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As we prepare for the second civil war by stockpiling rosé and craisinettes, I’m reminded of a simpler time, when the President loved his wife openly and she regularly held his hand without disdain. Barack and Michelle Obama are so obviously in love, and are such couple goals, that they even had a movie made about the their courtship. It turns out that Obama has some advice for choosing a mate. Communications director Dan Pfeiffer has a new book out, called Yes, We (Still) Can, in which he reveals Obama’s advice to him when he was getting serious with his girlfriend, who is now his wife.

As they chatted about future plans, Pfeiffer opened up about his girlfriend — and clearly gave off signals that things were getting serious.

“So are you guys moving together? This is the one, huh,” Pfeiffer recounted Obama as asking him, per an excerpt shared on Twitter and on the Huffington Post.

Obama then quickly offered some fatherly wisdom, in the form of three questions he believes everyone should ask themselves before choosing a potential mate.

“Here’s the advice I give everyone about marriage — is she someone you find interesting?” Pfeiffer says Obama asked him.

Pfeiffer admits the question puzzled him at first, but Obama then clarified: “You will spend more time with this person than anyone else for the rest of your life, and there is nothing more important than always wanting to hear what she has to say about things.”

Question number two is a little more self-explanatory: “Does she make you laugh?”

And finally, Pfeiffer writes that Obama told him “I don’t know if you want kids, but if you do, do you think she will be a good mom?”

Fortunately for Pfeiffer, he was able to answer yes to all those questions, and the president later attended his wedding — one of four weddings the former president attended of couples who met through him and his work.

[From People]

There’s an ancient website that remains up for some reason called Love Advice. (Don’t be discouraged by the mid 90s design, it does have some good advice.) It’s by Dr. Tracy Cabot, who wrote relationship books in the 70s. My favorite section is “Qualifying Someone,” which has basic-seeming recommendations but we all have “friends” who pick men/women who fail these simple tests like “you trust them to feed your cat or water your plants,” “they have old friends who can vouch for them,” and “they show up when they say they will.”

Obama’s advice is for couples past that stage, who are trying to decide whether to spend their life with someone. I’ve never heard that, to make sure you find them interesting and that they make you laugh, but of course it seems so perfect when you hear it. This is true of a lot of things Obama says and does. I’m reminded of Hugh Grant’s character Gareth’s thoughts on marriage in Four Weddings and a Funeral, when he claimed that people get married because they run out of things to talk about. That’s when you reconsider the relationship, not when you get married! There was a reason that Gareth was single and that the film ended the way it did. (I’m not giving spoilers, but if you haven’t seen that movie rent it!)

Barack Obama’s relationship advice to @danpfeiffer is better than 99% of the advice columns on the Internet. pic.twitter.com/AumDz0M8fY

— Amanda Litman (@amandalitman) June 22, 2018

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