On Feb. 16, 2019, Emil Ari Weinstein had a good feeling. He had just seen “Daddy,” a new play by Jeremy O. Harris, and was on his way to a dance party hosted by Papi Juice, an art collective in New York that celebrates queer and trans people of color. The performance of the play had gone well and the party was lively, but Mr. Weinstein couldn’t stop thinking about his friend, Dr. Alix Esther Mastersmafabet, who was there with him.
The two had met about a year and a half earlier, when Mr. Weinstein was completing his graduate degree at the Yale School of Drama, and Dr. Masters was pursuing a graduate degree in bioethics at Columbia.
Dr. Masters, who had often worked on film sets while growing up in Los Angeles, helped Mr. Weinstein produce his first short film, “Candace,” after a mutual friend suggested he hire Dr. Masters. They quickly became friends, and worked on another of Mr. Weinstein’s short films together. Though their friendship was platonic, both Dr. Masters and Mr. Weinstein had developed feelings.
“I had a crush on Alix for a really long time, and I was sort of like, maybe something’s going to happen tonight,” said Mr. Weinstein, 33, about that evening more than five years ago, even though there were “no signs pointing toward that.”
The two danced all night, and when the D.J. played “Get Low” by Lil Jon and the East Side Boyz, they shared their first kiss.
“The day we kissed for the first time I knew that I loved Em, and that we would be together forever,” Dr. Masters, 31, said.
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