While there is no doubt that the Prince and Princess of Wales, who have been together for over 20 years, are a perfect match, William and Kate's relationship seems to have been truly meant to be.

Eventually, of course, they met as first-year students at the University of St. Andrews in 2001, and according to Kate herself in an engagement interview alongside William in 2010, when she first saw him on campus, she turned "bright red" and "ran like a little She ran away" (from the Mirror).

But even before they actually met, "Princess Kate is believed to have attended the same gap year program in South America just weeks before Prince William," writes the Mirror.

After completing her A-levels, Kate went to Florence, Italy, to study art history before heading to Chile. According to the Mirror, "By a strange coincidence, it turned out that William had also attended the same program in South America a few weeks earlier. As royal author Tina Brown noted in The Palace Papers of 2022, Kate had a "Zelig-like ability to keep appearing at the edges of William's life."

When they finally ended up in the same place at the same time, William seemed to notice Kate immediately, and William's underclassmen boys "admired Kate as the prettiest girl in the freshman class," the Mirror reported. Before changing her major, William was also an art history major like Kate, and the two would occasionally bump into each other. Over time, they discovered they had many things in common, including swimming and skiing," the Mirror wrote. A few weeks into the semester, "the two, accompanied by other college buddies, had breakfast together.

But sparks did not immediately fly, as both were seeing other people at the time. William sat on the front row, while Kate hit the catwalk in a see-through Charlotte Todd dress. (The moment was captured on Netflix's "The Crown" Season 6.) The future king uttered just three words, and the future of the British monarchy was assured: "Wow, Kate is hot!" he said to his friend.

After the fashion show, mutual friend Andrew Sands, who wrote for royal author Katie Nicole's book Kate: The Future Queen, said he saw them kissing at a house party: "They were kissing at the end of the night. 'They were standing in the corner of the living room and I remember seeing them out of the corner of my eye. It was dark, there were lots of people, and the music was playing loud. Everyone pretended not to care too much, but then it spread like wildfire throughout St. Andrews"

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It took several months for the two to become an official couple; by the beginning of their sophomore year in the fall of 2002, William and Kate, along with two other friends, were roommates, and their friendship developed into a full-fledged relationship, according to The Mirror.

William told ITV in an interview, "We moved in together as friends because we were going to live together. 'I lived with a couple of other people and it blossomed from there. We saw each other more, we hung out a little more, we did stuff."

As the old adage goes, fate will always find you. If not in a gap year program in Chile, then on the campus of St. Andrews.