Present-day retro crush

Recently, through the wonderful world of Netflix (and I say that with zero sarcasm whatsoever), I have been catching up on old tv shows and movies I missed when they were in standard circulation. Apparently, this activity is trending. One of those shows is "Freaks and Geeks", a comedy with some dramatic undertones that ran for all of 18 episodes between 1999 and 2000. Created by Paul Feig and produced by Judd Apatow, it's one of those shows (right up there with "Arrested Development") that received all kinds of critical acclaim but never really got the commercial success it needed to survive and was cancelled before its time. 

It takes place in Michigan during the early '80s and centers on the struggles of two disparate groups of high school students. I also took place in Michigan during the early '80s where I was a struggling, disparate high school student, so I feel like there's an organic connection between me and this show. I was talking about it recently with a friend of mine (the same one who wouldn't eat the pickles at Jimbo's)...

ME: The lead character is played by an actor named Linda Cardellini and I think I have a crush on her.
FRIEND: This is a high school girl?
ME: The character is. Or rather, was. The show has been off the air for over ten years now.
FRIEND: Yeah, but you have a crush on her from this show?
ME: Yeah.
FRIEND: Okay, first things first, this is the kind of thing you should only talk about with me or some other close friend or maybe a therapist. It's absolutely not the kind of thing you should be putting out for public consumption via the blog. That's a bad idea. Do you understand?
ME: Yep. Absolutely.
FRIEND: Secondly, I don't think you should watch that show any more.
ME: Why not?
FRIEND: Because it's creepy and inappropriate for you to have a crush on some girl in high school!
ME: I feel like you're missing the part about her being an actor, not a high school student.
FRIEND: An actor you developed a crush on as she was playing the role of a girl in high school.
ME: Yeah, but she's not in high school now! She wasn't even in high school back then. She was, like, 24 then and is 37 now. And she was playing a character that would have been my age at the time of the show. It would have been perfectly normal for me to have a crush on her then. Because Lindsay Weir, the name of the character, is exactly the kind of girl I would have had a crush on then. See?
FRIEND: I thought the show aired in 1999, not 1982.
ME: Yes, but it took place around 1982.
FRIEND: But it didn't exist in 1982.
ME: Which works in my favor!
FRIEND: How do you figure that?
ME: If I had watched the show in 1999 and developed this crush then, I would have been 35 and infatuated with an actor playing a high school girl while the show was still on the air. Now, that's creepy and inappropriate. But this way, with the show being cancelled long ago, it's completely harmless and actually, kind of charming!
FRIEND: No, it really isn't. However, I'm not concerned for Linda Cardellini's safety for one reason only; that being that you have so many of these "crushes" that you can't possibly act on any of them.
ME: Which is also charming.
FRIEND: Let me have one of those pickles.