This Comedian’s Netflix Special Has Broken Up Over 6,000 Couples

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The joke in question is part of Jigsaw – one of Sloss’s two hilarious live shows bought by Netflix, which premiered last month (the other, Dark, is also well worth a watch). Originally titled So?, Sloss first premiered the routine at the Edinburgh Fringe – at which he’s now performed at for 11 seasons running, drawing some of the festival’s biggest crowds – and it was met with international acclaim. But it wasn’t until a few weeks after the show that the 28-year-old had hundreds of people began contacting him to say it had made them re-think their idea of love, causing them to end relationships they’d been unhappy in.

When he filmed the Jigsaw routine for Netflix, which aired on 11th September, Sloss said 74 people had been in touch following the Edinburgh show to say it had influenced their break-up, including one couple who had been married for 13 years. Today, the current tally stands at over 6,000 break-ups, 30 divorces and 34 cancelled engagements – and if Sloss’ social media comments are anything to go by, it’s climbing higher by the day.

What’s the joke about?

We suggest you watch the show itself to get the full effect, delivered with Sloss’ signature wit and dark humour. But to sum it up, Sloss essentially says he believes the majority of modern-day relationships aren’t actually based on real love, but a desire to be loved – as he puts it: “A bunch of people who never took time to learn how to be alone, therefore never learned how to love themselves.”

The fundamental idea is nothing new – that people romanticise the idea of romance and instead of loving their partners for who they really are, they love a false image that’s been fabricated in their own heads (which, obviously, no one is able to live up to). But it’s Sloss’s seriously effective storytelling – using the analogy of a Jigsaw, from which the show gets its title – that’s made the concept finally ‘click’ for so many people.

He begins the joke by recalling a moment from his childhood when his father told him that there’s a perfect person for all of us; our missing piece. Being seven, Sloss says he bought into the fantasy: “Even though what he said sounded sweet and whatever, what it manifested into in my seven-year-old brain was this: 'If you are not with someone, you are broken. If you are not with someone, you are incomplete. If you are not with someone, you are not whole'.'"

He continues to explain how this jigsaw myth makes people believe they’ve met the perfect person, only for them to fall short of their expectations. "Every relationship is perfect for three months, and here’s why," he says. "Because after three months, that’s when you realise nobody else is a jigsaw piece.

Everyone else on this planet is as deep and as complex and as individual as you, which means they’ve spent the past 20 or 30 years of their lives working on their own jigsaw puzzle in the same way you have been working on yours. You can’t suddenly expect them to give up everything they’ve achieved to suddenly fit into yours."