Aviva DeKornfeld
Appearances
This American Life
857: Museum of Now
She opts on a Zoom call for her appointment with the International Students' Office advisor and starts explaining the situation with a weird email. Meanwhile, Ranjani's roommate is in the other room, braiding her hair, getting ready for the day. Here's her roommate. To protect her privacy, we're not naming her.
This American Life
857: Museum of Now
Ranjani, in her bedroom. She doesn't hear the knock. She couldn't hear it over the reassurances from the advisor from the International Students Office.
This American Life
857: Museum of Now
The scary knocker knocks again. Ranjani's roommate told me she's a citizen and a woman of color who grew up poor, who's had a lot of interactions with the police, none of which she would describe as positive. But she knows what to do. She calls from inside the apartment. What is this about?
This American Life
857: Museum of Now
The advisor eventually unmutes, looking relaxed again. And she tells Ranjani that she's safe. Just don't open the door for ICE. And then she gives her a list of immigration lawyers to contact.
This American Life
857: Museum of Now
They don't open the door. And the ICE officers eventually leave. Ranjini has had enough experience as an immigrant in this country to know that ICE is not supposed to show up at your door a day after your visa is revoked. This is not the way things typically work. How it normally goes, you're granted a student visa, and the visa is the thing that allows you to enter the country.
This American Life
857: Museum of Now
And once you're here, if you're a student, you can legally stay as long as you're enrolled in school, even if your visa is revoked. But if you stop attending school, then you have to leave the country. This is what Ranjani was turning over in her head with ice at the door. She still had her status as a student. She was still enrolled at Columbia.
This American Life
857: Museum of Now
The advisor woman from Columbia on Zoom was telling her there should be no issue. But there was one at her door. Ranjani thought, I have to get out of here. I need to hide.
This American Life
857: Museum of Now
Ranjani moves to her friend's apartment. She and her roommate decide that it's safer if her roommate doesn't know where she's going, so that should ICE come back, she can truthfully say she doesn't know where Ranjani is. But a few of Ranjani's other friends gather at the new location, and everyone starts calling immigration lawyers to try and figure out what to do.
This American Life
857: Museum of Now
Meanwhile, the dean of student affairs, who Ranjini first reached out to when she got this suspicious email from the consulate, calls her and says, Oh, I heard about ICE coming to your door.
This American Life
857: Museum of Now
She racks her brain for mistakes she might have made, looks back through all her immigration records, but she can't find anything. Day three, Saturday, 6.20 p.m. Ranjani's at her friend's place when her roommate calls her. She tells Ranjani, Ice came back to the apartment. They didn't have a warrant, but they talked through the door. Her roommate recorded it.
This American Life
857: Museum of Now
Ranjani realizes the situation is not going to go away. The email was not spam. Ice showing up at her apartment, not a fluke. She was being targeted. She'd never heard of this happening to anyone else. The rules, how things normally work, that was changing, but she didn't know it yet.
This American Life
857: Museum of Now
And then, the same night her roommate tells her that Ice came back, Ice showed up at the apartment of another student, a Columbia graduate student named Mahmoud Khalil, who had just finished his degree in December. Mahmoud was coming home with his wife that night and locking his apartment door when Ice appeared and detained him, took him away to a detention center in Louisiana.
This American Life
857: Museum of Now
Ranjani did not know Mahmoud Khalil. She learned he was a leader of the pro-Palestine protests after he'd been detained. And here, a new thought occurs to her. She had liked some pro-Palestine posts on social media. She'd also signed a few open letters and gone to a couple peaceful protests. And one night, coming home from a PhD picnic, she says she accidentally ran into a big protest on campus.
This American Life
857: Museum of Now
It was chaotic. She says she got swept up by police officers, along with a bunch of other people. She received two summonses for blocking a sidewalk and refusing to disperse, but they were both dismissed. And now, Ranjini wondered, is that what all this is about? It seemed impossible she'd be targeted so personally for that. But what just happened to Mahmoud Khalil, that seemed impossible too.
