- Meghan Markle and Mindy Kaling talked about high school on “Meghan’s Archetypes”.
- The Duchess of Sussex described herself as a “little bit of a loner”.
- The two women also bonded over being “latchkey kids,” among other things.
The difficulties of high school are being openly discussed by Meghan Markle and Mindy Kaling.
The Duchess of Sussex described herself as a “ugly duckling” in the most recent episode of Meghan’s Archetypes, “The Stigma of the Singleton with Mindy Kaling.” The two ladies also talked about their experiences in high school.
“Look, maybe not conventional beauty as it…now, maybe that would be seen as beautiful but massive frizzy curly hair and a huge gap in my teeth that,” Meghan said. “I was the smart one. Forever and ever and ever and ever. And, and then just sort of grew up.”
Throughout middle and high school, Meghan said, she attended the all-girls Catholic school Immaculate Heart, and she kept herself occupied to prevent embarrassing situations in the lunchroom.
“But I never had anyone to sit with at lunch. I, I was always a little bit of a loner and really shy and didn’t know where I fit in,” Meghan said. “And, and so I just became, I was like, okay, well then I’ll become the president of the Multicultural Club and the president of sophomore class and the president of this and French club. And, and by doing that, I had meetings at lunchtime. So I didn’t have to worry about who I would sit with or what I would do because I was always so busy.”
The two women also bonded over being “latchkey kids.”
Kaling said, You know, I was that typical latchkey kid because my parents both worked and they’re immigrants. And there was, I think, it’s all just like your personality, right? Like my personality loved freedom. And so for me, I loved just being able to read. You know, when I was a kid, it was like ‘establish roots in this country, make money,’ you know? And so, we were just at home, we weren’t allowed to watch TV, so we just had to read. And so, that’s, I really enjoyed that; I think that’s why I became a writer is because of that, like just like, the profound boredness that I had as a child where the, my only access point was, you know, was watching, was reading books and reading magazines if we had them.”
While growing up as a “dark-skinned Indian kid, overweight, with spectacles, amid lily-white suburbs of Boston,” Kaling, 43, stated that she never felt attractive.
“So I went through high school. No boyfriends. Heard about my friends kissing, falling in love, losing their virginity. College. Same. Nothing. Always a spectator. Watching things,” the actress and writer said. “By the way, I learned a lot from that. I learned how to, you know, so many of my shows right now are about young women and longing and feeling horny and feeling rejected. And I’ve learned a lot from that.”
The 41-year-old Meghan began the programme by recounting a class assignment when she had to organise her wedding.
“I remember every little thing about it,” she said. “I wanted it to be at The Bel-Air Hotel. And there was a swan lake, and I wanted the cake to be from Hanson’s Bakery. And the dress — oh my goodness, the dress was strapless and poofy and I’d seen it in a bridal magazine … and, and I bought it, I mean not, not the dress — I bought the bridal magazine because I took this project seriously. I wanted to get an ‘A.’ And I did, maybe I got an A-.“
“But my grade on this project is actually neither here nor there. Because what strikes me now — from my 40-something vantage point — is the fact that this project was even graded at all!” she continued. “The fact that this project even existed! At no point could you say, ‘Nope. My dream for the future is to be single.’ The message, even at my feminist all-girls school, was as traditional as it gets: first comes love, then comes marriage.”
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