Some of the most stable family unions you know in the world started with a first date.
The first impression is very important because it is the last impression, they say.
This article takes a look at how the former President of the United States Barack Obama and his wife met, their first kiss and what Michele perceived Obama.
In her new memoir, Becoming, Michelle Obama not only talks about her public role and her family but also delves into her love life revealing, for instance, the first time she had a kiss as a teenager.
“I arranged my first kiss, in fact, over the phone,” she writes.
“It was with a boy named Ronnell. Ronnell didn’t go to my school or live in my immediate neighbourhood, but he sang in the Chicago Children’s Choir.”
At the time, Michelle would observe how other girls her age were changing due to the onset of adolescence and how the rush of hormones made her accompany her friends to watch boys play. To increase her chances of being noticed, she would often tag one of her popular friends along.
“Being around boys, I was slowly coming to realise, was fun,” she writes in the book that comes out this week and for which she and her husband, former US President Barack Obama, were paid a joint advance fee of $65 million (Sh6.5 billion).
In her gap year, she worked in a bookbindery, where she met another prospective boyfriend, David.
And when it was time for her to join Princeton University, David and her father drove her all the way to the campus.
However, she says that even by then, she had made up her mind to move on.
“David was easy-going and also more of an adult than any boyfriend I’d had. He sat on the couch and watched ball games with my father. He joked around with Craig and made polite conversations with my mom… We fooled around and smoked pot in his car…”
MEETING OBAMA
Once in Princeton, a new vista opened up for Michelle and, in time, she met another boyfriend, Kevin, a football player but it did not work out.
He eventually became a doctor and married a college mate of Michelle’s.
She, too, graduated with a law degree and joined a prestigious law firm in Chicago, Sidley & Austin, and that was where one of the senior partners asked her if she would be willing to mentor one of the young lawyers, known as summer associates, that the company was grooming.
“Of course you will,” she writes. “You have yet to understand the altering force of a simple yes … Next to your name is another name, that of some hotshot law student who’s busy climbing his own ladder. Like you, he’s black and from Harvard. Other than that, you know nothing — just the name, and it’s an odd one.”
And that is how she met Barack Obama, the son of a Kenyan student.
Obama would later become the 44th US President before handing over power to Donald Trump.
Michelle has made it clear that there is no love lost between her and President Trump.
1989: Michelle was assigned as Barack’s mentor at their law firm
Barack Obama, then 28, and Michelle Robinson, then 25, met at the law firm Sidley Austin LLP, where Robinson was assigned to be his mentor.
“Because I went to Harvard and he went to Harvard, and the firm thought, ‘Oh, we’ll hook these two people up,'” Michelle told ABC News.
1989: They had their first date
Though she was his mentor, that didn’t stop the future President from asking Robinson on a date. She said she was not so keen at the time.
“Barack, about a month in, asked me out, and I thought ‘No way. This is completely tacky,'” she told ABC News.
But eventually she relented, and the pair went on a date. They started by having lunch at the Art Institute of Chicago, taking a stroll, then ending up going to see the Spike Lee film “Do The Right Thing.”
“He showed all the sides – he was hip, cutting edge, cultural, sensitive. The fountain – nice touch. The walk – patient,” Michelle later told The Telegraph.
“Take tips, gentlemen,” Barack added, smiling.
The date was eventually immortalized in the film “Southside With You.”
1991: They got engaged in a simple and sweet way
The pair got engaged at a dinner that was supposed to celebrate Barack passing his bar exam, they later told ABC News.
“And then the waiter came over with the dessert and a tray. And there was the ring,” Michelle later said. “And I was completely shocked.”
She told ABC News that he simply got down on one knee and asked. Michelle, of course, said yes.
1992: They got married
1998: They had their first child together
The pair welcomed their first child, Malia Ann Obama, on July 4, 1998. Her very patriotic birthday was apparently a sign of things to come.
2001: They had their second child together
2004: Barack was elected to US Senate, beginning their life in the spotlight
2008: Barack was elected President, and the family stole hearts
2012: Barack won re-election and Michelle became an advocate for healthy eating
2016: At the end of their term as the first family, they seemed eager to go back to their old life
2017: They seemed to be enjoying post-presidential life
2017: They celebrated 25 years of marriage
