This is a guest post by Starababa.

It seems to be a universal truth that almost from the moment of conception, most girls want to be in love. And to exacerbate the problem, they seem to fall in love rather easily. I was just reading The Wiz’s profile about how she wants to marry Mr. Darcy and it reminded me of the crush I also had all growing up on a certain fictional character, one I’m sure you’re all familiar with:

Gilbert Blythe.

The Gilbert from the “Anne of Green Gables” books sounds amazing enough, but I’m specifically talking about the Gilbert from the Anne movies, played by actor Jonathon Crombie. I think “crush” is actually a rather tame word for how I felt about Gilbert. I ADORED him. I was certain that when I was old enough to get married, I would find him and marry him. Of course my little 8 year-old mind never considered the possibility that he might be in his 40’s by that point.

My parents would tease me about someday finding my Gilbert Blythe to marry, and I guess in the back of my head in some tiny place called Denial I realized that I would never be marrying Gilbert and would simply have to find someone a lot like him.  But I really grew up with him as the ideal of what I wanted in a guy! He was absolutely perfect to me in every single way.

When I got a little older and was able to recognize that actors played these people in movies, I was still gullible enough at one point to believe the Mormon Myth that the actor who played Gilbert was a member of the Church and that he had tragically died shortly after the filming of Anne of Avonlea. I was determined to die young and marry him in heaven since I’m sure there were no other women for him but me! Okay, I know I’m sounding obsessed now, but I really did love the Anne movies (except for The Continuing Story that came out just a few years ago–why couldn’t they follow the other Anne books by L.M. Montgomery instead of coming up with some dumb story line of Gilbert going off to WWI? Lame and disappointing.)

But I love the fact that we can innocently fall in love with fictional prince charmings until we find our own real one. And I did and am happily married to him now. I’m grateful for having a high ideal of what I wanted to marry because it helped me date good guys in high school and college, and I am grateful that my DH understands that I’m a hopeless romantic and love to see people fall in love. He has actually sat down and watched all of Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Avonlea with me and enjoyed it, too! (Or at least faked it well for my benefit.)

I’m curious who your fictional Prince Charmings were growing up, or are The Wiz and I the only ones who had them? (By the way, it took me a little longer to discover Pride and Prejudice, but once I did Mr. Darcy became one of my favorites as well.)