During a recent podcast episode, Michelle Obama revealed how she first met Barack Obama in the summer of 1989. The future first lady was assigned to mentor the “hotshot” Harvard Law student at a Chicago firm, but her initial plans to avoid romance quietly started to come undone.
A Skeptical First Impression
Michelle explained that she was a first-year associate at a Chicago law firm when she was assigned to mentor Barack, a summer intern. She had heard the buzz about him and how “brilliant” he was, but she was unimpressed by his profile picture and thought he would be a “weird nerd” from Hawaii. However, her opinion began to shift during their first phone call. “The first kind of sparky feeling I felt actually was when I talked to him on the phone,” she confessed, admitting that his “sexy” voice caught her off guard. Still, any initial spark faded when he arrived late on his first day.
From Unimpressed to “Pleasantly Surprised”
Michelle’s opinion changed again when she finally saw him in person. “He stands up. He is tall, right? And he’s cute,” she said. She was “pleasantly surprised that he was attractive” and that the picture she had seen didn’t do him justice. After getting past the initial introduction, Michelle helped him get settled and took him to lunch. Their conversation ran long, and she realized how confident, mature, and funny he was. She admitted that she had already written him off because of her position, telling herself it would be “completely inappropriate” to date him.
Despite her hesitation, the two became friends that summer. He asked her out multiple times, but she refused, still thinking it would be “tacky.” He eventually convinced her to go on a real date, and he was clear about his intentions. “I like you, you’re funny, you are cute. We should go on a proper date,” he said, and she finally agreed.
The rest, as they say, is history. Their marriage began in 1992, and soon, their daughters, Malia and Sasha Obama, joined the family. The article also mentions a recent Instagram post in which Michelle celebrated her husband’s birthday, captioning it, “Happy birthday to my love, my best friend, my everything! @BarackObama, even after all these years, you’re still the coolest guy I know. đź’•”