That sounds awfully dramatic for merely buying clothes. I’m having a hard time buying that anyone has all that going on at once for buying a pair of pants.
you’re kidding right?
Maybe you are a very common shape. I’m guessing you are male, and male shapes don’t seem to be as varied as female shapes. And male fashions are a lot more forgiving than female fashions.
I actually hate clothes shopping, and find it way more stressful than using a new BB interface. thorny_locust is pulling together all the common stress points for shopping, but I’ve absolutely spent a miserable couple of hours trying to find something that is suitable to wear to this event coming up, and fits, and isn’t too constrictive to let me walk normally (pencil skirts are designed for standing still) and has enough coverage that I can sit down without showing off my undies, and isn’t made of some fabric that feels unpleasant.
So… okay. what DO you find stressful? Because I assume you find some things stressful in life, and if you share that we might be able to help you relate to how others can find a new BB interface stressful.
I am straight out describing what it would be like for me trying to buy clothing to wear to the sort of event at which people care what you wear.
I can’t, of course, make you believe me.
IOW , you don’t understand that everyone isn’t you. You think that’s overly dramatic for buying a pair of pants. You just assumed that it was a pair of pants being shopped for, rather than a dress or a skirt.
Wait, what?? 
Look, I love my Dearly Beloved™. But…this is The Straight Dope.
I used to think I managed change pretty well. Turns out I don’t any more. And that’s bad for someone whose career evaporated when COVID-19 hit. At 58, training for a new gig is gonna be a harsh thing.
I wonder if the issue raised by the O.P. is related to math-stress. I don’t Math. I just don’t. I leave it to others because it makes me crazy. I failed Algebra I three times in Jr. High. It makes me get upset and I get a buzzing in my head when there’s serious math conversations going on. I’m quite serious. On that line, I wonder if people stress over learning to use a computer or a new bit of software ( AHEM, ALL OF US ) for similar reasons. The idea of new is hard. The idea of new INTANGIBLES is very, very hard.
I wonder if there’s some merit to the idea that some of us come up with ways to turn it into “not new” by just translating it into stuff we already know.
I mean, I just got a new dryer today and it reminded me of this thread. Its control layout is nothing like my old one, but in the final analysis it does all the same stuff the old one did. In my mind, using the new dryer is not a matter of learning anything NEW, just figuring out where the same old stuff is. No trepidation, no worries- just a recognition that I’m going to actually have to pay attention to what I’m doing for a while until I have it all straight versus the old dryer, which I could use in my sleep.
Dad’s 94, and he can’t use his email or phone anymore. He was fine into his early 90’s, but the cognitives have since gone into decline. It acts like a working memory problem. From observation, this decline happens to everyone, at varying ages. It starts slowly, but is prone to put on a burst of speed at some age.
But there are only about 2 things a dryer DOES, and a finite number of controls. You never find that need to tap on the corner of the drier and then rotate your hand slowly over a particular section of the top, for instance – no, there are well defined controls, all together in a panel, and the only other thing you need to be aware of is that there’s a filter somewhere that needs to be cleaned.
Whereas new software often comes with “hot spots” that don’t advertise themselves a such. (Why is a different question, and is probably because a lot of mediocre-to-poor designers are often involved.
This message board isn’t too bad, but my employer’s new HR system needs me to click something I can never find, because it doesn’t look even a little like a “button” to me. And there IS something that looks like the right button that takes me back about three pages. Royal pita to use.
That being said, I think whoever said that it’s like waking up and finding someone has removed the laces from your shoes hit the nail on the head. Sure, you can lace them. Even if you don’t remember exactly how they are supposed to be laced, you’ll get something serviceable. But if you just wanted to catch your train, it’s annoying to have this extra problem on needing to lace your shoes.
Any maybe you are a little clumsier than average, or the shoes need to be laced in a way you aren’t familiar with, and it’s actually a little stressful.
A lot of threads are like a dryer that’s starting to go.
You keep coming back but the laundry’s still not dry.
Dryers need an “End” button.
For that matter, the “End” button here should do what it promises.
Username/Post combo for the win there!
Speaking of dryers - I remember when, after years of only using my own, old dryer, I tried to run a load at my son’s house. His dryer had a start button. Who puts a start button on a dryer? Even if it’s labeled, if it’s half a dryer away from the dial, I’m just going to try to do different things with the dial to try to get it to work.
What? How do you start a dryer without pushing a Start button? Not sure I’ve ever seen one that didn’t have a start button. 
You set the dial. Then you close the door and the dryer goes. Or you close the door first and the dryer starts as you’re setting the dial.
There also wasn’t a sensor, so your choice was X minutes with heat or X minutes with only the blower.
Yeah, start buttons have been pretty common for a long time now. Last one I saw without a start button was the old Kenmore my parents got in like 1972. Even the one they got in 1985 had a start button.