This American Life
857: Museum of Now
Day four, Sunday, 5 p.m. Ranjani gets an email from Columbia saying that the Department of Homeland Security had now terminated her legal status, and the university was disenrolling her. She was no longer a student, no longer a teaching assistant.
This American Life
857: Museum of Now
Columbia University wouldn't speak to Ranjani's case in particular. But they sent us a statement that says the university follows the law and, quote, takes great care to ensure our legal compliance with all applicable rules and obligations so that our students can participate in the federal student and exchange visitor program. Day five.
This American Life
857: Museum of Now
Ranjani's lawyers told her she could fight this, but she'd likely be detained for some amount of time, no idea how long. Though, as it would be a federal case, it would probably be at least a year while it wound its way through the courts. The only way to avoid detention, her lawyers told her, was voluntary departure. Ranjani thought, I have some friends and relatives in Canada. That's close by.
This American Life
857: Museum of Now
Those fears Ranjini had about what might have happened if she'd stayed? Well, two days after she left, at 9.40 p.m.
This American Life
857: Museum of Now
This is Ranjini's roommate again. She grabs her phone to start recording.
This American Life
857: Museum of Now
This time, it's also different because they have campus safety with them, the Columbia campus police.
This American Life
857: Museum of Now
The ICE officers are all wearing masks with their comically large bulletproof vests. The campus safety guy in his Columbia University lanyard is just kind of standing around. If there is any question of Columbia working with ICE, it seems like it's answered here. Eventually, they all leave.
This American Life
857: Museum of Now
Ranjani has been in Canada for just over two weeks now. Columbia still hasn't reached out, since ICE raided her apartment. She has no idea whether she'll be able to finish the degree she was a few months from completing. The degree she's worked towards for the better part of a decade. And Ranjini is only now starting to get some information about what the government says she did wrong.
This American Life
857: Museum of Now
The Department of Homeland Security has said that she failed to disclose the two summonses she received last spring when she applied to renew her visa. Ranjini says that was a mistake. She didn't think to include them because they'd been dismissed. And even though she's left the country, the government has not let up.
This American Life
857: Museum of Now
She was eating lunch the other day when she got a message from her union rep saying, there's a video of you circulating online, tweeted out by the head of DHS, Kristi Noem. This is the video I thought was worthy of adding to our Museum of Now. Eight seconds of grainy security footage from LaGuardia Airport.
This American Life
857: Museum of Now
In it, Ranjani is kind of jog-walking through the airport, pulling her carry-on bag behind her. Alongside the video, Kristi Noem wrote, She celebrated Ranjani's, quote-unquote, self-deportation, as if running to safety was some kind of admission of guilt.
This American Life
857: Museum of Now
Oh, you're like, why is this random lady tweeting a video of me? A little bit, yes. What was it like for you to watch the video?
This American Life
857: Museum of Now
It's like the perfect five-second snapshot to be like, look, she's running away. But actually, the reason you're walking quickly is utterly mundane.
This American Life
857: Museum of Now
The day DHS released the video, they also put out a press release saying that Ranjani was involved in activities supporting Hamas, a terrorist organization. Ranjani says that's absurd, that she never advocated for violence in any form, and that she was engaged in peaceful protest. I reached out to DHS. They didn't respond to our questions. Thank you.
This American Life
857: Museum of Now
Day one. Thursday, 8 a.m. Ranjini Srinivasan is not a morning person. She likes to start the day slowly, scroll on her phone in bed. She gets lots of panicked emails from her students. She's a teaching assistant. She's also a graduate student at Columbia University. So, day one, she was in bed when she saw an email. Subject line, visa revocation notification.
This American Life
857: Museum of Now
But the wording in the email was weird. It said she may be ineligible for her student visa, but also that it had been revoked. It seems spammy.
