The issue you’re highlighting is due to the difference between metal and plastic. I have an Orca bottle that has a plastic lid that screws on without any rubber gasket and I end up with shreds of plastic in the bottle.

Plastic rubbing on metal leads to the plastic degrading and metal on metal does not make a good seal, so I think a rubber gasket is your only option.

I have no way to prove it obviously but nothing in that story was made up.

So wait, I’m not just a grumpy old man who doesn’t like a lot of noise, this is actually a disorder?

Honestly though it’s an interesting question and I wonder if this is just the “natural state.” I really started to feel it after I went RVing for a year. It’s a relatively recent (in the overall span of humanity) development that people would be in groups large enough to make this be an issue.

I was at a hibachi place in December and one of the managers was trying to light a candle. The lighter didn’t work and he made a joke that it “must be made in China. It’ll cost 25% more soon!” A guy at the table said “well you’ll just need to buy one made in Pennsylvania!”

I asked him if he knew of any companies that manufactured disposable lighters in Pennsylvania, and he just said “Trump will make it happen!”

The disconnect is crazy.