This post was originally a Twitter thread, but I delete my tweets after three months. So I’m preserving it here.

A while back, after feeling shamed by– of all things– an XKCD cartoon, I started adopting a posture of delight when someone tells me they haven’t seen/heard/read some bit of culture that I consider essential or universal.

Which is how it came to be that I recently spent a Sunday night on the couch, lights dimmed, drinking good wine and eating spaghetti with homemade sauce, watching The Godfather with a friend who was seeing it for the first time.

I’ve been watching this movie since I was a kid– it was a family favorite– and to this day if I flip past it on cable, it’s what I end up settling on. I’ve seen it so many times now that I literally forget which parts are supposed to be suspenseful. That’s why I love riding along when someone sees it for the first time- their reactions make it fresh for me, and I discover nuances and contours I had previously missed.

We both have young kids and clearly can’t watch it with them, so we had to start the movie pretty late, and it’s long, so the next day we were both pretty tired. But it was worth it! She loved it, I loved watching it with her, and we’re already plotting when to watch the next one.

So I truly believe that adopting the phrase “Oh! That means you still get to see it for the first time!” will enhance your life, and I recommend it to all.