This American Life
857: Museum of Now
Ranjani thought, hmm, okay, this seems to be real. But she's lived here a long time, nine years, and she's had a lot of visas. Things happen sometimes. So she emails the International Students and Scholars Office. They've helped her out with visa stuff before. And also the Dean of Student Affairs, asks for help straightening this out.
This American Life
857: Museum of Now
Then she grabs her stuff and heads to the office she shares with the other PhDs, where she spends most of her time, to get some grading done. She had 60 student sketchbooks she needed to get through before Monday. That evening, she hears back from the International Students Office, who CCs the Dean of Student Affairs, and tells her, Don't worry, this sometimes happens.
This American Life
857: Museum of Now
Oh, so you were trying to distract yourself by grading papers, but then you're like, is this breaking the law itself?
This American Life
857: Museum of Now
They tell her the next available appointment is in five days. Five days felt like too long to wait. The college was telling her that this would all get sorted out easily. But Ranjini has always been fastidious about her paperwork. She has an encrypted folder on her computer for all things visa-related. She's been in the U.S.
This American Life
857: Museum of Now
since 2016 and knows almost all her entry and exit dates off the top of her head. She doesn't like loose ends, and she didn't like the idea of waiting five days. So she gets them to change the appointment to the next day. Ranjani's from Chennai in the south of India. In 2016, she was awarded a Fulbright to get a master's in design at Harvard.
This American Life
857: Museum of Now
She graduated with a master's from Harvard and then followed her intellectual hero to Columbia to get a Ph.D. in urban planning. Her work focuses on the way that urbanization impacts the labor force. She often went back to India to do fieldwork. But she settled happily in her life on campus. She's made lots of friends, including her roommate, another Ph.D. student.
This American Life
857: Museum of Now
The university randomly paired them together years ago, and they've since become close. Every year, the two of them take a family portrait with Ranjani's cat, Cricket, and send it around as a Christmas card. Day two, Friday, 10.30 a.m. Ranjani's in her bedroom.
This American Life
860: Suddenly: A Mirror!
Troy was her friend's favorite player on the team, known for, among other things, his long curly hair. Alicia finds a dog jersey, no problem.
This American Life
860: Suddenly: A Mirror!
You can order one with next day shipping. But this was back in the primitive days of 2014, before our culture had advanced quite that far. Leisha is good at lots of things. She's a musician, an actress. You might recognize her from the L word. But none of that translated to knowing how to make a hairpiece for a dog. Fortunately, her sister is a hairdresser.
This American Life
860: Suddenly: A Mirror!
So together, they bought a bunch of styrofoam balls in three different sizes to represent the heads of small, medium, and large dogs. Then they bought some cheap wigs for humans to cut up and turn into prototypes. They came up with 10 different iconic hairstyles from throughout history. They made a mullet, a B-52 style beehive, a gray golden girl's wig.
This American Life
860: Suddenly: A Mirror!
Her mom got sick, then she went through a big breakup. Then she left the band she'd been in for the better part of 10 years, which meant she was also out of work. But now she had a mission. Leisha went all in on the pet wigs. Over the next few months, Leisha and her sister make 30 wigs, all 10 designs in each of the three sizes. She also got an LLC, opened a bank account.
This American Life
860: Suddenly: A Mirror!
Of course, she needed a name for her product. She decided to keep it simple. Pet wigs.
This American Life
860: Suddenly: A Mirror!
So we panic. And my cousin, he is the oldest and tallest, and he just like runs to the fence, hops over it, clears it, no problem, takes off running. And then my sister is next, and she hops up on the fence, but then she like kind of falls down. She like doesn't quite make it over, and then she hops up again, and she was just moving so slowly in my mind. It was probably 15 seconds actually.
This American Life
860: Suddenly: A Mirror!
Three of Leisha's friends were living with her at the time. Their prototypes were always scattered around the living room. And all three friends got really into the project. One made a website. Another took over social media. The third signed her up for conventions, including DragCon. Leisha was very excited about DragCon.
