Kristal and Morgan Interview Transcription

Kristal: Is it recording?

Morgan: It’s recording.

Kristal: Okay, excellent. Okay, I’m Kristal.

Morgan: I’m Morgan.

Kristal: We are in love and dating, and we’re gonna answer a few questions for you about queer love during social isolation. Um, okay so the first question is: when do I make you feel the most safe?

Morgan & Kristal: Hmm. (they laugh) Jynx!

Morgan: Umm… You and I talked about this the other day. I think like, I think the times I feel the most safe are like, times when I’m feeling really affirmed, um, in like all aspects of myself. (Kristal: Mhm.) Um, like I think I-- I don’t know, from the very beginning I think I like, told you my pronouns, and you’ve like never wavered on them, or like misgendered me, and I think you’re always asking if I’m okay. Um, and I think like when you cut my hair the other day, you were like constantly checking in, so I think just-- like I think I feel the safest when I feel like you’re very in tune with what I’m experiencing, even if I don’t have the words to describe that. 

Kristal: Hm, it’s like I’m a mind reader.

Morgan: Yeah, a little bit of a mind reader. 

Kristal: Um, I think I feel the most safe, like when you physically comfort me. Like I feel like personally, like just in my experience, like words are obviously like very affirming and comforting for me, but I feel like the action of like touching me, or even just like giving me like a really firm hug, like makes me feel so much more calm. ‘Cause usually like when I need to feel safe, I’m like not in a good place, and I need like calming down, and I think when you hug me, it really helps me feel better. 

Morgan: Hm, cool. Kristal: … Gay! (they laugh)

Morgan: Okay, um, question number two. When did you realize you were in love with me?

Morgan & Kristal: Ooooo! (they laugh)

Morgan: Um…

Kristal: I know! I know! I know! Like immediately. (Morgan: Okay.) I don’t think I’ve ever told you this either. Have I?

Morgan: I don’t think you have, no.

Kristal: Um, when… I think it was like-- I met you in October, and then we went-- it was either Thanksgiving break or winter break, and we used to send each other voice memos back and forth all the time, and you had like seen my film, “Sleep Talk”, and you were describing like how it made you feel, like in a voice memo, and I was like in bed, falling asleep, and then you said-- Ah, this is so gay. And then you said like just all of these really, like really sweet, beautiful things about how it made you feel, and like how… you were just like gassing me up basically... (they laugh) is the short version, but I don’t know if anyone’s ever like spoke about my work like that, or like about me like that in my work, and I was like, “Oh shit,”, and then I started crying. And I don’t know why, but I wanted to tell you then, because we hadn’t said ‘I love you’ yet. (Morgan: Mhm.) I wanted to tell you then, but like, I was like, “Ah, no, like we’re on break right now, like I don’t want to do it if it’s not like in person,”, or I think I wanted to ask you to like be my partner, (Morgan: Mhm.) but I was like, “Maybe we should wait,”. 

Morgan: (they laugh) Um. Mine’s gonna sound goofy. I have like a less serious one that leads to the more serious one. (Kristal: Yeah.) Um, I-- For context, we went to karaoke on our first date, and um, had a wild ending of the date, in that-- 

Kristal: We fucked!

Morgan & Kristal: No! (they laugh)

Kristal: We didn’t fuck, that was a joke. 

Morgan: We both were leaving, and Kristal left first, and um-- in a Lyft. We were both going back to the East Bay from San Francisco, and I was like, Kristal called her Lyft and we had a weird like, first kiss?

Kristal: It was weird. 

Morgan: It was really weird.

Kristal: It was weird because Morgan made it weird. (they laugh) 

Morgan: Um, I like went in for a cheek kiss and then a hug, and then I did a weird squish thing and Kristal was like, “This is weird,”. (Kristal: Mhm.) Anyways, long story short, we both ordered a Lyft Pool, accidentally ended up in the same Lyft Pool, and had to go all the way back to the East Bay, and we got stuck in traffic on the Bay Bridge.

Kristal: For like forty-five minutes. 

Morgan: Yes, for very long. And we weren’t even sitting next to each other, (Kristal: I was in the front.) I was directly behind her. (Kristal: I couldn’t even make eye contact with you.) Yes, and we were texting the entire time, and I like, jokingly, but sort of seriously--

Kristal: You knew you loved me on the first date?!

Morgan: No! Not-- this is-- (Kristal: Oh, sorry.) this is the joking part, I texted my friend and I said I had the wildest first date, and I think I’m in love, and then I said something after, like, “I think I want to be in a relationship with this person… I was like “Haha, jk.” (they laugh) But like, I wasn’t kidding. (Kristal: Mhm.) But then, um, I think the moment where I was like um-- I like I had a lot of feelings that I was in love with you like over those several months, especially when we started sending each other voice memos too. I think like the one that really sticks out to me though is when we were again in a Lyft, coming back from the very same bar where we had our first date, um, but we had ordered the Lyft together, and we were in the backseat, and you were drunk, (they laugh) and you had like fallen asleep. Um, but like in your groggy state, you were like, you like looked at me and you were like, “I love you,” and I was like, “Hhhhh!”, and we were like over the Bay Bridge, at the exact same point that we had gotten stuck, (Kristal: Yeah.) on our first date, and I was like, so flustered, you had fallen back asleep on my shoulder, and I was like, “I love you too”.

Kristal: But I didn’t hear you.

Morgan: You didn’t hear it at all. (Kristal: Ugh, crazy.) But it was like, uh it felt like a full circle moment, like almost exactly-- I think it must’ve been two months later, but I don’t know, I had a lot of moments where I was like, I feel in love, but it-- like that- it felt like a reunion? Or like… I don’t know, like a homecoming of some sort, (Kristal: Yeah.) just like…

Kristal: Faded.

