... I think the important thing to remember is that what we actually know is not "everything there is to know," but a carefully curated image. It's one of the reasons I think Twitter, FB, IG, etc are so dangerous and so misleading. There is this false impression of intimacy and knowledge, when in truth what we "know" is the carefully crafted bits and pieces that have been chosen to set a narrative and create a picture. How accurate that picture is is debatable.
I agree. Their public images are certainly curated. I don't believe they even told us everything exactly about how they actually met. They surely were in some kind of contact prior to early July 2016, when they said they first met in-person 'on a blind date.' Social media is so prevalent, so they surely looked each other up and possibly texted each other prior to the day they met. And there's been some unsubstantiated rumors that they may have first met briefly in May 2016, in Toronto. Since Meghan had at that point recently broken up with her former boyfriend (Cory Vitiello), Harry & Meghan possibly wished to not fuel further innuendo about the timing of their meeting being close to when Meghan split with Vitiello.
Meghan was an excellent curator of her Tig website and her former Instagram. She was largely discreet about personal issues, but she was also much more accessible as an actor on a popular cable tv series. She was engaging and outspoken on issues that interested her, and she shared a lot of fun pictures of her travels with friends, her dogs, and she regularly provided a generally up-to-date account of her life (always carefully curated). Seeing glimpses of her apartment, food, flowers, books, shoes in her closet, inspirational quotes she loves, her vacations, having silly fun with friends, sharing loving pics with her mother, tributes to her father, and so many adorable pictures of her dogs, was so lovely. I miss that Meghan and the freedom she had. But it's my bittersweet lamenting, not Meghan's.
I believe Meghan has willingly moved on and into this royal life because she's in love. And the perks for her outweighed the sacrifices. Plus she can handle the ups-and-downs. She's not a wallflower. It's the nature of who she fell in love with, which has changed forever how open she can be. The press is way too clamoring and intrusive. Even though she will surely remain outspoken on charitable and women's issues that she's passionate about, she's been extremely careful nonetheless, but in a gracious way. She's very skilled at it too, as we can see by how she conducted herself during the QCT panel discussion at King's College on International Women's Day.
Due to what happened to his mother, Harry was already leery of the press, but the OTT negativity that began with the H&M courtship and that has continued throughout Meghan's pregnancy has surely turned Harry off on being magnimous in any way whatsoever. I believe the two of them might have been slightly more accommodating had the press not overstepped their bounds so much and so relentlessly. As with the Markles, there has been a point of no return.