This American Life
860: Suddenly: A Mirror!
She could show the wigs to people who really know and love wigs and find out if there's any possible market for them. So, in preparation, she spent a ton of time building out her booth.
This American Life
860: Suddenly: A Mirror!
He loved the wigs. And it's then that something shifts for Leisha. Because it's one thing for your sister or your friends to like your idea. But when a stranger, clear-eyed in their total indifference to your well-being, when they tell you your idea is good, you believe it. So, riding the high of DragCon, Leisha decides it's time to go big. She sets up an appointment with Walmart.
This American Life
860: Suddenly: A Mirror!
She flies to Bentonville, Arkansas, home of Walmart headquarters. The building is hulking and corporate, with big glass doors and security guards. A far cry from her sunny living room, littered with wigs.
This American Life
860: Suddenly: A Mirror!
A rep meets her in the lobby, and they walk down this long hallway to his office, passing dozens of identical offices, each filled with other people pitching their products. Leisha said it felt like a factory. Leisha sits down opposite the Walmart guy, setting her bag of wigs next to her on the floor. She takes a deep breath and makes her pitch.
This American Life
860: Suddenly: A Mirror!
And what I did in my panic is she was up about two feet off the ground holding on to the fence. And I grabbed her waist and I ripped her off the fence and I climbed over myself. And it's the... We get home, she's fine. She like eventually makes it over. But for me, this is the first moment that I remember thinking, I have been shown what kind of person I am and I am a very bad person.
This American Life
860: Suddenly: A Mirror!
Of all the questions the Walmart guy asked you in your meeting, how many of them did you have answers for, would you say?
This American Life
860: Suddenly: A Mirror!
But how did you think that, how capable were you of fulfilling the Walmart order?
This American Life
860: Suddenly: A Mirror!
All at once, the improbability of Leisha's whole scheme caught up to her. Until now, Leisha had been charging full speed ahead, never stopping to consider even basic questions of viability. But now, here was this Walmart guy forcing her to consider, for the first time, the reality of this project.
This American Life
860: Suddenly: A Mirror!
Yeah, and that was the point of it. That was it. And with that, Leisha did what so many people failed to do. That little life raft she'd created for herself when things were rough, that log she'd jumped on, she jumped right back off. She didn't double down. She didn't marry the rebound relationship. Suddenly, she was able to see her pet wig's fever dream for what it was.
This American Life
860: Suddenly: A Mirror!
Leisha tossed the pet wigs into a bin in the shed behind her house, didn't think much about them, and after some time, she threw them away.
This American Life
860: Suddenly: A Mirror!
Someone should really. But it's not going to be me. Exactly. Sometimes the reflection you see of yourself, it's just a mirage. There for a moment, then it disappears. And there you are again, the same person you always were. Coming up, how not to explain drugs to your kid. That's in a minute from Chicago Public Radio when our program continues. It's This American Life.
This American Life
860: Suddenly: A Mirror!
I'm Aviva de Kornfeld, sitting in for Ira Glass. Our show today, suddenly, a mirror. We have stories about people catching surprising reflections of themselves and what they do with that information. When I was thinking about this theme, I remembered this story about this guy I went to college with. His name's Ari.
This American Life
860: Suddenly: A Mirror!
We went to school just outside Los Angeles, and Ari moved to LA proper after graduation. One afternoon, the summer after he graduated, he was driving around,
This American Life
860: Suddenly: A Mirror!
He was listening to KCRW, one of the local public radio stations.
This American Life
860: Suddenly: A Mirror!
So Ari is driving along, feeling like he's found his radio DJ soulmate.
This American Life
860: Suddenly: A Mirror!
Or there is a part of me that is like deeply selfish or capable of deep selfishness.
This American Life
860: Suddenly: A Mirror!
