Sarah Silverman ‘Felt Done’ Dating Before Meeting Boyfriend Through Call of Duty (Exclusive)

Sarah Silverman was done with dating. It was early 2020, the pandemic began and the Los Angeles-based comedian was stuck in New York City.

“I went to GameStop, and I hadn’t played video games since Nintendo 64, but I bought a console, and I figured I would learn how to do video games,” Silverman, 54, tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue. “This is what I’m going to focus on. I’m going to sleep as late as I can. I’m going to go to bed as early as possible, and I’m going to learn video games in between and this is going to be my life.”

She entertained herself by learning to play Call of Duty: World War II, and posted about it on social media. “Rory [Albanese] who I knew, but I didn’t remember what he looked like, we had hung out once. We knew each other through comedy a little bit, but I didn’t really know him. He direct messaged me and was like, ‘I play that. Do you have headphones?’ I said, ‘Yes, but I don’t know how to do it.’ And he talked me through it. And so every night, I’d play Call of Duty with Rory Albanese.”

At first “we were just killing Nazis together,” but after a while “we clearly had feelings for each other,” Silverman says of the fellow comedian.

Fast forward five years, she recently bought her first house in L.A., and Albanese, 48, moved in. “It’s crazy. I was very peacefully and happily single,” says Silverman, who was last linked to actor Michael Sheen in 2018. “I felt done, to be honest. You just can’t predict anything! You never know what’s around the corner.”

Stories about Albanese come up in Silverman’s new Netflix stand-up special, Sarah Silverman: Postmortem, streaming now. The main focus, however, is how she dealt with the death of her stepmother and father, who died within nine days of each other.

Silverman cared for them — or “doula’d” them through death, as she puts it. “At first I was dreading dredging it all up, but by the second half of the tour I got excited each night to tell everybody about my parents,” she says. “It was extremely cathartic.”

She’s quick to assure fans: “It’s not sad, it’s really funny.”

Albanese, who has worked at The Daily Show andThe Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore, was a constant support for Silverman, as were her three sisters, Susan, 62, Laura, 58, and Jodyne, 54. But she she’s learned that “grief takes care of itself. You don’t have to worry about it. You can focus on running towards joy, wherever it is.”

When asked the biggest lesson she learned throughout her life she doesn’t hesitate: “It’s human nature to be afraid of the unknown, but don’t waste anxiety on the unknown. The unknown is thrilling. We really should just be on the edge of our seat.”

Sarah Silverman: Postmortem is streaming now on Netflix.