Eighties nostalgia has been a thing now for a while. The longer madras dresses stay in fashion, Jason Bateman keeps on existing in public, and people clothe their children in Bruce Springsteen t-shirts, the greater the risk you run of being outed as the ankle length denim jumper wearing homeschoolee you once were. Now you can tell me it doesn’t matter—you’re an adult now, you’ve got a good job and a membership to Film Forum. And anyhow, what kind of a person would judge another person for missing eighties pop culture references? All I can say is you’re absolutely right. Only the petty and small minded would judge you for a decade spent memorizing the books of the Bible in song form and being slain in the spirit. But sentiment works powerfully to soften minds and morals. Can you trust in the iron intellect and virtue of your friends and coworkers? Maybe. No one will judge you for remembering when the Spandau Ballet performed Les Sylphides. Or probably not to your face. People won’t like you any less and it probably won’t end your marriage if you have to ask who Phoebe Cates was, but they may subtly begin to exclude you from certain conversations on the grounds that you wouldn’t be interested and pretty soon you’ll find out about parties only the day after they took place and next thing you know you’re be getting passed over for a promotion and your kid will somehow fail the entrance interview to the only preschool capable of catapulting him into the only private school worth going to and an advanced degree in something combining philosophy with whatever makes him happy and a lot of money to support you in your old age. But if you’re okay with that, that’s cool. In fact, it’s downright worthy. You’re like Christian’s friend Faithful from Pilgrim’s Progress. Only you probably won’t be martyred for your highmindedness. But just in case it seems like you might be, here’s a bit of the information you’ll need to pretend you popped by Vanity Fair on your way to the strictly Unitarian suburb of the Celestial City you’re obviously trotting toward.

First, you need to realize that there’s no way you’re ever going to understand what everyone saw in those John Hughes movies. The guiding axiom for all that stuff is that you had to be there and you weren’t. Just change the subject or run away. There’s no point in trying to endure them as an adult. Know that attractive outsiders pouted in detention and chopped at their clothing with scissors. No one wore long denim skirts or culottes and everyone appeared to have remarkably permissive parents. I think. I haven’t actually seen any of these films from start to finish. But take heart, from here on it’s pretty easy. There was no internet to splinter youth culture into hundreds of subsets they way it is today. Pop culture was dispensed to everyone but you via one of three indistinguishable TV stations. There were more than three radio stations but you don’t have to worry about that since they all played the same thing and radio was so insidiously prevalent that in a pinch even you can quote song lyrics knowingly. You may not know who sang Take on Me, or what they meant by it, but nonetheless you probably know every word if you ever stepped outside your clock radio-less house to buy a toothbrush. And speaking of broadcast media and stepping outside the house, if you had a Grandma and spent any time with her you may have seen MacGyver. No, don’t get excited. That allusion is a doubled edged sword. Use it with caution. A year ago it would have been strictly off limits, but now it allows you to understand a variety of Saturday Night Live references, which while not exactly edgy gives you enough material to bluff a subject change or laugh heartily without looking around like an ESL speaker trying to blend in. On the other hand, people might think you once watched MacGyver. You’ll have to trust me when I say that in some instances that may be worse than having them know you spoke in tongues.

If you are a fundamentally honest person you may have some difficulty discussing eighties fashion, a subject in which you were undoubtedly conversant, chiefly because the daily ordeal of chastely suiting up as a peculiar people spawned a variety of clothing related fantasies in which you may have: modeled for Seventeen Magazine (arousing the envy of everyone you went to school with), worn legwarmers, or possessed a jean jacket covered in buttons. You were always unsure about the buttons, but you could picture the forbidden jean jacket perfectly—the luciferian tie-dyed antithesis to the shining purity of your denim skirts. You argued long and hard for it’s innocence, but ultimately lost. It did not occur to you to acquire a jean jacket and keep it in your locker. In fact, just imagining such a thing still makes your palms clammy and your heart pound. Let’s forget about fashion. Say something safe about legwarmers and leave it at that. Don’t go near Flashdance, however tempting.

Remember, any time you’re talking to someone of your own age, you can safely bring the subject round to the cold war. Succeedingsocially.com says that having something you both want to talk about is the key to conversing. Nuclear bombs are that perfect something. Drop one and you’ll hardly have to do a thing, though you’ll have plenty to say on the topic if you choose. I know for a fact, even you cloistered innocents discussed how you’d climb underneath your desks in the event of nuclear war; and, if you knew about it in advance, refuse to do your math homework and defiantly eat the secret stash of Junior Mints in your mother’s sock drawer—retribution be damned! You don’t actually have to have seen The Day After. As long as you went to school with at least one person who did, you should be fine.

Finally, keep in mind that the glimpses of pop culture you got over the years may have created a distorted vision of the decade. For instance, that vivid recollection you have of a made for TV movie where Morgan Fairchild played the lip-glossy lover of a brown haired guy who was trying to kill his wife by making her believe she was crazy—it’s possible no one on earth besides you remembers this. The point is, don’t take unnecessary chances. If all else fails you can do what you did at the time—narrow your eyes and feel superior. It won’t fix the preschool thing, but you and your kid are better off without those Vainglorians anyhow.