- Kegakiloe Kgalegi could not stop thinking about the girl he fancied in high school but was too shy to tell her.
- Meanwhile, Onthatile Matshidiso, had given up on the idea of finding love until a Facebook friend request changed her whole perspective.
- After 20 years of not seeing each other, the lovebirds from Rustenburg in the North West, are in love and plan to marry.
Finding love and someone to spend the rest of your life with is beautiful. For Rustenburg couple, Onthatile Matshidiso and Kegakiloe Kgalegi, there was a time they thought finding love would never happen. Onthatile, 38, says she found trying to find love "draining."
"After one too many terrible experiences, I just stopped dating. I concentrated on building my career and building what I thought would be a solo life: decorating my home, working out, and travelling," she says.
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Things were the same was for Kegakiloe. It was a demoralising journey and one failed attempt after the next. "After that, the dating scene was not fruitful, and I decided to focus on building myself and nursing my bruises," he says. But 41-year-old Kegakiloe could not stop thinking about the one girl who was the perfect and ideal woman for him.
Onthatile was a high schoolmate of his. He was her senior and they would bump into each other at school but he could not bring himself to tell her how he felt.
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"Everything about her made me fall for her. I loved how she used to carry herself along with her shy disposition yet always smiling. She was beyond kind and sweet, and given my crippling shyness at the time, I didn't have the nerve to approach her, but I somehow knew from the get-go that she was "my girl," says Kegakiloe.
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In 2018, after more than 20 years of not seeing "his girl," Kegakiloe randomly searched for her name on Facebook and found her. The reconnection was an instant hit.
Onthatile tells W24 that she knew him from school, liked him, but it was nothing serious. However, after getting to know him when they reconnected, she realised that he is everything she has always wanted in a man. "He has the most amazing energy to be around - he's calm, kind, and affirming. He's also cute, funny and deeply caring, which makes him my best friend," she explains.
Upon catching up via Facebook, it turned out that they had previously been at the same places and events, such as friends' weddings, but didn't see each other. "I didn't think he would be my husband to be because he wasn't in my circle. But I think it was written in the stars that we would cross paths after a very long time and be together ever after," Onthatile says.
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The couple is planning to walk down the aisle in 2022 as they have found the kind of love they have been yearning for all these years.
Kegakiloe says those looking for love should never lose hope nor sight of the fact that love in its entirety does exist, adding that they must be ready to receive and give it.
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"Regardless of the numerous times you'd deem as failures, if your heart is open, the one meant for you will find you. In these discouraging times that we live in people enter into relationships out of convenience and fear of loneliness. But patience and faith have rewards that are bound to amaze," he says.
Have you ever fallen in love unexpectedly? Tell us about it here.
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