It would be cool of people could pretend there was. Instead of saying sorry and all that, just have a mutual agreement "that didn't happen".
"what didn't happen?" "what?" "exactly."
Not for anything evil or consciously malicious, but for the "I was just feeling that for a second" moments, or the "I thought it would be funny if I said that" times.
The other day this woman I know was talking about her boyfriend. He has just moved in. He isn't working but I guess he has money. Anyway, he is very social and she mentioned that when she comes home from work she has to go find him and he is usually at one of her neighbor's houses drinking with them. Not always the same neighbor. He already knows several of them and hangs out with them. I started to say "Oh, it's nice that you're still at the stage where you think that's cute", and I tried to stop saying it, but I was already talking and I couldn't think of something else convincing to change what I was saying. Her mouth dropped open and she says, "David!" and then my other friend said that I shouldn't have said that, and I explained that I tried to stop.