Can't Add A New Contact..a crummy workaround

I am working off Ventura 13.2.1 but this problem has existed forever...you try to add a new contact and, when you get to last name, it zaps it to "no recipient" at the bottom of contacts.

If you go into Mac mail, and have used the persons email, you type the email address so system recognizes it. Hit the drop down next to the email address and choose "add to contacts." The person may already be showing up in contacts by their email address with that address being their name. From there, hit edit...put the persons name in where it belongs, you can add a phone number (or anything else), and the email address should already be populated.

I still have synching with my iPhone issues. Updating/changing distribution lists is still impossible (I just create an on-going email, add/delete from that for the various groups I am in, and then cut-n-paste from that e-mail)

I switched to Apple 14 years ago (phone, iPad, MacBook, now a Mac) for the basic reason that everything would synch and work perfectly in one environment. Perhaps I need to create a g-mail contacts list. This seems like such a basic thing that Apple should be able to and make it a priority to fix