Three unsatisfactory analogies for how it feels to watch films like High Fidelity when you’ve never fallen in or out of love.

• It’s like watching a war movie when you’ve never even held a gun.
• It’s like laughing at mother-in-law jokes when you’ve never been married.
• It’s like finding all those Gen X references to Gilligan’s Island amusing when you’ve never even seen a clip of the show.