enjoy, consider that and give that a go. And let's just pull it out.

Like you perhaps might be doing too much male dominant activity. Some of my clients that are new to my work, I just find it that we just start working with each other. I check out with their Instagram stories and what they're posting and what they're signaling and stuff like that. It's just like, you're at a football game or, you know, you're coming to me saying you're not meeting women,

but all your social activity is just like with the lad. What do you expect, you know? Yeah, but it's the Arsenal. Who cares? Like, who cares? Like, it says your time. You're not getting a good return on your time, right? So think about being in environments where the ratio is in your favor.

That's advice for men and women. Yeah, I went to this like car concourse the other year and, you know, all the classic cars and stuff like that. It's full of affluent men. Now, I have a handful of select smart women that are positioned themselves, you know, and then they like the car, do you know what I mean? Just to get the conversation go, like, you could I start thinking like, Or like an Essex girl.

Exx girl is going to come in from the train and put herself in like, what is that market square over by Liverpool Street? To increase the chances of meeting someone. You know, you've got to think like an Essex girl. The Ned, everybody goes to the Ned, yeah. To meet the finance rows. Yeah.

Yeah. There are some really good pubs that you could go to, you know, the guys are watching the rugby match, you know. So if you're a woman, go to those pubs. Yeah. You do make it sound simple, but people aren't doing it. I know, it's uncommon sense. You know, things are like so obvious.

We're just making it so difficult. Let's go old school. That's how it always was, you know? And where guys are really struggling is they are not having stimulating conversations with women. So that's one of these challenges that people keep coming to for that they feel like they're not. For sure. I mean, the app might land them a date, you know. they've been able to pull the facade off, you know, through the message in.

But if you're not getting the opportunity to see someone a second time, well, it's quite clear that there was a lack of stimulation. And I believe you can have chemistry of anyone. I feel so when you are curious enough to want to know about the other, because you have to remind ourselves, we've all lived a life. Sometimes it's so wrapped up in our head. You're not present. You've got to be present.

And when you're present, you're listening. You're actually actively listening rather than passively listening trying to think of the best thing to say when really everyone's favorite subject is themselves. If you can make the subject about someone else, that's normally not what happens. You know, everyone sits there talking about themselves because they're overcompensating that they can't stimulate

and hoping that tell them about your boat or telling them how much you're worth is enough to get it across the line. Really, it's just a bit cringe. Very cringe. What made you want to firstly start helping men with, like, confidence and dating and all of that? It's been an interesting journey, like, answering that question because years ago, I would have gone around and told you that, you know,

I picked up a book and I was like, wow, yeah, this speaks to me. Why does it speak to me? Because I went to an old boy school. So I had a lack of opportunity with mixing of girls at a young age. And then I started to realize like, oh, I actually had a really bad experience in the younger periods of my life, you know, six or seven getting bullied by girls. And I like coming home with bruises all over my legs, I physically abused. Fogne about it. Completely forgot about it.

And so I started reading more about psychology. And if that comes to ourselves, like, whoa, that makes sense. So there's obviously been some psychological schema attached to interaction. girls my mind is saying it's not safe that's why there was resistance to me seeing a girl out in the wild out in the wild and just been like what's the i don't understand what's going on here i could have any sense of it become a need for myself that whole journey in terms of like getting over that stumbling block and actually having interactions started to see a difference in interactions started to see my friends coming out of relationships

and conference just absolutely disappearing. So I reluctantly started to share what I was learning to them because I wanted to get all the girls looking at it. But I was like, wow, there's a lot of joy in this. There's a lot of joy in helping people. You know, seeing someone completely find new belief in themselves again. I was like, maybe this is what I do. And then I came to London and started working for a company

for five years and then on the side my stuff was growing and then I built my own company. What I realized is, and this is a lot of my recent work, what I'm writing about now, I haven't released much of this yet, but how we all operate out of ancestral wounds. And what was really interesting for me is to explore only sort of grandfather in my life left and I was, but it was absent for like over 28 years in the family. And that was a lot of things my family I couldn't really make sense of. My mum, for example, you know, she always suffered from social anxiety. It was told her when she was at school, she had mutism, a cousin that's got mutism. There's all this sort of like social novelties, so to speak, within the family.

I was like, why? So there was things growing up where I see my mum, you know, very quiet, you know, not much of a social life. I'm absorbing this, like subconsciously. And that's why these sort of things started to speak to me later on in life as an interest. It's like you can subdue yourself to just be another person in that lineage. Or you could go into, you know, you could struggle to pick up the phone in 28 years, or you could go into a room and completely flip it upside down and speak to everyone. And we know that if you got like a father that's like an alcoholic, you're either going to be the alcoholic or you're going to be the fitness freak.

