6 ms·

> Indians bringing Indian jokes to the table, with no outsider hoping to understand these. Indians bonding to go to Indian restaurants during lunch break, so no

> Indians bringing Indian jokes to the table, with no outsider hoping to understand these. Indians bonding to go to Indian restaurants during lunch break, so now most of the colleagues follow suit, how to stop it all? Are you seriously asking how to "fight back" on Indians going to restaurants and joking with each other? As an Indian in a flyover state who has been routinely excluded from golfing events, and had my dietary needs totally ignored while organizing things like steakhouse lunches, this is sort of darkly funny to read.

miningape 2y ago
Yeah, and I'd expect that treatment as a white person working/living in India, and I would adapt to fit in with local customs / culture or else leave. But they are in the US, working for a US company - why is it somehow acceptable when you are a foreigner to create these isolated professional enclaves that exclude the "native" population? (A group of people casually getting together is totally different to someone's work environment where they have to attend to bring a paycheck home - I'm talking exclusively about professional/work environments)
- quadrifoliate 2y ago
  > Yeah, and I'd expect that treatment as a white person working/living in India, and I would adapt to fit in with local customs / culture. But they are in the US, working for a US company - why is it somehow acceptable when you are a foreigner to create these isolated professional enclaves that exclude the "native" population? Non-Hispanic white Americans are not native to the US, and I don't see a reasonable basis for concluding that non-Hispanic white culture should be the "native" or "default" culture in the US. Sure, it might be the dominant culture — but there are other subcultures like Black or Hispanic cultures that are pretty strong here. Would you feel comfortable asking how to stop a group of Black coworkers from going to a restaurant that serves Black cuisine, or Hispanic coworkers from going to the local taqueria? If not, then why are you singling out Indians?
  - miningape 2y ago
    Hence the quotation marks: "native" - you're just derailing a legitimate line of reasoning. > I don't see a reasonable basis for concluding that European-American culture should be the "native" or "default" culture in the US Like it or not, it is the dominant culture especially in professional environments. If you want to have a conversation about why that is the case, what else it could be, etc. thats fine! But it's not the kind of conversation I'm looking to have here. > Would you feel comfortable asking how to stop a group of Black coworkers from going to a restaurant that serves Black cuisine, or Hispanic coworkers from going to the local taqueria? If they are doing it to the detriment of the overall business yes! - the line of reasoning follows for a predominantly Black business that is having a White enclave forming. Or a Hispanic cultured business with a Slavic enclave forming. Even more importantly a multicultural environment which is having 1 group overtake it. It's fundamentally a job of business leaders to set the tone and direction of company culture - and this is one aspect of it.
    - quadrifoliate 2y ago
      > Like it or not, it is the dominant culture especially in professional environments. At least sometimes it's not, which is why the OP feels so excluded and is asking for tips on how to navigate the clearly unfamiliar feeling of not being able to just "fit in" as part of the dominant culture. The reality is that the US is a melting pot with a lot of subcultures, and you should learn to navigate those subcultures instead of demanding that they conform to some mythical default. Maybe next time the OP should show some curiosity about what their coworkers are joking about, and shyly ask for a seat at the table. I have done it plenty of times.
      - miningape 2y ago
        > Maybe next time the OP should show some curiosity about what their coworkers are joking about, and shyly ask for a seat at the table. I have done it plenty of times. Yep 100% this is the only decent solution OP has barring leaving the company. It leads to really interesting conversations and you get to learn a lot about a huge portion of the planet's population. Some people go out of their way for these experiences. But it also shouldn't be forced on someone who just wants to collect a paycheck.
- robofanatic 2y ago
  Thats a typical western mentality. If you do it then it is a problem but if I do the same thing it is somehow justifiable!
  - miningape 2y ago
    > I would adapt to fit in with local customs / culture or else leave What? It's apparently white to want to fit in with the local culture now.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
mdorazio 2y ago
The parent post was clearly asking how to fight back against a culture of exclusionism against non-Indians, which leads to racism.
- thih9 2y ago
  And quadrifoliate (this comment's grandparent) showed that exclusionism against Indians similarly exists and is harmful. Very much on topic in my opinion.
- smcl 2y ago
