By Ann Rosen Spector PhD.

Is there anything more powerful than love at first sight? Exhilarating, dizzying, intoxicating…

Especially when it just deepens with every piece of information you get about that person. Like an artichoke, every leaf you remove gets you closer to the delicious, sweet heart.

It’s easy to imagine when lust is mixed in, but there’s an even more intense kind of infatuation: it’s platonic. It’s falling in love with someone you want to have as a friend for the rest of your life.

It’s happened to me numerous times; although my friend Sherri scared the crap out of me when we first met, by the end of our first meeting I knew we’d be friends for life. And we have, for over thirty years.

My friend Debra kept telling me about her childhood friend, Ellyn, who sounded like a wonderful person. When I met Ellyn professionally several years ago, we became friends instantly and share our own personal bonds.

But my biggest crush, as yet unfulfilled, is with Michelle Obama. I know once we meet (I cannot believe we won’t), that we, too, will be friends for life.

I first became aware of her when her husband, Barack, took the national stage at the 2008 Democratic National Convention. Although I am one of his biggest fans, I saw that Michelle was also an extraordinary person in her own right.

We were both raised in a household where the father worked, uncomplainingly, to support his children and allow the nurturing mother to stay home full-time. Although we were both working women,, we both balanced our household responsibilities with equal fervor.

Of course, she is beautiful and always impeccably groomed. But more importantly, she is so smart and funny and warm and engaging. We share a passion for learning and when I found she read The New Yorker every week, a feature of my life since 1963. I knew we were soulmates.

And, I believe I read this or perhaps imagined it, but we both crave at least one piece of dark chocolate each day. As well we should.

Like Michelle, I have two daughters three years apart. Malia, like my Elizabeth, is a serious, serene, responsible child. She appears to me to be a self-piloting child. I always said that Liz parented herself because she was born with the maturity of someone aged 47. Maybe it was something I imparted to her, maybe it was the Flintstones’ vitamins.

My younger daughter, like Sasha Obama, is a beautiful engaging child but a bit of a scamp. It is hard to grow up in the shadows of two very accomplished parents and an incredible older sister so it’s no doubt that the second one finds her own path. People always said about my Jennifer, “She’s something else” but they never said what that was. And Michelle, I sense, sees that difference in her younger daughter, as I do in mine, as a treasured variation.

But what I most love about Michelle is the “Mom Look” which she uses subtly but emphatically whenever the girls appear to start to veer off course. I love the “Mom Look;” I know that my children as youngsters would look at my face as soon as they went over the line, and the look alone would say, “I love you but don’t do that here or now. Or else.”

It bespeaks a style of parenting that is abundant with love and caring but also a high standard of behavior; a theoretical orientation that says “I know what kind of adults I want you to be so I’m going to raise you to aim toward those goals.”

Which brings me to another reason why Michelle and I can be BFFs. Although we are both graduates of outstanding universities and have professional credentials that reflect well on our education and skill sets, we are prouder of our children than of anything else.

Of course, if you look in each of our closets, you will quickly notice that our fashion sense is almost identical. How can you go wrong with twin sweater sets and sheath dresses? Our big feet and height also suggest the wisdom of flatter shoes. Comfort trumps fashion. Add a scarf or a necklace to a solid colored outfit and you’re good to go. As one of my fashion gurus tells me, “Don’t gild the lily.”

But here is when I realized that we were practically twins separated at birth (although I am over 10 years older and grew up in the metropolitan NYC area while she grew up in Chicago). Last summer, I attended a wedding and wore a strapless dress; as a close friend of the groom’s family, I was in a lot of photos and they were kind enough to give me many of the pictures.

It was then I noticed that my weight workouts had produced the “cut” in my biceps and my shoulders, or as it’s now known, Michelle arms. This friendship is meant to be.

I heard she and the President have taken up tennis; I’ve played all my life and I’ll be glad to show her my forehand alley shot. Remember, the way they score tennis is “40-LOVE.”

I swear it’s Kismet. Michelle, call or write. We’ll do lunch. Your place or mine.

Ann Rosen Spector is a clinical psychologist in Center City, Philadelphia, and an Adjunct Lecturer in the Department of Psychology at Rutgers University – Camden.