Man Poses As IKEA In-Store Couples Therapist, Hilariously Proving How Much Sense It Makes

Comedian pretends to be an IKEA couple’s therapist in hilarious prank video.

IKEA has a reputation for being the ultimate relationship stress test, and if you’ve ever gone shopping there with your partner, then you know firsthand that the struggle is real. Comedian Tyler Fischer recently decided to capitalize on that struggle by donning a blazer and glasses and parading around his local IKEA pretending to be an on-site couples therapist.

In a video uploaded to Fischer’s YouTube channel earlier this month, the comedian trekked through the hell maze that is IKEA, asking couples how they were doing, chatting about their relationship woes, and spouting off fake statistics about the number of relationships that end each week as a result of the stress of shopping for new furniture.

The video opens with Fischer sitting with a couple in one of IKEA’s display living rooms, explaining that he’s a therapist from Sweden and he’s there to help people work through their conflicts. “This place breaks people up because they’re fighting over furniture,” he says. “Are you projecting on him? What’s the power dynamic here?”

After that, Fischer appears in a series of shots with different people, telling them hilarious “facts” about IKEA and the number of relationships that end in the store each week. He tells couples the word “IKEA” actually means “break up” in Swedish, “I want to kill you” in Polish, “anxiety attack” in German, and “get the hell away from me” in French. Sounds about right. He also says:

“90 percent of couples break up before they get to the register. There are four thousand break-ups worldwide every week… 30 percent [of break-ups] actually happen during the assembly. IKEA is like a relationship: it takes forever to build and then falls apart in nine weeks.”

The video has gotten close to 30,000 views since it went up, and plenty of people have left comments for Fisher sharing their own Ikea horror stories and applauding his prank. Wrote one fan, “This is hilarious. And it makes me think that couples should have to endure 3 hours together at IKEA (without breaking up) before qualifying for a marriage license. It could stop a lot of bad marriages before they even start.”

The idea that IKEA is the ultimate relationship killer certainly isn’t new. In fact, last April experts even confirmed that trips to IKEA often result in couples wanting to claw each other’s faces off, with psychologist Ramani Durvasula calling the store “a map of a relationship nightmare.” Sure, they have delicious meatballs and gigantic family bathrooms, but in between the cafeteria and the fancy toilets, there’s just you and your partner, fighting the crowds, trying to stay on budget, making rash decisions about home decor, and inevitably buying something that comes in a box that won’t fit in your car.

If you do manage to make it home in one piece, then you have to assemble the shit you just bought using only rudimentary tools and the stick figure art IKEA tries to pass off as instructions. Honestly, it’s like The Hunger Games for couples, and it’s hard to believe there’s not already some sort of survival reality show dedicated to Saturdays at IKEA. Fischer’s video may be a spoof, but given all the facts, a couples counselor in IKEA doesn’t actually seem like such a bad idea.