Chasten Buttigieg talks about his first date with Mayor Pete and his experience on the campaign trail in a charming and moving new video from Now This.
“Our first date – it was actually supposed to be coffee, but I got stuck in rush hour traffic getting out of Chicago,” explains Chasten. “So we moved it to dinner. And when I pulled up in front of his house to pick him up, he opened the door and we both said ‘howdy' at the same time and then we both said, ‘what, that's my word!' It was kind of a cute meet cute.”
Chasten also talks about the teacher, Mrs. Bach, who inspired him to go into teaching himself: “Kids like myself growing up, I think in high school, saw something in her that knew her auditorium and her classroom was a safe space. I wanted to be the teacher in the room that made their kids feel like their dreams mattered. And I really wanted to be the person to just help them see that there is a place for them in this world.”
“When I was 13, I didn't think that there was a world waiting for me,” he adds. “And it really does, especially when you come out and you find your community, and you find those people, it takes time. I would have told myself to be patient. I wanted everything right away. But it takes time and now I have an amazing husband, an amazing group of friends.”
Chasten also says there's a need to keep fighting for equality and says he was “shaking uncontrollably” at the launch of his husband's campaign for president: “I was just overcome with emotion.”