So that sort of stuff's very interesting from you right now because it's stuff that's like it's invisible to you. but it's guiding your life choices. So when you were going out there and like dating and stuff again, do you think a massive thing that helped you was rejection therapy? Yeah, and I'm very careful of language. I don't really call it rejection and call it exposure therapy. And if something doesn't work out,

then it just means the values weren't in alignment. And that's absolutely okay. The discovery of two people is about value alignment rather than rejection. Was down the driving range over day with a colleague of mine. Not something I do often. And I don't know how to play golf. I don't know how to swing or anything like that.

In the first couple of swings, I don't know what I'm doing. It's banging on the ceiling. It's even only hitting me in the face. It's a bit embarrassing, you know. But every swing, I'm asking questions. and I'm refining what I'm doing. I'm changing the grip.

I'm changing the posture. And surely but slowly, the ball's getting a bit more straight. And you've just got to be like that with anything you want to improve. You've just got to be curious enough to get better. But I had 100 balls to play with. If you've only spoke to free people,

then you've only got three data points to look at. Every time there's an experience, you've got to look at it and think, yeah, what have I learned? What can I do better? Rather than just be blind to it, you know, and meet 100 guys on an app, 100 women on an app, and then you're just repeating the same pattern, not fixing anything,

just sitting in victimhood, blaming it's someone else. Guys are assholes, women are bitches. Maybe it's you. Maybe it's you, and maybe you can get better if you fix what's going on. So for somebody that, like, maybe he's going through a breakup, making themselves feel a bit like a victim, what would you suggest that they do? Yeah, I mean, a first chapter in my book,

is like taking responsibility. And no matter where you are, what's happened. It's so easy to go, ah, my ex was an ass office. You know, my ex was crazy. There's a reason why things end up going the way they go. You might have lost respect, which probably means you didn't set boundaries

or, you know, you look past, like some things you shouldn't have looked past, then, you know, people just end up taking the piss. And I would say, be grateful of the experience, first of all. Again, it's in the game of removing negativity to it. I don't care if they cheated on you or whatever. be realistic. You did have a great time with that person until the thing happened. So sit in the pocket with that. And then it's just go, okay, what can I do better?

Is there a pattern of me being in these abusive relationships? Why is that? It's not all men are abusive. That might have been the first relationship. That man was abusive in. But it's been free consecutive relationships that you've accepted abuse. Now that becomes something. When you start to realize that, I go, oh, actually, I saw a little bit. We all test each relationships, you know? And if you don't step up and push back, then one starts to realize they can go a bit further. And I'm just, I'm speaking of this example, because I have a female client that has been through this and I had to make her aware of it. And the deeper ancestral thing was that her mother was abusive to her. So the men that she was attracted in,

There was a very nuanced behaviour at the beginning that she identified that was familiar to her. Well, just because it's familiar doesn't mean it's great for partnership, but it's just familiar. You have to ask yourself, well, why am I responding to this? Ah, it's because of that. These aren't the values that make a healthy relation. That can happen when you sit in responsibility. Beyond, like, physical, what do you think are the main points that, like, make somebody attractive? Well, when we touched on those boundaries, it's so, you know, it's so unattractive being the people, please,

They forget that their views and their opinions matter. I actually probably scared to actually speak up for themselves out of fear of losing the other. So other things beyond looks that are attractive, ambition, you know, future planning, success. I mean, signaling value, I mean, so signaling status, because if you can signal status, then you're signaling safety. I think guys sometimes are a bit like goes over their head, like, how important you can signal. safety is for women. Isn't it like women of safety, security and something else that they most, like, a lot of the

time look for? A hundred percent. Like, and it's like, think of you've got a daughter, right? You're a father. What's the one thing you think you're preparing her for the world? It's the pick a guy that's going to make it feel safe. I pick a guy that's stable. Like, that's the conversation he's having with his daughter.

The mom's having with the daughter. So that's you. You know? None of this, always me is picking up the bill. It's your job. You know, like, these women have been prepared for the world. That's the conversation of having. So just get that in your head.

Do you think that there's different things that women find more attractive than men? Men are more drawn to beauty, right? And this is the big conversation society at the moment, isn't it? Because it's like, well, you have women that have gone after their career and they've been really committed to the whole girl boss thing. and to be competitive in those environments, to survive in those environments, what tends to happen is you have to adopt masculine traits

because you're a lot of time, you're in male-dominant environments. And then what happens is it doesn't really get left at work. You come back into your private life, your relationship, and then the polarity's off. And there's frustration with women because they're like, well, I've gone and done all these things that society is telling me to do, but the man that can choose is just choosing. is not choosing those women,

you know, genuinely speaking. You don't see it happening. He's choosing the one that's more in the feminine. The only thing that I have with this is, I know a lot of very pretty girls, and it's kind of interesting to me when I've been speaking to them about dating and stuff, a lot of the time, the most beautiful girl,

like if I was looking at it, like, objectively, that you think all the men would be after gets the least amount of attention. That might because of the men are putting her on a pedestal, Okay. So what would advice would you give to a woman that doesn't know what she's doing wrong but is in that position? Context needs to be looked at, right? If she's out with the girls, it'd be quite daunting to see a group of girls for a guy. Like a guy's looking at a situation. Okay, she's attractive. What's the play? Like, how am I going to get a moment with that girl? You have to be a bit conscious about creating an opening for the guy to interact. And that might be just going to the bar for a moment.

