Roxsteve said:
Not even you believe that...while there is nothing wrong with aiming high, I think, she did not see this marriage as a sacrifice! Not glamorous?? Being a princess is not glamorous? The first thing she did was to pose for a magazine in designers clothes...what a sacrifice. She is living the life that many people can only dream of...
There are people, you know, who had due to sucess in their job not only a glimpse into the life of the upper class but experienced first hand how it is to be at the receiving end of the interest of people who want to take advantage of you. Who's to trust any longer? Where's the place to be if you just want to be "normal"? Where to go on the morning you simply want to have some fun without bothering to don make-up and chic clothes? Who will be the next to take a picture of you and sell it when all you want is to enjoy life a little bit? To whom can you turn when you want to talk about something private which you don't want to read in the press about?
People who grew up in this kind of golden cage normally have made friends who are in a similar position: Kate Middleton eg went to the same school Sting sent his daughters to and Princess Beatrice is enrolled at the moment - surely they all met girls there whom to trust that they won't talk to the media because they all know how this life is being led? Who does Mary know in Denmark who is really trustworthy?
Many people think that it's a dream come true to suddenly become princess. Well, for Diana Spencer and Sarah Ferguson it turned into a nightmare. And while these two stayed in the limelight even after the divorce and were/ has been hunted by the paparazzi, other people dream of being like them but sit down comfortably in their gardens, wearing just a bikini on a hot summer day and don't have to think for a moment that there might be someone intruding their privacy and taking advantage of them on using them as an unpayed fotomodel.
This is something a lot of people never think of: while being rich and wearing nice clothes is surely fun if you can stay a private person it might well turn into a nightmare once you are famous in addition. Once people stare at you. Once people never know how to behave around you. Once people feel such an enormous gap between you and them that no matter what you do, you can't reach them and make them behave like normal people. I even think that the longer you live this life the more cynical you get towards the people you meet. Because you experience more disappointments and more little acts of treason year after year.
Just think about the people here on the list who believe Mary is just a golddigger. Would they tell her that face to face if they ever met her? No, they wouldn't. But Mary surely knows that she is not everybody's darling. She only needs to read an internet forum - and this is one of the nicer ones when it comes to her.
She is not stupid. She worked in PR. Gosh, she must have known so very well what she went into when she said yes. And I don't think for a moment that prince Frederick is stupid. He grew up with the knowledge that he was one of the finest prizes of the marriage-mart. He had lots and lots of girlfriends who weren't the "one". Should he have been so blind on choosing Mary if she was just in love with her new position and not him, the man behind the crown? No way!
I like the pictures when Mary and Frederick have outings with Mary's parents. For many students it would be a great honor to be able to drink a beer in private with a professor. So I guess Mary's father has known the whole play of flattering people with power in order to get something from them very well. I believe he is a great help to his daughter and is able to react normally around Frederick. I'm glad for her that her parents are in Denmark at the moment. I'm glad Mary has Caroline Heering (of "the" Heerings) now to introduce her to people who may hopefully treat her as just a normal and nice person. I hope she meets professional people on her public engagements who are so content with what they are and what they achieved that they offer a good conversation to the princess on treating her like an equal. And I hope that she isn't sad when she thinks back to the freedom she once enjoyed when nobody had ever heard of a Miss Donaldson from Tasmania.
But there are things some people will never understand because they never experienced how things work once you get an elevated position. So they only see the gilded facade and not the real problems and hardships behind it.