What had happened was this. Ari was not listening to KCRW. He had accidentally tuned to KSPC, our college radio station, where he had DJed as a student. And this set he was listening to was actually a rerun of a show he had done a few months prior. This mistake he'd made, it was actually a version of a mistake that many, many people had made.
This American Life
860: Suddenly: A Mirror!
You see, any time Ari is on the phone with someone who doesn't personally know him, they always assume that he's a woman. Every single time. And that doesn't really bother him. It's not like he finds it insulting or anything. It's more, he just finds it confusing.
This American Life
860: Suddenly: A Mirror!
It's cool that when you finally heard your voice as the rest of the world hears it, you really liked it.
This American Life
860: Suddenly: A Mirror!
Act three, there will be questions. This next story is about a dad who catches glimpses of himself in the questions his daughter asks him. The dad is comedian Mike Birbiglia, and he's been traveling around talking about these questions on stage for over a year now. It's a pretty wide-ranging show. Here's an excerpt.
This American Life
860: Suddenly: A Mirror!
Yeah. And what I saw was this is who you are. You're the kind of person who prioritizes yourself over other people, including the person you love the most. Like my my big sister is like the person I idolized at the time. And we're still very close. But I was like, really, like anything for you. I love you so much. And then it turns out, actually, nope, I just want to save myself when I'm scared.
This American Life
860: Suddenly: A Mirror!
And the whole reason I'm here telling you this story is because I think that lots of people have moments like this and that these moments can act as a kind of mirror that reflects something back at you about yourself.
This American Life
860: Suddenly: A Mirror!
Absolutely. Every time I do something a little selfish or say something kind of shitty or just like I have some sort of failure of kindness, I think back to this moment and I'm like, well, that's the real you.
This American Life
860: Suddenly: A Mirror!
Okay. Dwight, wait, should I say I'm a viewer to Cornfield City and Fryer Glass or no?
This American Life
860: Suddenly: A Mirror!
Okay, today on the show, we have stories like mine about people who are suddenly confronted with a part of themselves they had not previously known and how they deal with that newfound knowledge. Stay with us.
This American Life
860: Suddenly: A Mirror!
Mike Birbiglia. This was an excerpt from his brand new comedy special, The Good Life. It comes out this week, Monday, the 26th. Go watch it. Act four, trouble afoot. As you've heard many, many times in today's show, how you behave in a crisis, sometimes it shows you who you really are. That can be true even with a very small crisis. Here's David Kestenbaum.
This American Life
860: Suddenly: A Mirror!
It's This American Life, Act 1. On top of spaghetti, all covered with shame. So, that moment with my sister when I was 11. Did it change me? I can tell you that I have never pulled her, or anyone, off a fence while running from the police again. Not even once. But beyond that, no. I think this moment gave me a little window into myself, and that's about it. Fundamentally, I am the same person.
This American Life
860: Suddenly: A Mirror!
Today's show was produced by me and Tobin Lowe and edited by Laura Starczewski. The people who put together our show today include Our managing editor is Our senior editor is Our executive editor is Special thanks to Brittany Luce, Kathy Tu, Ellie Fishman, John Herbert, Alyssa Lowry, Michael Bergen, Sheila Maloney, Ora DeKornfeld, Nathan Englander, Katie Rhodes, Chris Thompson, and John Skidmore.
This American Life
860: Suddenly: A Mirror!
Our website is thisamericanlife.org. I know this is the spot where Ira mentions This American Life partners and all the perks you can get, like bonus episodes. I did one a couple months ago in which Ira called me, quote, mean and eye-rolly. So if you want to hear that, head on over.
This American Life
860: Suddenly: A Mirror!
But really, all the bonus episodes are so good and funny and super different from the stuff you normally hear on our show. Ira cries in one, which is kind of cool. So to hear those episodes, and more importantly, to help us keep making the show, subscribe at thisamericanlife.org slash lifepartners. That link is also in the show notes.
This American Life
860: Suddenly: A Mirror!
