Kristen Pizzo and Ren Watson

In February of 2019, I was at rehearsal for UCF’s annual production of The Vagina Monologues. The director had invited a few of her friends, who were in the UCF theatre program, to critique our acting. One of those friends was Ren Watson. The moment they walked in, it was impossible for me to keep from stealing glances at them. About halfway through the rehearsal, they introduced themselves to me and shook my hand, and a part of me wanted to believe they were crushing on me too. Their notes on the monologue I shared with a few other actors (a story of a transgender woman’s experiences) was a passionate speech tinged with frustration and anger, because as cisgender women so far removed from the experiences of gender dysphoria and violence against trans people, we were not doing the monologue justice. The story needed to be handled with more sensitivity, they argued. Their conviction was admirable. I wanted to thank them, but my confidence only exists on stage, so I resorted to Facebook instead of approaching them. Fast forward a few weeks after my initial Facebook message. I finally got the guts to ask them out to coffee. We were both busy, but planned to pick a date in the future. By the time the night of the Vagina Monologues show came around, we still had not gone out. We spoke briefly after the show, but I never mentioned the date. I just couldn’t keep from glancing at them from across the room as I helped clean up afterwards. When the date finally happened, I was so nervous, I ended up pretending I just wanted to be friends. I later told the truth over text, and the following weekend, they asked me out to the movies. That was in early April. We didn’t become an official couple until early June, but I can confidently say that I knew I would fall for them the moment I saw them.