Funny Though is my Edinburgh Fringe debut and the bisexual of the arts. Not quite stand-up comedy, not quite theatre and everyone just wishes it would make its mind up already. It is a genre-blurring solo show that follows a comedian who has just broken up with her girlfriend as she navigates dating men again and tries to find her place in the queer community.
As a bisexual woman, I’ve always felt behind when it comes to the social norms of dating. Before my 20s, the closest I got to a relationship was a boyfriend for two weeks in high school. I broke up with him over MSN. Savage. All my mates thought I was asexual, at one point, so did I. I didn’t understand flirting with boys, and I didn’t enjoy talking about relationships with girls. I didn’t have a seat at the girls’ table or the boys’ table. I didn’t understand the politics of flirting, and I didn’t fancy anyone.
Enter my first relationship. I moved away from home and met someone who felt the same way. She was a woman, and suddenly, everything made sense. I wasn’t asexual, I just hadn’t met someone who saw the world like I did, until I met her.
Being in a same-sex relationship suddenly meant I felt like I was sitting at the right table. Men didn’t sexualise me or flirt with me anymore, sure, sometimes they’d ask for threesomes, but mainly as a joke. They would ask me for advice about their girlfriends, the universal look in a bloke’s eye that we might have sex was gone, I was viewed as one of the lads and for all my flaws, I loved it. I felt like I’d cheat-coded the patriarchy. I had a seat at the boys’ table, I was given value and was no longer in constant fear that I was being flirted with without realising it. It felt like I had become the mafia boss of men; I was respected to the highest degree because not only did I also like vaginas, I had one.
Being in a same-sex relationship also meant I finally started receiving the ‘lesbian nod’ when I was out with my girlfriend. I felt like a celebrity, and I was happier talking to my female friends about relationships and boys because I knew I wasn’t on the same team. I could empathise without worrying that I wasn’t getting it because I had someone who proved that I got it, just in a different way, and I always went home to them.
But that’s the problem with discovering your sexual identity through someone, which many bisexuals do, your whole identity becomes them and disappears when they disappear. When that relationship ended, I felt like I did too, I was back in the school canteen with nowhere to sit.
‘Funny Though’ starts when that first relationship ends, because if you don’t laugh, you’ll cry.
Funny Though is at the Pleasance Courtyard (Bunker 1), Edinburgh, 30 July – 25 August 2025 (not 13th, 20th) 3:30pm
https://www.pleasance.co.uk/event/funny-though
Follow: @clare_noy
