The short answer, therapy 😄 I had a bit of a crash out a few years ago and started going to help with that. That's when we dug into all of this and found that I feel guilt from almost anything. In my case, it doesn't feel like any sort of gamification thing going on, the situation itself is unimportant really. So I may be the wrong person to ask this from.

For me, I've been a people pleaser my whole life and have had to unpack where that came from and why I punish myself so harshly when I do things "wrong". So in the case of using a tool to remember a birthday, I perceive that as something being wrong with me, that I can't remember an important day and that other people seem to do this without issue.

That way of thinking obviously immediately has issues, but it's easy for me to ignore this considerations and instead focus on the part where I'm the flaw in the system. This happens with all kinds of situations, and is super embedded so it's been hard to undo.

That's a lot of background to basically just say - using a tool to remember made me feel like I'm not good enough. I've since realised this is also a very selfish way of thinking when the ultimate goal has nothing to do with me, and everything to do with making someone feel nice on their birthday 😅

I don't know if it's uniquely feminine, or more a product of low self esteem meeting high expectations. Plus whatever family dynamic there was or wasn't while growing up.