you know, maybe signaling some eye contact or something, you know, just thrown out a signal so the guy can go, is it or isn't it? And then for him to have the opportunity to find out if it is, maybe just go to the bar on your own. Or when all the girls are leaving, pretend you've dropped something in, you know, the whole the handkerchief on the floor sort of scenario. If you can create those ins to make it a little bit easier for the guy to start an interaction, then you could see a difference there. But do consider that the woman is super beautiful. men find that daunton. You know, so they'll go for the, the psychology is crazy.

So they'll go for perhaps the woman that sees us less attractive because in his head, he's like, well, you know, if she says no, it's, you know, it's okay to get a no from her, but it's not okay to get a no from the one I actually want. It's bonkers. It's bonkers, but that's what's going on. You know, we just did a documentary that came out. And one of the things I say, like, guys,

you're going to have to play this little trick on your head. And this is very valid to what you're saying here. You're going to have to play this little psychological trick. in your head. When you see a woman, and I don't like giving women numbers, but do this exercise so men can actually start a cray action, when you see a woman and you think, wow, she is a lot of things on the visual list that I find attractive, she's not a 10. If you label her a 10, you know, it's incredibly difficult for a woman to find a man attractive that sees himself beneath her. So that's what's happening. So you see a beautiful woman, you go, oh my God, she's a 10. You've

you've basically told yourself she's, you know, she's reserved for people that are not me. So it said in that instance, when you see that happening, you go, she's a five. She's a five. And she's a five because you know what, you know nothing about her. She might be just walking around of his pretty privilege and just not really worked on herself and, you know, have much intellect or any level of intellect that can stimulate you. So it doesn't really make sense you elevate her as and celebrate her in that moment. So if you just call her a five in your head, then it becomes.

well, let me just go out and go over and find out if she's anything more. Now you're actually in a bit more control of your emotions, your reaction, and maybe can actually create some dialogue. That's some advice there if you're sort of dumbfounded by, you know, how beautiful women is. How do you feel about nowadays that women have to basically make the fallen moves at the start and men are doing less? Yeah, well, let me ask you, how do you feel about that? How do you feel about you've seen a guy and then your story is you approached him?

and then that's what got you together. Does that take away from the experience you wanted your story to start with? No, to be fair, no. If I really thought somebody was attractive, I'd probably look at them. But if they didn't come up, I wouldn't. I'm glad you said that. If guys are listening, that is a cue that she might be interested. And that's bloody confusing for guys.

And then maybe she just looked at me. No, dude, she's given the signal. But then there's also like a thing of like looking, too intensely too. Like I always find that like I don't really look at people very much, right? So I might give like a small little glance and I'm like, oh my God, he definitely knows that I'm staring at him. But that was the glance, you know?

Yeah, yeah. Whereas like I feel like nowadays you literally have to be like and then. And even still the guy is just like, she's just looking at me. That's it or she's looking at the guy behind. Like, yeah, it's still a thing. Like it's, yeah, so I'm glad you did say that. and maybe some guys that are listening can take more action when there's a social cue being sent over the room.

Back to your question, like what, you know, how to feel about women taking action? At the end of the day, we just need to create the bridge, the starting point of the conversation. I personally have had it done to me and I respected it. but yeah something didn't really land for me in terms of how the way I like to move do you think men and women fall in love differently I think what we know about women is you

know after sex they they're very quick to attach men takes a longer time I would say that I think that men take about four months to start feeling some sort of attachment you may get men that start mentioning that they're in love with you and all this stuff at the beginning. They're just trying to control the situation, you know, make sure they're trying to rush to certainty quite quickly so they can control their emotions, their, all that kind of stuff. It's always the same for me. Like, it would just hit me, like, have come up on a pill or something, you know? I mean, like, whoa, what the, all right, baby, I'm there.

like that's um yeah i'm i'm in this now i really feel like what do you think that is like if nothing really changes but you're just hanging out is it just the time of the quality time of being spent with that person yeah and and the familiarity of each other after a while the shared experiences and consistency of each other you know someone becomes your person what's one maybe the biggest misconception you think people have with dating nowadays was we touched on earlier is that i need to go out there and do this dating thing. I need to get a date and not looking at their lifestyle. Like, if you'll fix your lifestyle

and meeting someone will be the byproduct of that, that's really it. If you've set up your lifestyle where you've got a continuous sort of culture calendar going on, necessarily live in a major city, but do consider where you are, look at the population of your city or your town, and then realize that there is a small percentage,

a small cohort within that population, that is your market. Well, thank you so much for coming on today. Oh, thank you, yeah. It's been good fun.