Rotating object2 about the center of object1 in Illustrator CC

I'm using Illustrator in Windows 11 and I'm having to some non-intuitive steps to reveal the center of an object1 to rotate another object2 around. I have 'show center' turned on for the object1 I need it's center for, but after pressing the Rotate tool, the center of object1 dissapears. It will appearONLY if I move the mouse cursor over object1 first, then I can see the center, and then rotate object 2 about it. Is this normally how it's done, or is there a faster way? I thought the center would alwsys be showing once you turn it on in Attributes, but seems not that way.