This American Life is delivered to public radio stations by PRX, the public radio exchange. Thanks, as always, to my boss, big dog Ira Glass. He's back on the dating scene and has this new approach where he's trying to be radically honest about what he needs from a partner. And so if the first date goes well, he sits the person down before the end of the night and lets them know.
This American Life
860: Suddenly: A Mirror!
I'm Aviva de Kornfeld. Ira will be back next week with more stories of This American Life.
This American Life
860: Suddenly: A Mirror!
My coworker, Tobin Lowe, when I told him this story, he was like, well, yeah, I'm sure most people who have these split-second moments of selfishness don't really change. And to that, I say, what kind of world is that? Not one I want to live in. So I sent Tobin searching to see if he could find someone who had one of these moments and actually did change. I'll let Tobin take it from here.
This American Life
860: Suddenly: A Mirror!
Yes. It happened probably when I was 11 or 12. I was with my older sister, Ora, who's probably 14. And our cousin, Jake, who's 16 or so, he was visiting us. And one night we decided it would be fun to sneak into the community pool, which is just a few blocks away from our house.
This American Life
860: Suddenly: A Mirror!
Yes, it's probably midnight. Our parents are asleep. We'd never snuck in. So we're walking to the pool, and I actually didn't even want to sneak into the pool. I was scared, but I just, the bliss of being included with the older kids as the younger one very much overrode my reservations.
This American Life
860: Suddenly: A Mirror!
Tobin Lowe, he's an editor at our show. Act 2, BWE, Big Wig Energy. You know those moments in life where everything's fallen apart and it feels like you're drowning? You've gone through a breakup, you've been laid off. And so you just grab on to the first log you see floating down the river, just so you have something to hold on to.
This American Life
860: Suddenly: A Mirror!
So we get to the pool, scale the chain link fence, hop over, triumphant. Immediately, like one second after we've entered the pool, sirens go off. They're so loud. It's like, woo! And then an automated voice comes on and it's like, you are trespassing. The police have been alerted. They're on their way. Evacuate the premises.
This American Life
860: Suddenly: A Mirror!
Like a rebound relationship or some new hobby you get way too invested in. That's what Leisha did, which led her to trying on this whole new identity. It began when Leisha's best friend adopted a dog, and Leisha decided to buy a present to celebrate. Leisha's best friend is a hardcore Pittsburgh Steelers fan, so she decides to buy the dog a Troy Palamalu jersey.
This American Life
856: You’ve Come to the Right Person
Towards the end of the special, Daniel says, if you break up with someone after watching this, please let me know. He's been keeping a rough tally of his breakup stats ever since. To date, between the people who come up to him in person, the tweets he's tagged in, the DMs he gets on Instagram, he estimates that as many as 30,000 couples have split up after seeing his show.
This American Life
856: You’ve Come to the Right Person
The thing I don't understand is the stuff Daniel says in a special, most of it is not particularly novel. His jigsaw analogy isn't that far from a lot of the stuff you might find in a self-help book. Like the idea that you should be happy and whole on your own and you shouldn't settle. That's the thing people tell you about love.
This American Life
856: You’ve Come to the Right Person
So what is it about this guy and the way that he delivers this familiar message? Why is it so effective? I wanted to talk to some of the people who broke up after watching Jigsaw. And let me tell you, they were not very hard to find. I heard from over 50 people from all over. The U.S., the U.K., Australia, Italy, Kazakhstan, the United Arab Emirates. I spoke with eight of them.
This American Life
856: You’ve Come to the Right Person
And there is a real fervor to Daniel's fandom. People speak about him breathlessly, with a kind of awe. They'll quote lines from his special like it's scripture or something. One person said she and her friends say, in Sloss we trust, as their motto. And there are a lot of people out there walking around with Puzzle Piece tattoos.
