Buttigieg: ‘Frankly, I came out because I wanted to date’

South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg said on Monday that he came out because he wanted to date, and that doing so meant he eventually met his current husband.

“Frankly, I came out because I wanted to date,” Buttigieg said at a CNN town hall when asked by host Anderson Cooper about whether he would have been different had he come out publicly at a younger age.

“If dating had been available to me in my 20s I’m not sure I would have gotten that much done,” Buttigieg then joked. Buttigieg has said he came out publicly at 33.

{mosads}But turning more serious, the 2020 presidential candidate said his decision to date more meant he eventually found husband, Chasten Buttigieg.

“I don’t know how I would do this without him,” he said about the 2020 campaign for president.

Pete Buttigieg has talked openly about being gay in his campaign, discussing his decision to come out and what it has meant in his life and revealing that he met his husband on the app Hinge.

Chasten Buttigieg has also become a key part of the campaign, becoming a celebrity in his own right.