I’ve never had a dishwasher, and since I’ve always lived at least technically alone, I’ve only very occasionally felt the lack. (I’ve never done major dinner party/holidays in my own home, but I have often done major cooking to take elsewhere, and sometimes “special projects” have generated an inordinate amount of dishwashing in a short period of time, when it would’ve been nice to be able to let a machine do that work while I was doing other things in the kitchen.
I think because they stay closed and so develop a funky/mildewy- smell that lingers even after you’ve run the cycle, I find slowly filling up a dishwasher of the course of days or a week a little grosser actually than what I sometimes do when I’m very busy - or being very lazy - which is scrape/rinse dishes of everything that will rinse off under a brief run of hot water, with or without benefit of a very quick swipe of a scrubbing pad - and let them sit neatly (ish) piled up in the sink until I either feel like washing them or need the dishes, or more likely the sink space… Pots and pans are a little less obliging, but I also rinse those out and if there’s no room in the sink, put them back on the stove stop to await washing, when I need either the pans or a free burner on the stove… I don’t enjoy washing dishes in a “therapeutic” or any other sense, but it is the household chore I find least onerous, and I don’t really mind standing over even a sinkful of them until they’re done.