This American Life
856: You’ve Come to the Right Person
Most of the people I spoke with have watched a special over and over to fully absorb the teachings. Some returned to it in moments of doubt after breaking up with their partner. And what's crazy to me is that no one I talked to had had any immediate plans to break up with their partner when they first sat down to watch it.
This American Life
856: You’ve Come to the Right Person
I came away from those conversations with a couple of theories as to why Daniel's message hit so hard. And I want to tell you about one person in particular, Charlotte, because her story encompasses all of them. Charlotte watched Jigsaw back in 2018, shortly after it came out. She's from East London and, like everyone I spoke with, got together with her husband when she was super young.
This American Life
856: You’ve Come to the Right Person
She was 20, still figuring out who she was. And Charlotte, like the others, just kind of thought, I guess this is what it feels like to be in a long-term relationship. It was flat. Just flat. Charlotte had been with her husband for six years when she sat down one night to watch a special, alone.
This American Life
856: You’ve Come to the Right Person
Right after watching the special, Charlotte tells her husband, you need to see this. Which, interestingly, was another thing so many of the people I spoke with did. Charlotte told me she hoped it would prompt her husband to take a hard look at their relationship, like it had for her. No such luck. He spent the whole hour on his phone, scrolling, not listening at all.
This American Life
856: You’ve Come to the Right Person
Wait, you showed him how many people had broken up as a result of this special? As like a nudge? Yeah.
This American Life
856: You’ve Come to the Right Person
It sounds like you were kind of trying to tee him up to break up with you. Is that right? Yeah. But he was not paying attention.
This American Life
856: You’ve Come to the Right Person
So how did Danielle manage to break through to Charlotte? She says part of it was that she was just caught completely off guard. She had no idea what she was getting into when she decided to watch Jigsaw. Everyone I spoke with said something like this, that the fact that the advice came in the form of a comedy special made it easier to hear, like wrapping a pill in cheese for an unsuspecting dog.
This American Life
856: You’ve Come to the Right Person
Another thing about Daniel, he's super prescriptive. Charlotte wasn't happy, but that low hum of dissatisfaction she felt, it never quite seemed like enough to blow her life up over. But in a special, it's like Daniel reached out of the screen and grabbed Charlotte by the shoulders and told her, actually, that is enough.
This American Life
856: You’ve Come to the Right Person
And you'd never had a friend or a family member say it that directly to you? No.
This American Life
856: You’ve Come to the Right Person
Not at all. Charlotte's younger sister hated how different Charlotte was whenever her husband was around. But her sister never told her outright to break up. Her mom understood that she was unhappy and making a lot of sacrifices in her marriage, but would also say things like, I'm not going to tell you what to do.
This American Life
856: You’ve Come to the Right Person
whenever Charlotte's family and friends observed that she didn't seem particularly happy with her husband.
This American Life
856: You’ve Come to the Right Person
Do you think it was easier to hear the message from Daniel because he was a stranger?
This American Life
856: You’ve Come to the Right Person
Daniel's a stranger. This, I think, is another reason why he's able to cut through. Because there's no embarrassment when you hear what he thinks about your bad choices, the way you might feel with a friend. Daniel is a neutral party who can point out a problem on his way out the door, entirely uninvested in what happens next.
This American Life
856: You’ve Come to the Right Person
I think there's one more reason so many people split up after watching Jigsaw. Maybe the most important factor in all this. I first heard about Jigsaw when it came out in 2018. At the time, I was in a relationship with someone who was pretty clearly not a good match for me long term. And so when I heard how many couples this special was breaking up, I thought, no way am I watching that.
This American Life
856: You’ve Come to the Right Person
I know it'll happen. My relationship will never survive this. I'm not in that situation anymore. So recently, I decided it was finally safe to see the show. And I have to say, I was totally right to be scared of it. There are moments in there that I know would have gotten me back then. Like this terrible thought about being in a relationship that you don't know how to leave.
