For many people the best parts of a romantic relationships are spending time together, socializing with friends and exploring new places and experiences.
If you’re with Bryan Johnson—the longevity entrepreneur who spends $2 million a year to reverse his age—that’s simply off the cards.
Any potential partner would have to abide by the multimillionaire’s stringent way of life—from eating all of his meals by 11 am at the latest to falling asleep alone by 8.30 pm.
And Johnson, who wants to live until he is at least 200 years old, will stop for no one. He even refuses to speak to his son in the mornings since it interrupts his daily regimen.
Appearing on the ‘Diary of a CEO’ podcast with Steven Bartlett last week, Johnson said he was well aware that people think his way of life is “weird.”
Discussing the sacrifices he has had to make in order to reverse his biological age to 18, the Blueprint founder said his extensive regimen that includes taking no less than 111 pills each day is now second nature for him.
He acknowledges, however, that his routine makes it difficult to find a romantic partner: “I’m single. In circumstances where I’ve tried to date the first thing I do is give them a lot of 10 things, like ‘Here’s all the things you’re going to hate about me, and is going to make me an impossible partner for you.
“And that’s a big deal.”
Top of the list is sleep, Johnson explained: “If people do have the fortunate circumstances to be able to be in separate rooms, it is substantially better.
“Trying to negotiate with another person their bedtime [and] their sleep hygiene is really difficult. Wake events are very costly—once you get woken up, going back to sleep is very hard—so it’s just extremely challenging when you’ve got to co-ordinate with another human.”
Mornings must be silent
“I do try to be normal,” said Johnson, who made his millions after selling his payment-processing company, Braintree, to eBay for $800 million in 2013.
“Normal” includes saving calories for events if Johnson is out with friends so that he can “blend in”, but said he drew the line at small talk over dinner.
“I’m not a talkative person, I don’t do small talk,” Johnson said. “So my son and I have a protocol in the house where there’s no exchange of like, ‘Good morning. How are you?’”
Mornings are reserved for being “deep in thought” Johnson said: “I go to bed early, I wake up early and I have these four or five hours of concentrated thought where I can think about these really big pictures and try to pull myself out of my situation and just be as sober as possible.”
He said this time is to “probe himself” in deep thought, adding his thinking can be knocked off course even by “teeny interactions” such as: “‘Hey, how are you doing? How is your sleep?’
“You have to activate this mode of like, ‘I’m gonna be a nice person. I’m going to engage with you.’”
Luckily for Johnson, his friends and family are happy to make some changes to their routine in order to keep him involved.
“My friends have been cool enough [to] do things to accommodate my time frame,” Johnson said. “They’ll do something in the late afternoon when I can do things with them and hang out and have fun, and still make my bedtime. My friends and family have been great to adapt to allow me to participate in community while still doing this.”