  I would hope any sensible person would look at two comments by two people saying that they are being excluded by each others groups and think "the issue is people being excluded because they are not part of the 'in' group in their workplace, and people should work to be more inclusive" rather than concluding that the problem lies with Indian or non-Indian people specifically
Hnrobert42 2y ago
I am sorry for your experience. I also feel for GP. Neither of you should experience that. Your experience does not negate his. Nor his yours.
- j45 2y ago
  One is likely the majority, the other the minority. It doesn’t negate any behaviour based on bias but would require an honest reflection on the unconscious biases existing in the workplace prior to this.
  - worthless-trash 2y ago
    Aren't they both the minority in their respective situations ?
    - j45 2y ago
      One way to look at it is minority groups who can’t turn off being visible minorities can be different than people who may be minorities in a a few areas of life but still have access to benefit from privilege in others.
      - worthless-trash 2y ago
        I dont believe its good to narrow down minority status into something which is only visible, feels a bit ableist.
everdrive 2y ago
I'm not sure what your point is. "You can't talk about your problem because I have a problem as well" seems to be all you're saying. A better question would be how to prevent people from excluding each other based on group membership.
- quadrifoliate 2y ago
  > I'm not sure what your point is. That's a good question. I suppose my point is that this is not something you have "fight back" against. Lots of people get excluded from social groups in professional settings due to some silly link that their coworkers have with each other. Learning to overcome your lack of cultural commonality with coworkers and and breaking into social groups is something that all of us need to do at some point. In my case — I sucked it up, refused to learn golf but bonded with coworkers over board games; and ate the appetizers at the steakhouse. A tip for OP would be to try doing the equivalent thing in their context. Go up to your Indian coworkers and ask if you can accompany them to the restaurant. I promise you it will be fine.
  - ethbr1 2y ago
    > I promise you it will be fine. Just pass on the gulab jamun if you value your liver.
    - quadrifoliate 2y ago
      Pass on like 90% of the stuff that has fat and sugar. It is not representative of a household Indian meal, but rather of a rare feast. If you go more regularly, a somewhat healthy meal at an Indian restaurant is: - The tandoor chicken (not the one in gravy) - The veggie salads and/or yogurt raita - Whole wheat rotis if you can find them - Any of the vegetables that don't have a ton of cream (cauliflower is one that's reliably dry) I can't pretend that I don't indulge with anything beyond that; but I tend to not be a regular at the Indian restaurants here.
      - kyleee 2y ago
loufe 2y ago
I think that's an unfairly dismissive take and the "going to restaurants" bit is a mischaracterization at best. There massive difference is WHERE the discrimination is taking place. Most would not move to India or any other place and impose their culture and exclude locals in a fair and just world. I'm not saying it doesn't take place, and yes colonialism happened and was far worse, but we're talking about what SHOULD be.
- quadrifoliate 2y ago
  > Most would not move to India or any other place and impose their culture and exclude locals in a fair and just world. I'm trying to say that going to restaurants as a group of people and having in-jokes does not qualify as "imposing your culture" in any way. These things routinely happen at companies that have few to no Indians, they just take a different form. Also, are you really claiming that if you moved to Bangalore, and had 2-3 coworkers from your hometown that you knew and shared cultural ties with; that you wouldn't tend to hang out together at lunch?
  - ethbr1 2y ago
    The point is not the restaurant or jokes, but whether business decisions are made there (or if relationships built there drive business decisions).
    - quadrifoliate 2y ago
      Sure, but Americans have been doing this for hundreds of years through exclusionary hobbies like golf, fantasy football, and a hundred other things. That's just how social groups work. They are often cliquey and exclusionary. That's why I think it's weird to only target Indians in this regard. They are building an in-group just like everyone else; the difference is that OP seems to have little experience not being part of the in-group.
      - ethbr1 2y ago
        That's true and they have. But that doesn't make it okay for others to do. We should be working to decrease it in all exclusionary groups by working to make them more inclusionary. That means intentionally rotating comfort zones. And it is a historically seductive siren call that once an immigrant community in any country attains some power, they use it to ramp up exclusion and cronyism. In all fairness, to protect their tenuous grasp on that power from external racism, but it also succumbs to use for less noble, more human ends. E.g. getting ones friend hired.
the_gorilla 2y ago
[flagged]
- Cthulhu_ 2y ago
  What do you mean "allows them"? Whatever happened to the ideals of freedom and liberty and whatnot in the US?
  - the_gorilla 2y ago
    American States have their own culture and identity. The ideals of America was never being an economic zone to house the entire third world, who think the only utility of a state should be to fly over it.
