There’s no one more annoying than the most loved-up couple in the family.

Destiny. 

That’s why Prince Harry married Meghan Markle. 

Last Thursday, Harry spoke from his couch in Montecito and tossed all of the other marriages in the royal family into the basket marked “Settled”. 

“I think for so many people in the family, especially obviously the men, there can be a temptation or an urge to marry someone who would fit in the mould,” he said. “As opposed to someone who perhaps you are destined to be with.”

While you're here, watch Prince Harry and Meghan Markle on falling in love. Post continues after video.

Harry was destined not to take a sensible bride. Not to marry a university sweetheart after a long, cautious courtship, like his brother. Not to marry a nice girl from work, like Uncle Edward. Not to marry (checks notes) the mistress he’d been cheating on his wife with for a decade, like his father. 

We all know a Harry. The person who’s starting the dance floor at a wedding every weekend while waiting for their lightning strike. The person who doesn’t seem short of options, in fact, regularly brings perfectly charming dates as offerings to the friend group, but never quite makes a choice. The one who looks at the coupled-up contingent with something like pity on their face. 

Yeah, I want what you’ve got, but you know, I really don’t want what you’ve got. 

Think of Hugh Grant in Notting Hill. Only Julia Roberts would do. 

And why not? If I was Prince Harry, with all the perks but none of the responsibility of being royal, insanely rich and really quite good-looking, only Julia Roberts would have done for me, too. Or Idris Elba. But in the absence of either of those, you know who would have been absolutely PERFECT? Meghan Markle. 

Beauty and energy and intelligence and just enough of a reckless streak to make her want to jump into things she doesn’t understand and the confidence to believe she can figure it out along the way. 

Whatever was on Prince Harry’s now-famous list of traits for a desired partner, Meghan ticked every box. 

What was beyond clear from Harry & Meghan was that this was a “great love story”. In fact, Harry told us so, at least once, and a very important part of having a great love story is telling everyone that yours is the great love story. 

The expressions on their faces in that black-and-white selfie they took on their first dinner date in London? Joy, lust, limerence. Best. Date. Ever. 

Still, now, two kids and a major international diplomatic incident later, every time these two look at each other, hummingbirds flutter and fireflies dance. Literally, in that Californian garden.  

Harry knew she was The One. Meghan knew he was The One. The annoying part was how no one else understood.

Which is often the problem, when you’re wildly in love after three dates and all your friends and family are barely concealing eye-rolls as you manage to mention their name 15 times in a conversation about White Lotus.

The much-discussed brotherly dinner where Meg, in “ripped jeans and a T-shirt”, finds out that the heir to the throne is still the heir to the throne when he’s standing in your boyfriend’s kitchen, paints the perfect, familiar scene. 

William and Kate have been together for 21 years. They have three kids, and very big jobs, and they’re happy and everything, but they’re not exactly at the stage where they’re finding excuses to brush up against each other on the way to the fridge for a cold one. 

Also, they’ve met a lot of girlfriends, and some of them sell stories to the tabloids, so, you know, Meghan might not get a hug. 

Meanwhile, Harry is presenting Meghan as The Solution. The Future. His Everything. 

Image: Netflix 

It feels like perhaps this whole monarchial mess could have been avoided if William had believed him, instead of doing what 99 per cent of long-married people would do in this situation and said, either out loud, or with the set of his very fair eyebrows, “That’s nice, mate. It won’t last.”

You can almost hear the conversation Kate and William had on the way home from that dinner with the “American actress”. There would have been that familiar frisson of defensiveness that any long-together couple feels when they’re confronted with love that has not yet been banged about a bit, not had its shiny edges knocked off, not yet had some of its sparkle worn down to a more subtle, tarnished sheen. 

It’s like that complicated moment when you hear people having sex in another room, when you’re both lying in bed, looking at your phones. Wills and Kate were doomscrolling in their pyjamas. Harry and Megs were swinging from the chandelier. Figuratively, of course (royal dignity insists). 

But then, it did last. Meghan and Harry proved to be the real deal (okay, at least for now, cynics at the back)

And in some ways, that’s even more annoying. For all of us. 

The barely disguised contempt held for these two starry-eyed, not-so-young people who want to make the world a better place gives itself many justifications. It’s selfish, what they’re doing, we hear. It’s tacky. It’s self-serving. It’s viciously cruel to their respective families. It’s one-eyed and tone-deaf and the worst of the snowflake generation but also they should check their privilege. 

Maybe when it comes to Harry and Meghan, we are all that couple, lying in bed on our phones, listening to the ecstasy next door? 

Because, as Harry said (again, belief is the important part), this love story was so great that “she gave up everything in her life for me, and then I gave up everything in my life for her". These are two people who deeply, wholly believe their relationship is stronger than family and friends, stronger than convention and history, stronger than protocol and common sense and playing nice. 

They believe that their love can change not only their lives, but the world. 

They believe they are two branches on the same tree with one set of roots (or something). 

Listen to Mamamia Out Loud, where Mia, Jessie and I debrief about Netflix's Harry & Meghan. Post continues below.

And the rest of us are left feeling, just a bit, like we’re at Christmas dinner sitting across from that cousin who keeps tongue-kissing their girlfriend between prawns. Who says things like, "Isn’t it sad when you see a couple who’ve run out of things to say to each to each other?". Who says things like, "He’ll have the trifle, you love trifle, don’t you babe?" Who says things like, "It’s just so important to keep the spark alive, isn’t it?".

Meanwhile, collectively, we’ve just had a fight in the car on the way to dinner about who’s driving home. We have a long tally spooling in our heads about whose TURN it is to get up to the kids in the morning/put the bins out/choose the togetherness TV show. We are dealing with bed farts and greying undies on the bathroom floor and that voice they put on to take a work call. 

Put it away, you two, we think. 

Yeah, that’s definitely what we’re upset about. That’s definitely the cause of all the hateful headlines. Nothing to do with two powerful institutions being called out for racism, harassment, corruption and cruelty. 

Nope. We’re definitely all just irritated by the most loved-up members of the family.  

I mean, who isn’t? 

Feature Image: Netflix's Harry & Meghan. 

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