There was a time when I used to introduce myself to people and they would address me by my actual name. But these days, upon first meeting, almost everyone calls me “Kate”.
I don’t hold it against them nor against her. It’s not her fault she has cast such a royal shadow over all other K Middletons everywhere that people automatically connect the surname to only one possible name in front.
But it is weird how often it happens.
My standard response now is to gently correct the mistake with the clarification that she is “the other princess”.
Occasionally I make up wild stories about us being second cousins, once removed. However, despite frantic genealogical searches, she appears to be no relation. (OK, I also made up that bit about the genealogical searches. We actually haven’t checked.)
Like all the other K Middletons on earth, I have just had to come to terms with the fact that from here on, for the term of my natural life, I will ever be inadvertently called somebody else.
There’s only one (hilarious) occasion of which I’m aware, when it worked the other way around. Upon the announcement of the royal engagement a few years back, a male Australian commercial TV host declared that Prince William was to marry “Karen Middleton”. I went scurrying for a frock.
And speaking of couture, just to top things off, on the day that my namesake is in town today, I have managed to turn out in a very similar shade of emerald green.
Hopefully there’s an exemption from fashion treason for those of us destined forever more to have to answer to “Kate”.
