The Stand Up Routine That Lead To 95,000+ Breakups
Daniel Sloss's Jigsaw standup routine has led to 95,000+ breakups. Here's a clip of him talking about it on Conan O Brien;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRpOtOs45bo
We discussed the topics raised.
Transcription
What were your thoughts on watching? The jigsaw. Well, it was quite harrowing. Well, I think we need we need more of the percentages of the healthy marriages that do work out rather than focusing on all the ones that don't.
I think his point was exactly that the ones that are breaking is because they are together for the wrong reasons and it won't last at all.
But at the same time, I think it goes to an extreme that I don't believe there will be an absolute perfect person for you. You're not going to love like the one hundred percent of that first. And there's always going to be something that is not there. But you just kind of work with that because what you love is more than what you don't love and you make it work. So that's where I disagree with him, because he makes it like you can't it's like it's not there's no malleability in these jigsaw.
It's like the piece either fits or then throw it away. It's just to me, it's a bit too much. But that was my thought about it. I found it funny when he was saying you spent all your life being so busy working on your own jigsaw and they spend all your life being so busy working on theirs, and then we try and merge the two together.
It's just like, yeah, I think that's us.
And he does mention common goals. I think that simple.
And you need to have some sort of common vision to be able compatibility agenda goals.
But yeah, I agree with a lot of what he was saying, but some of it was just a bit too cynical and a bit too doom and gloom and whatever. Yeah.
I mean, I think, first of all, you have to put it in the context.
There is a stand up and he's also done a TED talk. And I think what he's brought up is a serious issue. But he has done a TED talk where he talks about like himself and Ricky Gervais and Frankie Boyle and basically saying that when you're doing standup to entertain you playing a character, his role is to take things to extreme. You shouldn't take it seriously.
But I think what he what he picked up on what he's pointing out is the governments have done some research and they say that on average, it takes people six years to leave a marriage from when they they're thinking about it. So when they actually pull the trigger and I know when I'm thinking back like I knew my marriage was over a long time before, but you've got children and how's that going to work out for them? And so there's all these kind of things that mean that you you kind of stay together, unhappy for years.
And I think that's that's what he's he's done and there are people who are needing to be in a relationship rather than a great relationship, and because of that, they're getting some sense of validation and whatever from being in the relationship. And I think those are the relationships that are vulnerable and that he's close to break up. And of course, it's not his cause that he's just made people ask questions that I would have asked sooner or later anyway. So.
Did you have you seen times where that has played into, like I said, as played into my past relationships, I can I can think of instances. Did you. Are there things that, if you thought of that at the time, would have changed how you behaved or how you whether you stayed in or not in the relationship? I know I was a victim of that sort of fairy tale and, you know, you sort of just stumble into a relationship where somebody sort of scenario and then you try to change them to fit what you want and they try to change you to fit.
Well, they won. And you know, what worked was a. I do think, as I've said, that. Yeah, he's gone to the extreme that nobody is going to he's basically at the extreme is saying you need someone who's going to slide into your jigsaw, which, like you said, you've got to Jigsaw's. No one ever is going to. You need to let go of the jigsaw and build a new one. So what can we learn from it?
Is he kind of not seeing the particular program, is he kind of like saying because the show consists of different shape, the pieces, that those pieces are never going to go together? Is that kind of weird that you thought of that?
No, I'll try. I'll try and give you a summary. So basically, he said when he was seven, he asked his dad what was the meaning of life, and he said his dad answered him perfectly. You gave him the perfect metaphor. He said, well, son, he said, life is like a jigsaw. And you've got the Four Corners, which are like family. Friends were hobbies. And then maybe someone will die and you'll have a piece missing.
You'll have different friends you might change this about. You might have to change hobbies for work and make a compromise. And so then he said, well, okay, so what goes in the middle? And he said, well, one day someone will walk into your life and make it complete and they'll fit perfectly into the middle of your jigsaw, just like your mom did for me. And you'll live happily ever after and they'll completely. And so he lived his young life, finished along in his 20s, trying meeting someone and then changing to please them so that they would fit into the jigsaw.
And basically what he's saying and. The point he's trying to make is that he's rebelling against the idea that being in a relationship makes you better, like from sort of smug, arrogant social media posts of look at me, I'm with this one I love so much when that isn't the truth of their relationship. So he's saying it's okay to be single. He said, why is society pressuring everyone to be in a relationship and to prove that they're happy?
And then he says the three particular things that it tells you, that you can't be happy without a relationship, you're broken without a relationship, and you need someone to completely. And so that's basically the jigsaw metaphor. I don't think we need people to completely and I don't think we can be absent of happiness, but I definitely do think like relationships, a healthy relationship brings something to a person's life that they wouldn't have necessarily had without it. And I think there's even research to say that if you've been in a healthy long term relationship, you live longer and have better health and all that sort of stuff.
So we kind of hear what he's saying. What do you think people can be complete?
It's not yeah, it's definitely not the perfect analogy and it doesn't all make sense. It's still quite skewed in his own head.
