Being royalty may sound like a blast — in fact, as far as fantasies go, it’s up there with winning the lotto and showing up to your high school reunion the exact same size as when you graduated.
But the reality is, those fancy titles come with a whole list of rules that must be followed at all times — and for the rest of your life.
It’s a sad fact of palace life that Harry has known about since birth and that Meghan Markle is just now finding out about.
Harry and Meghan have been married for about six weeks now, but it seems she still has a lot to learn about life in the Windsor court.
We’re sure Harry and others tried to prepare Meghan for the many strictures of royal protocol, but that’s like trying to prepare a college kid for the real world.
You just don’t know until you’re really in it.
Anyway, Meghan is a new Duchess, but she’s also a new wife.
And it seems that the required formality of the former occasionally comes into conflict with the romantic giddiness of the latter:
As you can see, it looks as though Meg makes a move toward holding Harry’s hand here.
And he shuts down the maneuver with the speed and agility of a born athlete.
If Harry hadn’t been born a prince, he could’ve played quidditch, or whatever the hell they do in England.
We’re sure Harry meant no harm in refusing to take Meg’s hand, but such a public rebuke had to sting a little.
It’s not hard to see why Meghan may have thought it would be okay to hold Harry’s hand at a royal engagement.
In fact, those no written rule against it.
“The Queen rarely holds hands with her husband in public and this seems to have set an unwritten precedent for the other royals,” Body language expert Robin Kermode tells The Daily Mail.
Kermode adds that Harry may have simply been taking a cue from his older brother, saying:
“It is very clear that William and Kate are emotionally close, however, they do not seem to feel the need to prove their love – particularly when on official state business.”
We guess it’s just one of those things you learn with time.
To extend out earlier college/real world metaphor, there’s no law against getting hammered on two-for-one Tuesdays when you have work in the morning, but you quickly learn that it’s not the best idea.
These days, Meg is like a 22-year-old intern retching into her wastebasket and giving closer consideration to the possibility of grad school.
You know, we may have just taken that analogy a step too far.
As with royal PDA, we didn’t know where the line was until we crossed it!
