Lane Moore Talks Bisexuality, Books, and Surviving a Pandemic

Lane Moore is a writer, director, comedian, musician, actor, and songwriter. She's one of those artists who seems to move skillfully from one art form to the next. She’s the person behind the regular comedy show Tinder Live!, the songwriter and front person for It Was Romance, and appeared in Search Party, Girls, and other projects. She is the former Sex and Relationships Editor at Cosmopolitan, where she won a GLAAD Award, and has written for The Onion, The New Yorker, and The Washington Post.

Moore is also the author of the essay collection How To Be Alone: If You Want To, and Even If You Don’t (2018), which wasn’t written about life during a pandemic, but is a great book that speaks to this moment. She’s been making the online talk show How To Be Alone during the pandemic which she called “PeeWee’s Playhouse for lonely adults”. We spoke recently about work, having clarity, people’s perceptions about who we are, and bisexuality.

ALEX DUEBEN: You’ve been writing for years. Why write a book? And why this book?

Lane Moore: I just didn't see my story reflected anywhere. I'm a comedian and musician and all these things and I would read so many people's stories and go, "Wait, you're an artistic person and you had an incredible childhood and an incredible family? I didn't know they made them in that model". [Laughs] Are these the only kind of stories about loneliness we want to hear? About someone who had the perfect family and then met Brad and then they weren't lonely anymore? That their loneliness was just because they didn't have a boyfriend? Why are we only hearing these stories? I wanted to write a book that I wish I had been able to read.

We were talking about isolation before and people will see the title How To Be Alone, and while it's not a book about quarantine and distancing, it is very much a book for this moment.

LM: So much of How To Be Alone is about not running from the things that have happened to you, not running from the things that have shaped you, and learning to become your own best friend. Which I think is the best quality that you can develop — especially right now — but really, at any point in your life.

One of the themes of your book is looking at our behaviors, understanding where they came from, and what they mean.

LM: We say things like “know thyself” and then we don't teach anyone how to do that or what that really means. You hear it and you're like, yeah man, and that's the end of the conversation. [Laughs] So much of what I wanted to talk about in How To Be Alone — and so much of what I do talk about — is conflicting cultural messages. We'll say things like “know thyself” but we live in a culture that says, "Just pretend you have the perfect everything and don't ever investigate it!" That's so ridiculous. We have to be comfortable with some painful, frustrating, complex truths about ourselves, our families, and our friends.

I keep coming back to one line in particular, “What if we're worth loving because we think we are enough." With the pandemic throwing off everyone's life and routines, and many people out of work, so much of our self-esteem has been bound up in productivity. We need to decouple from that. Like I said before, the book isn't about the pandemic but it is about this moment.

LM: I think everything that I wrote about in the book has served me really well during this time. I had a moment where I was struggling with a lot of those things, like being alone, isolated, and quarantined. I was talking to my therapist about it and she said, I have the perfect book for you — How To Be Alone by Lane Moore. [Laughs] You're right. I will go reread it.

One of the things we don't talk about, that you make a point of talking about in the book, was money. Specifically about art and how some creative jobs don't pay well. Or, at all.

LM: I've noticed that since the book came out more and more people are talking about that pay gap, and about unpaid internships, and asking, "Why are we doing this?" I'm glad because it feels like a necessary conversation. This idea of "starving artists" and how we romanticize it — who sold us this package? This package sucks. Why do we specifically do that with creative people and then act like if you're good enough, you can get through that maze?

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Lane Moore (@hellolanemoore)

In your book, you talk about bisexuality in a very matter-of-fact way and I'm sure that was very deliberate. I really appreciate that choice.

LM: First of all, thank you for saying that. You know this, and fellow bisexual+ identifying people get this — We struggle with so much invisibility and I think that it can be this tough line, where so many bisexual people feel like they have to constantly come out. Constantly remind people of that. And then if you don't, you're forgotten. I have experienced that so much in my life. But I also feel like I shouldn't have to yell it loudly. That's always been a struggle for me, so I'm glad that you saw that. It was definitely a deliberate choice. I wanted to write about my relationships as I saw them — that they were all relationships with people. I didn't have this relationship with a man that was very specific and gendered, and then I had a relationship with a woman who was very specific and gendered. No, I had a relationship with a bunch of people who weren't right for me. [Laughs] Their gender was an afterthought.

I still feel the pressure that so many bi+ people feel sometimes — that they need to “figure it out”. It's not that you haven't figured it out. We have figured it out! Our real wish is that we could be seen as valid. Our real wish is that we wouldn't have a pile of things that are assumed about us that are incorrect. Our real wish is to not be marginalized. Our real wish is to feel seen and accepted.

A friend once said, being bi never tortured me, but I felt tortured by how people talked about it.

LM: Precisely. In my own mind, it's awesome, but it's other people's perceptions where it's like, ugh. But that doesn't mean you have to change yourself. That's a big part of How To Be Alone. Just because other people perceive the things that you are and the things that have happened to you as being “incorrect", doesn't mean you have to. So much of it is self-acceptance.

The final chapter of the book was really beautiful and inspiring. The way you wrote about trying to be open to the world and possibilities was a wonderful romantic ending.

LM: I think you have to. I think that's what keeps us going. Hoping that what you're going through right now will get better. Sometimes hearing it from another person is really helpful. I wanted to leave people with that.

Throughout you said, "Clarity is vital, but that doesn't mean you can't see the future as more, and be open."

LM: That's why I wanted to leave it on that because I think that can be the hardest thing to maintain when you've survived a lot or just had a really difficult time. You can feel silly hoping that life will be different, but you have to! I've seen it! My life isn't perfect right now, but it's so much better than it was.

If you'd like to see Lane Moore's critically acclaimed show Tinder Live! (don't worry it's virtual) on December 19th, check it out here.