Some older washing machines will be controlled by a large knob. You push it in, twist it one way or the other to select the temperature etc, then pull it back out to start the cycle. That always struck me as very strange.
On the other hand, the last of those that I saw was easily 20 years old, and it still works. Those shmancy new machines with their newfangled “start” buttons never last that long!
Back to the computer: I am truly hoping that when I’m in my 80s I’m more adaptable at learning to use newer tech. My husband, same age as I am (60) gets seriously irritated at stuff I brush off. His parents (early-to-mid-80s) get stymied by things that are obvious to us.
I think it’s a couple of things at play: My husband and I both basically “grew up” with computers. Not as children - but starting in college computers were an everyday part of our lives. While the interfaces have changed radically a number of times over the years - from punch cards and JCL, to very simple “type online then submit and get a printout an hour later” to “type online and get the results in a few minutes”, to the first GUI… to handhelds that have FAR more processing power than our first Apple computer, each of these represented far less of a paradigm shift than our parents had to learn. Hell, there’s a fellow near the in-laws who makes his living setting up and configuring computers for the elderly residents.
Basically I think the Baby Boomer generation was the last that did not learn computers by their early 20s - and as someone at the very tail end of that, I was one of the first generation that started using them routinely for work. It was 10 years or more after that before home computers became commonplace. So our parents’ generation has had to start using them at a much older age - and I truly believe that the older you are when you start something, the harder it is to pick up.
Plus, if it’s not something you need to use all the time, you forget what you learn. I’ve been working on learning a couple of new computer languages (Python, Java) and I do fine while in the middle of the training - but then it all goes away because I don’t use it everyday.
Re the switch to the new board format? Non-issue for me. I had to look around the other day to figure out how to report a post. Other than that, I don’t see the fuss.
Nit: These observations are subject to survivorship bias. You don’t see 20-year-old washers that crapped out after one year, but you do see modern washers like that.
I remember 20 years ago, and everyone seemed convinced then that appliances were not as good as ones made 20 years previous to then. I don’t remember 40 years ago, but I assume there was just as much longing for the “unfancy-but-reliable appliances from the 1960s”. 
(I also assume that 40000 years ago Og complained that his stone hand axes seemed to be made of inferior rock to the ones his parents had).
Me, too. The last washer I bought, about three years ago, was one towards the bottom of the washer hierarchy and it has two knobs for the various cycle/temperature choices and a start button. The stops are soft detents so they’re obviously just letting a processor know what you want, not part of a mechanical rotor switch assembly like in the days of yore. It doesn’t even have a water-level selector. It somehow knows how many clothes you’ve dumped into the tub – I’m guessing weight – and adjust the fill itself.
My biggest grumble is that it takes keeping people out of the working parts very seriously. Once you’ve punched the start button, you’ve got about a minute to toss in that forgotten sock. After that the lid’s locked for the rest of the wash cycle, not just the spins.
And speaking of start buttons on dryers, I don’t recall seeing any without one. One barracks I lived in had a couple commercial washers and dryers – without the coin slides – in the laundry room. Once I walked in with my laundry basket and a new guy was fussing around with one of the dryers. “How do you start this thing?”
“Check the lint screen.”
“No, no – I want to start it.”
“Check. The. Lint. Screen.”
He lifted the little lid on top and there was the start button, next to the pull handle for the screen.
Hah - we had a Maytag washer/dryer that we bought in 1989. A friend actually worked for a Maytag service company, and the machine needed a repair once, and he told us we should do our best to keep it going as long as possible as the newer ones simply did not last as long. When we sold the house in '02, the new owners didn’t want it, so we offered it to the friend - who happily snapped it up to give to a family member.
In our current house, the original washer and dryer were from 1996. We had to replace them both when they were less than 10 years old. We’ve replaced them both twice now - in 17 years of owning the house.
Sometimes it’s a matter of wear and tear - the flexible plastic over the start button will start to crack. That’s cosmetic. Most of the time it’s a circuitry issue and those are so expensive to repair that you might as well replace the machine.
Similar experiences with other appliances: we’ve had the built-in microwave replaced, and its replacement died after 5 years. We’re on our third new dishwasher. We even had to replace the wall oven.
The cooktop, though, is one of the old, impossible-to-find electrical cooktops with the ceramic coil. It’s lasting like a champ. OK, after 24 years one of the burners is finally going wonky and only works about half the time.
So yeah, 30 years ago we didn’t hear about appliances that died within a couple of years of being manufactured - but it wasn’t unusual to hear of a machine that lasted 10+ years. How many major appliances do you hear that make it much past 10 years these days?
Now get off my lawn!! ::::waves cane::::
Og was a solid dude, a real mensch, who never complained about anyone or anything.
Don’t get me started on Ok, though…
That sounds like the right timeline. I probably got mine around 1975. I don’t still have it, but it was working fine when I sold it and moved into an apartment.
Damn. I’ve never seen one hidden so well.