    - sourcepluck 2y ago
      Are you aware that the US ranks below Romania, Belarus, Serbia, Cuba and Thailand on the UN's sustainable development report from 2024? It might be appropriate to update your picture of the place to reflect the reality. Your views here seem to be predicated on some notion of the US as a place the entire "third world" wants to move to - perhaps you should consider the fact that it's not really top of everyone's list anymore? With some notable exceptions where it may well be top of the list - the obvious example being some third-level institutions there who have prestige and networking opportunities which are hard to beat, if you can afford it.
      - miningape 2y ago
        > Are you aware that the US ranks below Romania, Belarus, Serbia, Cuba and Thailand on the UN's sustainable development report from 2024? Are you aware of how shit of a metric that is? It's literally the %age of GDP spent on sustainable energy, so the US could still be spending more than all those countries combined and still have a lower %age. Let's also not forget who gives out the loans for sustainable development, and who sets up the economic incentives. This is also the equivalent of saying "You're much less likely to get robbed in Africa, they have a faster declining crime rate than Europe." As a baseline Europe is safer and it's therefore harder to decrease the crime rate further[0]. Going from 100 murders a day to 89 is not better than going from 10 to 9. [0] I made up this example - no clue if it's true
xienze 2y ago
> Are you seriously asking how to "fight back" on Indians going to restaurants and joking with each other? Yes? Or is it just a problem when white people choose to associate with one another at work?
- quadrifoliate 2y ago
  I am saying that neither is a problem. We all have to break into social groups at work and even before that (ever watch "Mean Girls"?). This is not a problem specific to any group of people; and OP's fixation is unnecessary in my opinion.
gosub100 2y ago
you chose to move to another country. thats the difference
39896880 2y ago
You seem to be fixating on the term "fight back," when the commenter you're replying to is asking for ways to not feel excluded at his/her job, where s/he spends a majority of his/her waking hours. As someone who has experienced this, I encourage you to draw on that experience and have empathy, even if that experience is expressed in ways that don't immediately resonate with you. You have more in common with the commenter you're replying to than you appreciate.
- zozbot234 2y ago
  > [looking] for ways to not feel excluded at his/her job, where s/he spends a majority of his/her waking hours. And the people GP is talking about are trying to do the exact same thing, though obviously in highly detrimental ways. Part of professionalism entails not making your job into an identity that overwhelms every other aspect of your life. If you just focus on delivering good results to the best of your ability, there's no need to be dependent on constant social approval from 'insider' peers.
  - swasheck 2y ago
    this is fascinating to me because it’s how i have handled my career and it’s had unexpected positive and negative effects. all-in-all i’m more satisfied than my friend group with my day to day work existence but am steps behind them in the traditional career path milestones. though i lack the titles they have, i’m squarely median when it comes to annual base income, which is comfortable and provides very well for my family. however, i’m beginning to age and realize that potential employers are beginning to balk at my title/“informal” leadership (read “experience”) with my age and salary and duration in the workforce.
swasheck 2y ago
i’m sorry for your experience(s) and how frustrating that must be. what you’ve experienced isn’t “right” and while it’s valid that you bring it up as a general concern and experience, it comes across as though you’re justifying how OP experiences their own work environment. as someone who has essentially experienced the same treatment, but from the opposite side, this is an opportunity you had to validate and confirm the presence of such behavior while expanding the scope of its presence. now we’re hung up on restaurants and golf courses and choosing sides instead of discussing the core problem
AStonesThrow 2y ago
> this is sort of darkly funny to read. I'm hopeful that some light will be shed on how ridiculously dystopian it is to force D.I.E. mandates with posters like "United Colours of Benetton" as if "All Men/Women/Etc Are Created In Test Tubes Equivalent And Interchangeable" and we Voters of American Progressive Enlightenment must lobby to crush out every aspect of culture that suggests otherwise. https://youtu.be/vvDYuj1Bs6Y?si=sodV00r3eefBoZ79 https://youtu.be/vvDYuj1Bs6Y?si=sodV00r3eefBoZ79 Harrison Bergeron for ya So it goes. Namaste.
rldjbpin 2y ago
as a foreign/outsider working in a company, the expectation lies on the outsider to adapt to local/company culture. it is interesting to observe how people react to being in such a position when they are in a foreign work culture in their own soil. neither parties are completely at the right, but the fact that it is completely fine in one side but unacceptable for the other is so fascinating to me.

