When discussing the most common illnesses plaguing the 21st century, typical answers include AIDS, the bird flu and obesity. Few people, however, mention Gilbert Fever. This disease manifests itself after reading or watching Anne of Green Gables. Its symptoms include dissatisfaction with the boys in your life, lucid dreams involving dark, handsome men breaking slates over your head, responding to Anne-girl and Carrots rather than your birth name, and falling deeply in love with a completely fictional character.
Falling for a fictional character poses some interesting problems. If your crush was simply Hollywood’s hottest thing, say the new band, New Directions, you have a shot at meeting them. You can fantasize over shaking hands with Liam Nielson back stage, feeling an electrifying and addicting spark, a short engagement, followed by frolicking into a British sunset while singing “That’s What Makes you Beautiful.” Chances of this happening: almost zero. When you crush on Gilbert, you have zero chance of him sweeping you off your feet and bringing you to his home where you live your days as a contented Mrs. Blythe. Teenage girls temporarily crush over New Direction’s suave voices and god-blessed faces, but their popularity will fade as the girls grow up and find men of their own. Gilbert Fever, however, is not a stage grown out of; the impossibility of a live Gilbert makes him irresistible. If you tell a girl she cannot have Gil because he is fictional, it is scientifically proven she will want him more.
Why would you want Gilbert, you might ask?
“I have a dream," he said slowly. "I persist in dreaming it, although it has often seemed to me that it could never come true. I dream of a home with a hearth-fire in it, a cat and dog, the footsteps of friends -- and YOU!”
As Mary Poppins would say, he's "practically perfect in every way."
