♪ ♫ slow down, you move too fast

 

Prince Harry and his wife Meghan had a documentary on Netflix.  Online hate racing through Internet -- my android tablet was jumping up and down, and it wasn't even on!

Something I noticed and pondered, over time, was -- before Harry and Meghan met, William and Catherine and Harry used to be kind of a group of "three musketeers," in their casual free time.  They were family, and friends.

        You would see photographs of them laughing together, sitting together....

In a friendly relationship like that, it's a married couple plus a single brother.  Girlfriends and dates of Harry's may have come and gone, but the three friends -- William, Kate, and Harry -- remained solid.  There would be pleasant feelings of being able to count on each other.

        For the single brother, there's the fall-back position whenever he isn't dating someone -- he can always go see William and Kate.

        For the married couple, Harry may have sometimes been a "buffer."  If either spouse might be grumpy about anything, Harry would be there to help joke it away -- smooth it over.  He provided masculine company for Prince William, and probably help with whatever Kate wanted, if she asked.

        Let's play a song!  Let's bake some muffins!

        Almost always available.  "The spare," as the royals say.

Then Harry meets Meghan and starts dating her.

In theory:  two happy couples, having fun together.

In practice:  circumstances improve for Harry, and get a little less good for William and Kate.  Buffer -- no longer available as often as before.  Good, trusted, supportive friend -- no longer available as often as before.

Another aspect that occurred to me -- sometimes in relationships of this kind, the married couple can come to depend on a little bit of a feeling of superiority, believing the single friend to be yearning for what they have.  

        Inside of these types of feelings can grow a strong affection for being "onstage," performing their happiness as a couple for the brother / friend who they may come to regard as their "audience."

Then he meets Meghan and it's like, "What happened to our audience?  Where'd he go?  

        What do you mean, he's looking at this American Meghan-person, and not at me / us??!!"

_____________________________

Another thing I noticed was that William advised Harry not to move too fast in his relationship with Meghan, and this admonishment was not well-received.  I read that.

        (Yikes.)

        Is it good advice?  Yes.

        Should it come from his brother, who is close in age to Harry?  No.

I feel like most people in Harry's position would be able to listen to that advice without resentment if it came from someone in an older generation -- a parent, uncle, aunt, even grandparent maybe.

        But to hear it from a sibling who is basically in your same age group -- most people would be hard-pressed to not get aggravated.  It would be received as:  'I am your contemporary and I know so much more than you about affairs of the heart.'

        ('Ah yes, thank you for your wise words -- please follow me over here, where I can show you our swimming pool -- up close!')

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