miningape 2y ago

Yeah, and I'd expect that treatment as a white person working/living in India, and I would adapt to fit in with local customs / culture or else leave. But they are in the US, working for a US company - why is it somehow acceptable when you are a foreigner to create these isolated professional enclaves that exclude the "native" population? (A group of people casually getting together is totally different to someone's work environment where they have to attend to bring a paycheck home - I'm talking exclusively about professional/work environments)

quadrifoliate 2y ago
> Yeah, and I'd expect that treatment as a white person working/living in India, and I would adapt to fit in with local customs / culture. But they are in the US, working for a US company - why is it somehow acceptable when you are a foreigner to create these isolated professional enclaves that exclude the "native" population? Non-Hispanic white Americans are not native to the US, and I don't see a reasonable basis for concluding that non-Hispanic white culture should be the "native" or "default" culture in the US. Sure, it might be the dominant culture — but there are other subcultures like Black or Hispanic cultures that are pretty strong here. Would you feel comfortable asking how to stop a group of Black coworkers from going to a restaurant that serves Black cuisine, or Hispanic coworkers from going to the local taqueria? If not, then why are you singling out Indians?
- miningape 2y ago
  Hence the quotation marks: "native" - you're just derailing a legitimate line of reasoning. > I don't see a reasonable basis for concluding that European-American culture should be the "native" or "default" culture in the US Like it or not, it is the dominant culture especially in professional environments. If you want to have a conversation about why that is the case, what else it could be, etc. thats fine! But it's not the kind of conversation I'm looking to have here. > Would you feel comfortable asking how to stop a group of Black coworkers from going to a restaurant that serves Black cuisine, or Hispanic coworkers from going to the local taqueria? If they are doing it to the detriment of the overall business yes! - the line of reasoning follows for a predominantly Black business that is having a White enclave forming. Or a Hispanic cultured business with a Slavic enclave forming. Even more importantly a multicultural environment which is having 1 group overtake it. It's fundamentally a job of business leaders to set the tone and direction of company culture - and this is one aspect of it.
  - quadrifoliate 2y ago
    > Like it or not, it is the dominant culture especially in professional environments. At least sometimes it's not, which is why the OP feels so excluded and is asking for tips on how to navigate the clearly unfamiliar feeling of not being able to just "fit in" as part of the dominant culture. The reality is that the US is a melting pot with a lot of subcultures, and you should learn to navigate those subcultures instead of demanding that they conform to some mythical default. Maybe next time the OP should show some curiosity about what their coworkers are joking about, and shyly ask for a seat at the table. I have done it plenty of times.
    - miningape 2y ago
      > Maybe next time the OP should show some curiosity about what their coworkers are joking about, and shyly ask for a seat at the table. I have done it plenty of times. Yep 100% this is the only decent solution OP has barring leaving the company. It leads to really interesting conversations and you get to learn a lot about a huge portion of the planet's population. Some people go out of their way for these experiences. But it also shouldn't be forced on someone who just wants to collect a paycheck.
robofanatic 2y ago
Thats a typical western mentality. If you do it then it is a problem but if I do the same thing it is somehow justifiable!
- miningape 2y ago
  > I would adapt to fit in with local customs / culture or else leave What? It's apparently white to want to fit in with the local culture now.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]

mdorazio 2y ago

The parent post was clearly asking how to fight back against a culture of exclusionism against non-Indians, which leads to racism.

thih9 2y ago
And quadrifoliate (this comment's grandparent) showed that exclusionism against Indians similarly exists and is harmful. Very much on topic in my opinion.
smcl 2y ago
I would hope any sensible person would look at two comments by two people saying that they are being excluded by each others groups and think "the issue is people being excluded because they are not part of the 'in' group in their workplace, and people should work to be more inclusive" rather than concluding that the problem lies with Indian or non-Indian people specifically

Hnrobert42 2y ago

I am sorry for your experience. I also feel for GP. Neither of you should experience that. Your experience does not negate his. Nor his yours.

