Here are the key thoughts Maria and I had while playing Dream Phone as adults:

— Why do all players have the same Secret Admirer? Doesn’t that kind of pit women against each other for the affection of the same man? Meanwhile, this guy has girls chasing him down left and right.

— Some women date other women.

— These guys aren’t hot, with the exception of Steve and Dan, who could honestly call me today if they wanted.

— What age are they, anyway? Carlos looks like he could be my dad, while Bruce looks like someone's smarmy 12-year-old little brother.

— It’s more fun if you help each other along the way. We were pretty much sharing secrets the entire time and correcting each other when we were wrong. “No, Phil explicitly said the Secret Admirer wasn’t wearing a hat.”

— We would 100% not date any of these guys. Can you imagine dating a guy who only listed things he doesn’t like, or places he doesn’t hang out? It’s like that guy on Tinder who makes his entire profile about things he isn’t looking for.

As a kid, I never thought twice about the actual plot of Dream Phone or any subtext it may have been teaching me. My parents never expressed concern, either. But replaying the game as an adult, I can see that it’s not exactly perfect and probably wouldn’t fly with many of today’s parents. No wonder it's been discontinued. Reevaluating it didn't erase the amazing memories I have from the ‘90s, but it was kind of jarring. We were unable to separate the criticisms of our adult minds — “It’s so heteronormative. Why is almost everyone white?” — from the simpler pleasure we took from it when we were just tweenage girls having fun.

And that was the hardest part. Playing Dream Phone in a conference room of my office building confirmed my greatest fear: We think we want ‘90s items to come back, but they ultimately disappoint upon their return. Despite how much fun Maria and I had calling fictional boys, we weren’t 12-year-olds in our pyjamas at a sleepover on a Friday night. We were grown-ups at a table wearing adult-sized clothing. It was 3 p.m. on a weekday. Nothing was the same.

Our Dream Phone wishes satisfied, we packed up the board, the notepad of clues, and its tiny face cards of teenage boys. And now I get why it lived in the archives, why we ought not to have disturbed its memory.