This American Life
856: You’ve Come to the Right Person
I have to say, I totally had that thought in my 2018 relationship. And it's not even that you want the other person to die so much as you just kind of want them to evaporate. Because breaking up with them just feels impossible. I had never said this thought out loud before watching the special. I didn't even know this was a thought other people had.
This American Life
856: You’ve Come to the Right Person
And hearing it laid out in such a bare way, I know it would have been impossible to ignore. That's the thing about this show. The jigsaw analogy is a sound that only people in quietly unhappy relationships can hear. If what Daniel is saying reaches you, it's because there's a little radio tower in your head, tuned to receive his message.
This American Life
856: You’ve Come to the Right Person
David was in a situation that so many people find themselves in at one point or another. He was in a relationship that, by every metric, was pretty good. And yet, somewhere in the back of his mind, he found himself wondering if it was good enough. David was 24 and had been dating his girlfriend for three years at that point.
This American Life
856: You’ve Come to the Right Person
And the niggle being like a little hint of doubt? Is that what that is?
This American Life
856: You’ve Come to the Right Person
One night, David's at a party without his girlfriend, talking with some people. And his friend Daniel, who's newly single and thrilled about it, starts telling everyone about his grand theory of love. He'd just come up with it. The theory went like this. Our life is like a jigsaw puzzle. And as we grow up, we slowly piece the puzzle together, bit by bit.
This American Life
856: You’ve Come to the Right Person
But the thing is, we've all lost the box to our individual jigsaws, so none of us know what image we're trying to make. So we start with the four sides, our family, friends, job, hobbies. And then we're all taught that the piece at the very center of the jigsaw, the one we need to complete the puzzle, is our partner. And this is the important part.
This American Life
856: You’ve Come to the Right Person
People are so desperate to find their missing puzzle piece that sometimes they try to cram a piece that obviously doesn't fit or strip out other parts in order to make room for that centerpiece. Because they believe that to be better than being alone. David is listening to all of this.
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856: You’ve Come to the Right Person
David hadn't ever considered breaking up with his girlfriend, because there was nothing to break up over. But hearing Daniel talk about this jigsaw analogy, David begins to panic.
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856: You’ve Come to the Right Person
Oh, you literally asked him that. What do I do?
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856: You’ve Come to the Right Person
Daniel's analogy worms its way into David's brain. Once it's there, he can't shake it. So he breaks up with his girlfriend. And he actually explained the jigsaw analogy to her, as if anyone wants to hear that they're a misshapen puzzle piece, which he tells Daniel the next time he sees him. How did it feel when he told you that they'd broken up because of what you'd said?
This American Life
856: You’ve Come to the Right Person
This is Daniel, David's friend. Another friend of theirs, who also heard Daniel's analogy. He broke up with his partner, too. Daniel had hit on something. He's a comedian, Daniel Sauce, maybe you've heard of him. And feeling the wind of his friend's breakup under his sails, Daniel starts trying out this bit in bigger venues.
This American Life
856: You’ve Come to the Right Person
He told it on stage at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, performed it for a month straight.
This American Life
856: You’ve Come to the Right Person
Daniel felt like, oh, this little party trick works with strangers too. He started touring with it, performing all around Scotland.
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856: You’ve Come to the Right Person
How long had they been married, do you know?
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856: You’ve Come to the Right Person
Then there was the 19-year-old girl who brought her parents to the show in an attempt to make them realize they were miserable together. It worked. She asked him to autograph their divorce papers, which he did, happily. Then Daniel started taking the show abroad.
This American Life
856: You’ve Come to the Right Person
So funny that people want to show you their divorce papers. It's like a cat bringing a dead, you know, bird to your doorstep. Like I made it for you.
This American Life
856: You’ve Come to the Right Person
Daniel eventually turned this analogy into an hour-long special called Jigsaw. It's on Netflix. And the part in the special where he talks about love and couples stuck in bad relationships honestly feels more like a TED Talk than traditional stand-up.