Prince Harry, Ever the Party Boy, Searches for His Own Identity As An Adult

UPDATE: MEGHAN'S ESTRANGED SISTER PUSHES BACK ON HARRY'S THOUGHTLESS RADIO QUIP: Actually she has a large family who were ALWAYS there for her...

WHO OF US WOULD HAVE EVER THOUGHT WHEN QUEEN ELIZABETH WAS CORONATED  IN 1953, that the British royal family and its progeny would become the source of endless global fascination, attention and entertainment?  The more dysfunctional this family became in all its iterations, the more it attached to our collective attention spans like super-glue.  With some exceptions, the royals are England's answer to our endlessly debauched Kardashians, I suppose.

Now with another royal wedding vying for an all-out assault on our attention this spring,  we need to gird our loins for the non-stop three ring circus ahead.  This time it's Prince of Playboys, Harry, who is marrying a beautiful middle class, divorced, mixed-race American TV actress named Meghan Markle which you already know,  if you're breathing.
 
This should be really interesting.  We all love a good 'love story' with castles, princes and princesses,  crowns, jewels, ball gowns and happily ever after endings.  Yet we rarely see it in the real world today.  Queen Elizabeth and Phillip notwithstanding.

While I truly wish Meghan and Harry the best,  I'm not nearly as sanguine about their long-term prospects as I am about William and Kate's abiding happiness and true compatibility. For one thing,  Harry seems less grounded and certainly less mature and self-directed than his older brother.  He seems to me to have less of a real identity and more of a borrowed one from his family.  He's certainly cute and fun even as he tries hard to morph himself now into a bunch of politically correct liberal causes---like his daddy's global warming fixation and  his fiancee's feminism and liberal politics---but it remains to be seen if any of these things are really the stuff he's made of.  Meghan seems to be more of a real person, yet who knows what she'll have to give up to become and remain a royal over the long haul.

Being a royal, in my opinion, is like living in a gilded, scripted, stodgy, well-dressed old cage.  I couldn't do it then, now or ever.

Honestly,  I think Meghan and Harry are from such diverse backgrounds that it will be very hard, as time goes on, for them to adjust. It all seems romantic and glamorous now with all the royal and media fanfare,  but as time goes on and a baby or two arrive, it's hard to see that the patina won't wear off.  Again,  this is a partial projection on my part, so take it with a grain of salt.

One more thing: today when I saw Harry bragging on his radio stint that Meghan's Christmas had been fantastic and she had been with the family she never had,  I was appalled by his thoughtlessness of Meghan's mother and father too.  While I understand what he was attempting to convey---that she was well-received in his larger-than-Meghan's family (but certainly not more functional)---his statement came across as arrogant and condescending to me and insensitive to her eclectic family on the west coast which clearly did a pretty good job of raising her. If I were Meghan,  I would not have been happy about his well meaning mouthing off that way.

Anyway,  time will tell.  I give it less than five years. But that doesn't mean we can't enjoy it all while it lasts.  Right? And who knows,  maybe I'm wrong.

One thing's for sure,  the royal soap opera will go on.