Well, actually, the the there's a study. That's been done, John F. Kennedy was in it's a cohort of Harvard University and they studied them as they came out and they studied them through their life. And so this was John at John F. Kennedy was in university, and it's the Harvard. Some anyway, it's been going like that 80 odd years, and so it's had a number of people managing the study and the last two have done TED talks on saying basically everyone throughout their life has opportunities.
Everyone has has highs and lows.
They have good things happen. They have bad things happen. They all have money problems. They all have health scares. They lose people they love.
And they said the most important thing, the biggest factor for wealth, for health and for happiness was the quality of people's relationships. So, yes, I think it's we're social animals. We have to be part of the pack. And in a relationship, not necessarily. I think some people I think there are a few people that are happy being single. And, you know, like you look at like the Dalai Lama or some monk somewhere who's I think.
They're probably going to have the easiest, most peaceful life because they're going to have the stress of a relationship, but most people have what Helen Fisher talks about as a we have a sex drive, but she says we also have a romantic drive and need to be. With someone or or to love someone special, so, yeah, I definitely think that's part of it. I think it's just the fact that we need to learn how do we get along and make the relationship healthy and not settle for something that's less than enough.
In that particular study that we're talking about is the relationship with a significant other or just general relationship like family, friends?
Both. Both, particularly. Just generally.
They basically like people who've sold out for money and just driven for what what they want to do, achieve the cost of their relationships. Business and personal are the ones that have less health, less happiness, more regret later on. That strikes me as somebody who is transactional rather than emotional and. I mean, I can think of my grandfather as being a very transactional person, my mother's father, that that grandfather. Yes. And he created. He received love because he gave money.
Which I suppose worked for him. That's the loyalty, that's how he got loyalty from his children, because there was always the promise of money. Hmm. And so there are times when all that the 10 children would be together would come to see papa because papa was getting interest on his accounts and the money was the was available to be shared. So you need to come to visit Papa on a set on a Sunday and spend an entire day with him.
So you would be looked on favourably and you would get a. A chunk. And you wanted to be number one out of the ten, you know? Well, there was one who never got and it was yes. So it wasn't real love. And did that cause a lot of friction between the siblings? Oh, yes, even now, even now, I don't speak to two of my aunts because they're just horrible people because of because of that, it's all about money.
And I'm just not getting involved in that. It's that's how they view the world. It's what they can get. And so if you are if you are a well-off sister, then you're my favorite sister, because then you're going to leave me something in the world. But if you are not able to do sister, then I guess you're my sister and I love you. But that doesn't mean anything. I will not be there for you in any way.
But you're my sister. I love you, darling. But now I will not come and visit you if you are ill because you have nothing to live for me in the real.
So that, to me is transactional and. I don't know what kind of gratification you actually get out of that, because you must realize that it's false. That's the point I'm actually making. That is not a it's it's not real. Those people have no real emotions for you. You have bought it. Hmm. I suppose Mr. Trump is the Trump.
I think from my personal experience, my. My dad was the eldest of four siblings. And there were three sons and one daughter and Chinese culture, traditionally, the boy inherits and my father was quite. He's passed now, but he was quite forward ticking in that, you know, you know, all should get equal shares, you know, so we had some property in China that the government gave back. If you applied and the other two brothers wanted to cut the sister out because she was married and no longer technically part of the family, she belonged to another family.
And my dad said that, you know, no, she should have a share. And to be able to apply and get this land back property back from the Chinese government, all siblings had to sign this document to apply for it. So, you know, and at that time, because my family, my dad is not a rich man, wasn't a rich man, you know, we just managed to get by. But his two brothers did very well for themselves in Hong Kong, but they needed his signature to apply for this property.
And so throughout the years, while they were going through the process, they were like loving brothers, you know, every holiday with they speak and everything and see how they were. But apart from that, they did speak to each other, you know, like, well, my dad can live like these 20 years. There was no contact. And all of a sudden, you know, out of the woodwork they did this and then. Everything got the land back and everything, and then they needed his signature again because they wanted to sell the property and get the cash.
And in that time, my aunt died suddenly and again. They wanted to cut out her children from from a share because, you know, they would have inherited the mother's share. I don't know what happened there. But what I do know is that when my dad was seriously in a hospital, he was dying. My dad asked us, asked me if I could call my uncle to let him know so that he could come visit him in hospital.
And literally, I called the house the number and they said we hadn't spoken in years since they sold the property and somebody picked up and spoke to Chinese. And basically when I asked my uncle, I was told it was wrong. No, she put the phone down and then when I called back, the answer supposed be called. So it's straight to voicemail and, you know, I have actually disowned my my father's side because to me, they're not family.
And what you're saying about being very transactional now, I think when my uncle, prior to being married, potentially there was a chance to have a better relationship. But I think he was quite old. I think he was in his 40s before he married his wife, introduced through his sister in law, and she was in her twenties and he wanted a family. So out of that, I believe, a transactional relationship because she wanted to come out of China.
He wanted a wife. He wanted a family. So what he got out of the relationship was he got a son. You know, so I think that's how he really he measured. Love, whatever. It was transactional, I think they both knew what they were getting into. That, yeah, sorry, that was a very long story. Thank you for sharing. It helps to see how these kind of dynamics play out in real life situations.
