Ways I am not like Anne of Green Gables

I read the Anne of Green Gables books when I was fairly young and I loved them. I related to the intensity of Anne’s feelings but I have to admit we were not very similar. Here’s how.

I make the same mistake over and over again

Anne could be a bit hazy on details but she prided herself on never making the same mistake twice. Drowning a mouse in the sauce, getting her friend drunk on red “cordial”, marrying her childhood rival and giving up her own career so he could pursue his even though she was always the smarter one; she only made these mistakes once. Whereas I walk into the corner of my bed once a week and almost never spell hierarchy correctly first go.

I don’t like a puffy sleeve

As a child I disliked things that were too girly (whatever that means) and thought I loved horses. My Nana knitted me a jumper with a horse’s head on the front. It was beautiful and I loved it. UNTIL she finished off the design with a puffed sleeve. I HATED puffed sleeves and so sadly I never wore the jumper. Anne, on the other hand, dreamed of puffy sleeves and probably would have married one if it proposed.

I’m Ann with no ‘e’

Anne was adament about people including the ‘e’ in her name because it made it a tiny bit less boring. My mum was a big fan of the Anne books and it was her childhood copies that I first read. The later ones were less well-worn and it turned out that Mum had stopped reading when she found out L. M. Montgomery was a woman because obviously Mum had some work to do on loving herself. Anyway, my grandmother also spelled her name Anne. And yet, somehow my middle name is ‘Ann’ with no ‘e’. It’s a bit of a mystery, but I suspect Mum was just shit-stirring.

I got my friend drunk on purpose

One of my best friends and housemates didn’t drink when we first started living together and I actively campagined to get her to like beer, first by adding cordial to it and then gradually weaning her off that to drink it straight. In retrospect I don’t know why this was important to me. If people don’t want to drink, just leave them alone. But anyway, I was 18 and a bit silly, unlike Anne who genuinely thought the yummy red drink that Diana was gulping was just a cordial.

Proposals don’t float my boat

I never wanted to get married when I was a kid. I had crushes on boys but I never dreamed about my wedding or having a husband. The Anne books gave me a totally unrealistic idea of how often I would be proposed to. Anne was always dreaming of being proposed to and when she grew up it happened again and again. Even though I didn’t really want to get married, from these books I assumed batting away proposals was going to be an almost full-time job. Luckily, as it happens I’ve only been proposed to once and frankly, that was enough.

Finally…

So I’m quite different to Anne, but in many ways Anne is quite different to herself, changing a lot as the books progressed. Do this quiz to find out which Anne you are MOST like.