j45 2y ago
One is likely the majority, the other the minority. It doesn’t negate any behaviour based on bias but would require an honest reflection on the unconscious biases existing in the workplace prior to this.
- worthless-trash 2y ago
  Aren't they both the minority in their respective situations ?
  - j45 2y ago
    One way to look at it is minority groups who can’t turn off being visible minorities can be different than people who may be minorities in a a few areas of life but still have access to benefit from privilege in others.
    - worthless-trash 2y ago
      I dont believe its good to narrow down minority status into something which is only visible, feels a bit ableist.

everdrive 2y ago

I'm not sure what your point is. "You can't talk about your problem because I have a problem as well" seems to be all you're saying. A better question would be how to prevent people from excluding each other based on group membership.

quadrifoliate 2y ago
> I'm not sure what your point is. That's a good question. I suppose my point is that this is not something you have "fight back" against. Lots of people get excluded from social groups in professional settings due to some silly link that their coworkers have with each other. Learning to overcome your lack of cultural commonality with coworkers and and breaking into social groups is something that all of us need to do at some point. In my case — I sucked it up, refused to learn golf but bonded with coworkers over board games; and ate the appetizers at the steakhouse. A tip for OP would be to try doing the equivalent thing in their context. Go up to your Indian coworkers and ask if you can accompany them to the restaurant. I promise you it will be fine.
- ethbr1 2y ago
  > I promise you it will be fine. Just pass on the gulab jamun if you value your liver.
  - quadrifoliate 2y ago
    Pass on like 90% of the stuff that has fat and sugar. It is not representative of a household Indian meal, but rather of a rare feast. If you go more regularly, a somewhat healthy meal at an Indian restaurant is: - The tandoor chicken (not the one in gravy) - The veggie salads and/or yogurt raita - Whole wheat rotis if you can find them - Any of the vegetables that don't have a ton of cream (cauliflower is one that's reliably dry) I can't pretend that I don't indulge with anything beyond that; but I tend to not be a regular at the Indian restaurants here.
    - kyleee 2y ago

loufe 2y ago

I think that's an unfairly dismissive take and the "going to restaurants" bit is a mischaracterization at best. There massive difference is WHERE the discrimination is taking place. Most would not move to India or any other place and impose their culture and exclude locals in a fair and just world. I'm not saying it doesn't take place, and yes colonialism happened and was far worse, but we're talking about what SHOULD be.

quadrifoliate 2y ago
> Most would not move to India or any other place and impose their culture and exclude locals in a fair and just world. I'm trying to say that going to restaurants as a group of people and having in-jokes does not qualify as "imposing your culture" in any way. These things routinely happen at companies that have few to no Indians, they just take a different form. Also, are you really claiming that if you moved to Bangalore, and had 2-3 coworkers from your hometown that you knew and shared cultural ties with; that you wouldn't tend to hang out together at lunch?
- ethbr1 2y ago
  The point is not the restaurant or jokes, but whether business decisions are made there (or if relationships built there drive business decisions).
  - quadrifoliate 2y ago
    Sure, but Americans have been doing this for hundreds of years through exclusionary hobbies like golf, fantasy football, and a hundred other things. That's just how social groups work. They are often cliquey and exclusionary. That's why I think it's weird to only target Indians in this regard. They are building an in-group just like everyone else; the difference is that OP seems to have little experience not being part of the in-group.
    - ethbr1 2y ago
      That's true and they have. But that doesn't make it okay for others to do. We should be working to decrease it in all exclusionary groups by working to make them more inclusionary. That means intentionally rotating comfort zones. And it is a historically seductive siren call that once an immigrant community in any country attains some power, they use it to ramp up exclusion and cronyism. In all fairness, to protect their tenuous grasp on that power from external racism, but it also succumbs to use for less noble, more human ends. E.g. getting ones friend hired.

the_gorilla 2y ago

[flagged]

