>>5745
>I always assumed some girls liked doing that.
Some do, but girichoco is at its heart about exactly that -
giri, duty, due courtesy. It developed as a way of avoiding the disharmony and strain that might occur when unpopular guys feel completely left out without giving them ideas that might develop awkwardly later, but it's also a legitimately nice way to acknowledge and make someone else happy. Like all social rituals, it has several layers and meanings as well as ways of engaging with it in more or less orthodox ways, see also the popular trope of not-actually-giri-girichoco.
>It seems the tradition is dying though.
I don't think that workplace girichoco has been around long enough to count as a super-proper tradition - what's a handful of decades? - and honestly it can become a hazardous hassle given power differentials, creeps, and other such factors present in the world outside romance manga. Then there's the headache inflicted upon the men who then have to return something appropriate (but more expensive) for White Day. This is why, for example, giving out lots of girichoco even to men outside of those you work with directly on a regular basis can be seen as fishing for White Day gifts or insincerely currying favor instead of trying to genuinely celebrate a appreciation for a relationship of mutual duty. In quite a few workplaces, women band together to buy and give out their girichoco on a departmental or sectional basis to avoid all this headache (likewise their male colleagues' replies on White Day).
>or women would be okay with it if it weren't for the social norms
Speaking of duties and obligations, Anon, yours is to post a picture of your penis or leave immediately.