He told his mother there was ‘no way’ he’d meet someone in Australia. Then he fell in love at first sight

CNN —

Mike Grossman was adamant he wasn’t going to fall for anyone in Australia.

After all, he’d only be in Melbourne for a couple of months before returning to his life in the US — and Mike “wasn’t a fling type of person.”

But after packing up his life in Boston and beginning the long trek to Melbourne, Mike stopped off at his parents’ house in California, where his mother pulled him aside.

“What will you do if you meet somebody in Australia?” she asked, raising her eyebrows.

“There’s literally no way that’s going to happen,” replied Mike, firmly.

He emphasized that he was going to Australia for work, not to find love.

“I emphatically told my mother that it wasn’t possible,” Mike tells CNN Travel today. “And then off I went.”

Mike arrived in Melbourne, Australia on a June morning in 1988 — bleary-eyed from the travel, but looking forward to the weeks stretching before him, which seemed ripe with possibility.

“I was excited,” recalls Mike. “I had no specific plan other than just I thought it would be an interesting experience to be in a different country. That was it.”

‘A cinematic moment’

In 1988, Mike was 23 and studying at Harvard Law School. Through the college grapevine, he’d heard about an opportunity for US students to spend a couple of months as an associate at an Australian law firm. Mike applied on the off chance they’d take him on.

“I ended up getting it,” says Mike. “It happened just by accident. I’d never been anywhere remotely close to Australia before.”

While Mike thought the likelihood of finding love in Australia was next to none, he did want to push himself out of his comfort zone during his stint in Melbourne.

“I’m naturally quite introverted,” explains Mike.

Prior to starting law school,