Cthulhu_ 2y ago
What do you mean "allows them"? Whatever happened to the ideals of freedom and liberty and whatnot in the US?
- the_gorilla 2y ago
  American States have their own culture and identity. The ideals of America was never being an economic zone to house the entire third world, who think the only utility of a state should be to fly over it.
  - sourcepluck 2y ago
    Are you aware that the US ranks below Romania, Belarus, Serbia, Cuba and Thailand on the UN's sustainable development report from 2024? It might be appropriate to update your picture of the place to reflect the reality. Your views here seem to be predicated on some notion of the US as a place the entire "third world" wants to move to - perhaps you should consider the fact that it's not really top of everyone's list anymore? With some notable exceptions where it may well be top of the list - the obvious example being some third-level institutions there who have prestige and networking opportunities which are hard to beat, if you can afford it.
    - miningape 2y ago
      > Are you aware that the US ranks below Romania, Belarus, Serbia, Cuba and Thailand on the UN's sustainable development report from 2024? Are you aware of how shit of a metric that is? It's literally the %age of GDP spent on sustainable energy, so the US could still be spending more than all those countries combined and still have a lower %age. Let's also not forget who gives out the loans for sustainable development, and who sets up the economic incentives. This is also the equivalent of saying "You're much less likely to get robbed in Africa, they have a faster declining crime rate than Europe." As a baseline Europe is safer and it's therefore harder to decrease the crime rate further[0]. Going from 100 murders a day to 89 is not better than going from 10 to 9. [0] I made up this example - no clue if it's true

xienze 2y ago

> Are you seriously asking how to "fight back" on Indians going to restaurants and joking with each other? Yes? Or is it just a problem when white people choose to associate with one another at work?

quadrifoliate 2y ago
I am saying that neither is a problem. We all have to break into social groups at work and even before that (ever watch "Mean Girls"?). This is not a problem specific to any group of people; and OP's fixation is unnecessary in my opinion.

gosub100 2y ago

you chose to move to another country. thats the difference

39896880 2y ago

You seem to be fixating on the term "fight back," when the commenter you're replying to is asking for ways to not feel excluded at his/her job, where s/he spends a majority of his/her waking hours. As someone who has experienced this, I encourage you to draw on that experience and have empathy, even if that experience is expressed in ways that don't immediately resonate with you. You have more in common with the commenter you're replying to than you appreciate.

zozbot234 2y ago
> [looking] for ways to not feel excluded at his/her job, where s/he spends a majority of his/her waking hours. And the people GP is talking about are trying to do the exact same thing, though obviously in highly detrimental ways. Part of professionalism entails not making your job into an identity that overwhelms every other aspect of your life. If you just focus on delivering good results to the best of your ability, there's no need to be dependent on constant social approval from 'insider' peers.
- swasheck 2y ago
  this is fascinating to me because it’s how i have handled my career and it’s had unexpected positive and negative effects. all-in-all i’m more satisfied than my friend group with my day to day work existence but am steps behind them in the traditional career path milestones. though i lack the titles they have, i’m squarely median when it comes to annual base income, which is comfortable and provides very well for my family. however, i’m beginning to age and realize that potential employers are beginning to balk at my title/“informal” leadership (read “experience”) with my age and salary and duration in the workforce.

swasheck 2y ago

i’m sorry for your experience(s) and how frustrating that must be. what you’ve experienced isn’t “right” and while it’s valid that you bring it up as a general concern and experience, it comes across as though you’re justifying how OP experiences their own work environment. as someone who has essentially experienced the same treatment, but from the opposite side, this is an opportunity you had to validate and confirm the presence of such behavior while expanding the scope of its presence. now we’re hung up on restaurants and golf courses and choosing sides instead of discussing the core problem

AStonesThrow 2y ago

> this is sort of darkly funny to read. I'm hopeful that some light will be shed on how ridiculously dystopian it is to force D.I.E. mandates with posters like "United Colours of Benetton" as if "All Men/Women/Etc Are Created In Test Tubes Equivalent And Interchangeable" and we Voters of American Progressive Enlightenment must lobby to crush out every aspect of culture that suggests otherwise. https://youtu.be/vvDYuj1Bs6Y?si=sodV00r3eefBoZ79 https://youtu.be/vvDYuj1Bs6Y?si=sodV00r3eefBoZ79 Harrison Bergeron for ya So it goes. Namaste.

rldjbpin 2y ago

as a foreign/outsider working in a company, the expectation lies on the outsider to adapt to local/company culture. it is interesting to observe how people react to being in such a position when they are in a foreign work culture in their own soil. neither parties are completely at the right, but the fact that it is completely fine in one side but unacceptable for the other is so fascinating to me.