My nephew is getting married in a few weeks. They are minimalists and both have very good jobs so can buy anything they want. They also have parents with wealthy friends who can buy them $500 vacuums or anything else they put on their registry. My sister knows they have more money than I do and said no need for a gift but of course I want to give them something. They have a $15 shovel on the registry! (a little of everything) and I said I’m tempted to get that as when they are moving it from house to house 30 years from now, they say “Oh we’ve never used this but we can’t get rid of it because Auntie gave it to us.”
(I didn’t get that, got a salt cellar and a pepper mill, but someone will get them that shovel and they’ll be carting it around just like the 70 year old ironing board in my garage that my mother got for her wedding that has lived in 5 states and probably 15 houses).
I agree with you here. There’s too much that we’re supposed remember these days in order to make sure we’re not offending anyone or bringing up a trauma that we were not previously aware of. People make honest, non-malicious mistakes and are then dragged for saying or doing the wrong thing. It’s really caused me to retreat from engaging in random conversations with strangers in public situations and I really miss talking to strangers! I have no problems honoring people’s pronouns, eye contact/handshake/hug proclivities, etc. as long as they are made known to me. I’m not going to ask 10 “clearance” questions before I even engage with you.