Mumbai: Lilly Singh has recently been featured on the cover of Vogue India, and just like always, Lily is the head of the table on her latest cover.
When Lilly Singh came out as bisexual in early 2019 via a social media post, there were no tearful declarations of braveness or acceptance. The caption simply read, “Female, Coloured, Bisexual” with a green tick next to each word, followed by a succinct statement: “Throughout my life, these have proven to be obstacles from time to time. But now I’m fully embracing them as my superpowers. No matter how many “boxes” you check, I encourage you to do the same,” followed by five coloured heart emojis. The 33-year-old comedian had already come out to close friends in September 2018 but felt a profound sense of responsibility towards her fans and hoped to encourage them to be more inclusive through her public announcement. One year later, in September 2019, she posted a black-and-white photo on Instagram on the first-year anniversary of her coming out with a caption that better encapsulated her emotions.
Part of the statement read: “Coming out was one of the scariest experiences of my life. I’d love to tell you that everyone was supportive and that people didn’t treat me differently but I’d be lying. Coming out lifted a weight off my shoulders but at the same time it placed the weight of judgement on my chest. Maybe that’s the culture I was raised in or maybe it’s all in my head but either way for me it’s real.” What Singh said incidentally speaks to the poor perception of bisexuality in India. Despite a vast reserve of resources being available on the internet to pore over and learn from, a large section of the population believes that bisexual individuals are simply “going through a phase”, that they are more promiscuous and therefore require a wider range of “options”, or more detrimentally, that bisexuality is a gateway to homosexuality. The experiences and emotions of many bisexual individuals are brushed off as transient, in fact, even among the LGBTQ community, they are often blamed for “playing it safe” and “courting convenience”.
In a special outtakes feature from the April cover story, however, she opened up about the challenges that came with accepting her bisexual identity. “The most difficult thing at that time was the fear, to be honest. For the most part, everyone was quite supportive; I was actually shocked at how nice people were online,” she recalls. But the euphoria of public approval was coloured by Singh’s own self-doubt. “What really scared me was facing this new truth at the age of 30. When you’re younger, they tell you that by 30, you’ll be married, have kids and have everything figured out. For me to be revealing this big truth about myself at the age of 30 was quite tough because it made me feel like I was falling behind in life,” she confesses.
Today, Singh is a lot more secure in her identity, but continues to maintain an impenetrable layer of secrecy when it comes to her relationships, be it with men or women. She did, however, give us a rare glimpse at how her dating experiences have evolved since coming out. “A big part of it was learning how to flirt with girls, which is something I’d never done before,” she laughs. “I downloaded dating apps for the first time; I messaged girls for the first time. It was strange because I was used to having girls as friends and now the whole dynamic had changed.” Singh’s iron-clad rule for being with women is that the line between “just hanging out, doing girl things” and dating should never be blurred. “I don’t want to get my nails done with someone I could potentially date. I don’t want to get dressed, drink and dance with them the way I do with my female friends. I don’t want to do my eyeliner in the mirror with them; it makes me want to die,” she cringes.
Although Singh is clear about what she wants out of her relationships with women, this wasn’t always the case—the comedian made some egregious dating app faux pas when she first changed her sexual orientation preferences? “The first time I messaged a girl on a dating app, I called her sis,” she chuckles. “I literally had to stop and chastise myself and be like “No. Bad.” I’m getting better at it but navigating this new realm of flirting is still a work in progress.”
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