*vigorous nodding* I mean, the other advantage to starting small is you can observe the other person's responses and it's fairly lowrisk if you mess up.

So, a person may end up with a potted plant they have to quietly dispose of, but at least their house hasn't been painted a livid shade of off-puce.

And a lot of it's just making a general effort to respond pleasantly when there's no [edit: immediate] reason not to, which is probably at least functionally equivalent to universally appreciated.

(BTW: Hi. It's been one Hell of a year and I vanished from the world at large without trace for much of it. I am sorry you are one of the people I flaked on, miss you, I am _absolutely_ the problem here.)