Morgan: Faded. (they laugh) That feeling affirmed.

Kristal: … That’s crazy.

Morgan: Mhm.

Kristal: That’s wild… Alrighty then. Okay, question number three, if you could go back and give yourself advice about us, what would you tell yourself? Oh, that’s like a hard question. 

Morgan: It is a hard question. Um…

Kristal: Advice about ourselves… Okay. Do you have an answer for this?

Morgan: Um I think what-- I think what mine would be um… I don’t know, I think maybe like a mm-- a couple of weeks after our first date, you were jokingly like, um, “Our first date was good, but you talked so much about yourself,” (Kristal: Oh yeah, yeahh.) and that is-- And I’ve heard you say that a few times since. 

Kristal: It’s your Gemini, dude.

Morgan: And I think-- (Kristal: And that’s okay!) But I think, like my advice to myself in terms of that, because it’s something I’m aware, and you’re aware that I do, is just like… be cool? Like-- like…

Kristal: That’s your advice to yourself? Yes, in that-- (Kristal: Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.) in that I think I was like trying soo hard to impress you, especially at the beginning, that I was like, “I need to tell Kristal all these facts about myself, (Kristal: Mhm,mhm.) right now,”, and I wasn’t like, “I need Kristal to tell me all these facts about herself,” 

Kristal: Yeah. 

Morgan: And I think that, I guess it would be more so like “listen more than you speak” which I think is valuable advice in general.

Kristal: Yeah. It’s not that I don’t like... (Morgan laughs) I love it when you talk. I love listening to you talk about yourself and gas yourself up. 

Morgan: Uh. Uh-huh. 

Kristal: Um. Yeah. I have nothing else to say about that. I thought that I - I was really impressed- it worked- is the thing. 

Morgan: Yes. 

Kristal: But like I know what you mean like in terms of like now, I’m like we’ve been known you’re cool- but well like ask me about me. Um I don’t know what advice I would give myself. .. I think-I would like- I would probably tell myself to be more patient. Like I know that you tell me all the time that like I’m really generous with my feelings and like I’m very patient with you but I- I feel like this is just also like a work in progress thing for me like I feel like I can always be more patient and I feel like everybody in my life can agree with that statement but like especially in relationships I always want to like and i’m not very good at doing this- I know I’m not very good about doing this- but like I always wanna try and be as patient as possible cuz I know I can be fiery and I know that I jump to conclusions. And I use fighting words sometimes (Morgan laughs) and I don’t listen when I’m upset. So yeah. I would just tell myself to be more patient. Especially with you cuz you’re so sensitive. Um. Yeah. I think that’s it. 

Morgan:  I think those are both good ones. 

Kristal: Yeah. Um. Let’s see. Okay this is the last question. Are you scared that social isolation will affect our relationship?

Morgan: Hmm. 

Kristal: We were really scared. (Morgan: Yeah.) I think at the beginning of social isolation, it was hard, it was like- we were both dealing with the prospect of not seeing each other (Morgan: Mhm) but also like not being able to, at least for me, personally I felt like our relationship would deteriorate because it’s so soon- like we’ve only been dating 3 months? Like we’ve known each other since October but we’ve only been dating since January and- and like this whole thing started in March um, and we’d come back from like such a high like- we just made a film together, like we flew to LA, and like we premiered it at Outfest and then we came home and like everything was different. Like I didn’t go back to work after that. Like everybody was working from home, you didn’t have classes anymore, and I think that just like- to be from- at such a high point to such a low point was like hard for me, and I didn’t know if this was gonna be like potentially the end of our relationship. 

Morgan: Yeah. I think also, like I had to move out of my house um and like the temporary fix was me just staying at your house and it -we went from like very- I mean we’re like still early dating, but we went from very early dating and like being used to going on dates once a week to like affectively living with each other 24/7. 

Kristal: Yeah we were literally like cohabitating after like 2 seconds of dating. And like I was very clear like from the beginning of our relationship like I value like my personal time and having like a- Mm. It sounds bad. But I really like having like a separate life outside of my relationship just because I want to preserve my identity. I don’t want to ever lose myself in the person that I’m dating and that’s like happened a few times before. So I think when social isolation hit I was like I was stressed cuz I felt that I was giving into old habits. And fighting that while also like being really afraid that if we didn’t do this I would never see you. 

Morgan: Yeah. I don’t think I feel that way now though. I think like- I think we found a really healthy balance in terms of like, in terms of- I don’t know. After that time where we were like, like physically stuck together, I- stuck is a strong word- I think like were forced into a cohabitating situation neither of us were ready for. Um. Like I was able to move out of my old housing situation and like we find time to like communicate and be together in different ways like physically or not physically. Um I don’t think I feel scared of our relationship, I think like when I think of the question of like, what makes me feel safe. I think this feels like one of the safest and like most secure places I have right now, like everything else feels very…

Kristal: Fragile?

Morgan: Fragile- fragile. And, like fleeting. Everything feels like it changes all the time but I feel like a lot of continuity and consistency and like um (Kristal: I feel like...) groundedness. 

Kristal: Yeah like this is a really good- anchor point? Like I feel grounded, like you said, when we spend time together. It feels like we have something that’s still normal. 

Morgan: Yeah. (laughs)

Kristal: What?

Morgan: Nothing. 

Kristal: Is that it?

Morgan: I think that’s it. 

Kristal: Okay. (loudly) Cut. (both laugh) Uhh cool. Thanks for listenin’. Byee. 

Morgan: Byee. 

Both: Byee.