Dating as a South Asian Lesbian, No One Asked Questions, Until They Did.

I found freedom in secret glances, late night calls and a world that didn’t ask questions until it did.

Being a teenage girl in love with other girls was easy.

Until it wasn’t.

When I think back to my first experience of dating, it doesn’t look like what most people imagine.

There were no strict parents monitoring my texts. No dramatic sneaking around.

It was… oddly simple.

Because I wasn’t bringing home a boy.

In my South Asian home, girls hanging out with girls was harmless. Innocent. Sleepovers were normal. Hours on the phone didn’t raise suspicions. I didn’t have to lie about where I was. I just had to blend into the background, just a regular teenager with female friends.

Even in that quiet safety, there were unspoken rules.

I was out to my closest friend, but careful with everyone else. I’d overhear homophobic comments tossed around like jokes, “She / He is so gay”, “I couldn’t be friends with a lesbian”, “ its disgusting”, “You can choose not to act on being gay” and it taught me early to stay silent. To smile. To survive.

Still, I stayed true to myself.

I found joy in the shadows.

University changed everything. That was when I found Soho. The gay village in London. It felt like I’d stepped into a new world, vibrant, loud, and unapologetic. I’d go out with friends and find myself surrounded by people from all walks of life. Queer South Asians, drag queens, butch lesbians, trans creatives, artists, lovers.

There were nights I’d walk through the street, neon lights reflecting on my skin, and I felt completely myself.

Unhidden. Alive. Free.

It was the kind of breath I didn’t know I’d been holding my whole life.

No need to explain. No need to shrink myself or translate who I was.

Just amongst people existing, unapologetically.

And for the first time, so was I.

I dated women who were confident, soft, chaotic, and brilliant. I quickly realised whether you are White British or British south Asian, we all carry our own fears quietly.

Women from different cultures, different faiths or none at all, yet somehow still tangled in the same fear of being too visible.

There were times dating meant keeping things quiet. Calling it friendship. Smiling in photos while discreetly standing really close.

But that didn’t make it any less real.

The feelings were there, raw, aching, beautiful. Dating didn’t need an audience, whether the world saw me or not, we saw each other and in that I found a sense of comfort.

I realised that this struggle to be fully ourselves wasn’t just mine as a South Asian queer woman. Some burdens don’t begin or end with culture or religion, they are passed down quietly, through generations. Shame, fear, the yearning to break free. We all carried some version of it.

Then university ended and slowly, the questions started creeping in.

“So when is Simi getting married?”

“What’s her plan?”

My mum would smile politely and say, “She wants to travel. She’s building her career”.

But inside, I felt the shift.

The pressure.

The inevitable.

I remember thinking “Shit’s about to get real”

So I ran, in the only way I knew how.

I threw myself into my work. I travelled. Said yes to every opportunity.

I made myself so busy, no one could ask too many questions.

Busy enough that even I didn’t have to face them.

And then I moved out for a job. Away from home. Away from the pressure of community. Once again, I felt like I could breathe. I could live. I didn’t have to perform, I didn’t have to pretend.

I was building a life on my own terms.

Free. Quietly queer. Unapologetically me.

And then…I met her.

The woman who would become my forever love.

My wife.

But that’s a story for another day.

If this piece resonated with you, stay close. I am writing stories that live in the quiet in-between, between identity and culture, love and fear, silence and voice.