LAST week, we looked at the importance of getting your man to invest time and energy in you, which proportionally increases his attraction to you.

That's the sure-fire way not only to catch, but also to keep a man.

A great example of the principle of compliance in action is the courtship of Mr Barack and Mrs Michelle Obama, the US President and First Lady.

As recounted in Mr Obama's book, The Audacity of Hope, Mrs Obama used incremental amounts of compliance to add up to a sizeable investment of time and effort by him.

He met his future wife when she was an associate at a law firm. She was then assigned to mentor him. Notice that she was in the relatively higher position.

As the now famous story goes, Mr Obama was smitten by her and tried to pursue her.

But she refused to date him, saying that it would be inappropriate to date at work or mix work with pleasure.

She told him she had big career plans and was 'on the fast track' upwards.

She had 'no time for distractions like men'.

Talk about showing you are non-needy, non-supplicative and independent!

Of course, all of these words and gestures just increased for him her value and attraction.

Mrs Obama embodied many of the traits I've been recommending in my columns for catching and keeping your Mr Right.

She's happy, busy, hard to get, professional, not at all desperate, and knows what she wants from life.

Mr Obama said she was simply 'lovely'.

The future President finally convinced her to get some ice-cream together, which was a brilliant move on his part, too, with a first date marked by the 3Cs of Dating - it was convenient (keeping at a minimum Mr Obama's own investment of time and effort), cheap (no pressure-filled dinners or awkward multi-course silences), and conducive to conversation.

The couple shared a chocolate ice-cream kiss, and the rest is history.

Supportive

Mrs Obama not only applied the principle of compliance to her dating life, but also to her marriage.

Even though she is a talented and experienced lawyer in her own right, she wholeheartedly supports her husband, never trying to upstage or embarrass him.

She has managed to raise, by all accounts, two unspoilt daughters.

She has even become something of a fashion icon with the US and international press and paparazzi, who watch and gossip over her and her daughters' sophisticated but sweet outfits.

She even compares well next to the French president's extraordinarily fashionable wife, former supermodel Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, who has her own tale of compliance in action.

And as far as any journalists can tell, Mr Obama and his wife's marriage is a happy union.

Maybe in some respects, there is such a thing as happily ever after.

This article was first published in The New Paper