One that always annoyed me is when it is around the holidays, when stores advertise gifts for men. They always assume a guy is into toilet humor, beer humor, assuming they’re a lumberjack who needs to survive out in the wilderness, are into bbq-ing all of the time so gotta have those available all year around for some reason.
Even when I used to have identified myself as a guy, I never once fit into any of those traits. Just because guys grow beards, doesn’t always mean they’re chopping wood somewhere and always wearing plaid.
Well, sunk cost fallacy is extremely common.
But also people don’t have perfect knowledge. And people change, and change at different rates.
Imagine a couple that meets when they’re both pretty immature in their 20s. They have fun and fall in love. Then they buy a home together, and the woman slowly realizes she’s matured into an adult role while the husband is still basically the 20 year old bro. Would you casually suggest burning the whole thing down? Finding a new relationship in your mid 30s, especially if you want kids, when there’s no guarantee the new person will be any better, is daunting.
What if they’re not financially independent?
It’s easy to sit back and tell people how to behave in the abstract, but real situations aren’t always so obvious.