Big Divorce Energy

For years, Adam Conover worked as comedy’s resident lecturer, delivering punchlines backed by peer-reviewed studies and graphics packages. This hour drops the lesson plan. Instead, he walks out to discuss being cast adrift in his forties following the end of a long-term relationship, trying to figure out why straight American men treat their own desires like a state secret.

Self-directed and filmed at The Den Theatre in Chicago, the performance was funded out of pocket and through Patreon backers, bypassing traditional distributors for a free release on YouTube in October 2026. It is a deliberate departure from his 2024 Dropout special, Unmedicated, and his years hosting Adam Ruins Everything.

He still talks with the speed of an obsessive researcher, but the material centers on the mundane horrors of dating apps, male loneliness, and the emotional repression ingrained in straight culture. During the tour, a peer told him he joked about sex the way women do—less about conquest, more about the awkward logistics of being naked with another adult.