This actor was not looking for love but it still happened when he found the person he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. 9 years later, they are parents to three and still happily in love.
Love needs a bit of luck and a sprinkle of magic. Only when these two interlock, do we find the right person we would want to spend the rest of our lives with. A love like this comes rarely in our lives and the best thing we can do is be open to it when it does.
When Matthew McConaughey met his wife Camila Alves, he was not looking to find love but that doesn't mean he wasn't open to it. 14 years ago, he had been hanging out with his friends at a club on Sunset Boulevard when he first saw the Brazillian model. The How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days actor was "making margaritas at the table" when she passed by and got his attention immediately. He tried to wave to her but realized that she was "not the kind of woman you call over across the room." So, he walked up to her and invited her and her friends over to his table, he told People TV.
She spoke in Portuguese and the True Detective actor understood what she said. "I understood Portuguese better than I’ve ever understood her in our nine years of dating!" said the Magic Mike actor in 2017. The romantic actor asked her on a date and she said yes.
"We went out on our first date three nights [after meeting at the club] and I knew then that the next night after that I wanted to go on another date. And the next night after that, I wanted to go on another date. And I’ve been wanting to go on a date with her for the last nine years. And not with anybody else," said the Interstellar actor.
Married with three kids now, the Dallas Buyers Club actor believes that if he had met Alves 15 years ago it won't have worked out. "I was not looking. I was very happily single. And healthily single, so I was not looking. I was sleeping well, I was spiritually sound, I was good with hanging with me," he said, adding, "It’s gotta be the right person but it has to be the right time... it was the right time for [me]."
While he wasn't looking, the Dazed and Confused actor knew that he wanted a family when he turned 40 and they met when he was nearing his fourth decade. "I mean, the clock was ticking—I was about to be 40 and my plan was to be married and have kids by that age," he told cigaraficionado. "But I didn’t want to play the game of starting to feel anxious because, with too much anxiety, you can’t find a mate. And then you make a hasty decision. I knew men who had made hasty decisions and women who had done the same thing. But at that point, I wasn’t hunting. And then this amazing woman walked across my field of vision and I thought, Who is that? And it was Camila."
With the person we want to spend the rest of our life, we hope to find common ground in the values we have as a person and this independent man saw her echo his. And he ended up falling for the "self-respect she had for herself" and "the way [he] understood her and her relationship with family" and "the way she respected [him] but never took anything for granted," he said.
Even after they had two children, the couple was surprised that they got married at all since they wanted to make sure that marriage was something they chose for themselves.
"I had to get to the point where I saw it as more than just the thing to do. I wanted to really want to," he told GQ. He revealed that they "did a lot of reading and talked to a lot of people that had been divorced, a lot of people that had been happily married."
Meanwhile, Alves told People, "I think it’s something that we evolved to. I was never the girl that grew up saying I want to get married. I actually told my parents to not expect me to get married. The main thing for me is to make sure our home is peaceful, that it’s healthy, that the kids are good. I didn’t know how important [the wedding] was, and how really truly special it was, until I went through the ceremony."
Love can come to us at different moments and if we are closed off to allow it into our life it probably means that it wasn't the right time at all. Everyone falls in love at their own pace and there is no right or wrong way do go about it.
References:
https://www.gq.com/story/matthew-mcconaughey-career
https://people.com/celebrity/matthew-mcconaughey-and-camila-met-in-a-west-hollywood-bar/
https://www.cigaraficionado.com/article/alright-alright-alright
https://people.com/celebrity/matthew-mcconaughey-and-camila-met-in-a-west-hollywood-bar/
