“You look nice. What’s up?” I asked Mary. It’s a beautiful Saturday afternoon and Mary is sitting at a table with her colleagues, Manouk and Ani. Whereas they are dressed casually, Mary has arrived dressed for an evening out.
“I have a date tonight,” she responded with a sheepish grin. At 23, Mary is a self assured young woman in the first flush of adulthood. She is finished with school, her career is just starting and she has a whole life of experiences ahead of her.
Mary is apprehensive about her date because he is a little bit outside the norm of the type of men with who goes out. She is already frustrated by the whole process of dating because she feels that she doesn’t fit in the pigeonhole of a typical Armenian girl.
“But what’s a typical Armenian girl?” asks Mary. “What I get are statements like ‘You’re too much. You’re not the typical Armenian girl.’ And the best, ‘You know what you want and that scares me.’”
“Because it might not be you?” one of them quips and they all laugh.
“What kind of Armenian men are you going out with?” asks Manouk.
“I’ve dated them all,” she insists and begins to list them. “I dated a guy who’s gay and he didn’t know he was gay until after he dated me. I dated a guy who was so hayastantsi (Armenian from Armenia) I was like ‘oh my gosh what am I doing.’ I dated a gorgor Beirutsi fresh off the boat from Beirut. I’ve dated a barsgahye (an Armenian from Iran) guy who’s mom’s khoreshi (stew) is all he thinks about. Gosh, you name them I’ve dated them. I’ve lost count,” she says with a wave of her hand.
“Ok. Then which group is the one that’s in question?” Manouk goes on to ask, using his journalistic skills to draw out Mary’s story. Also, 23, Manouk too is recently finished with school and looking to establish himself as a journalist.
“All of them,” Mary responds emphatically.
“Obviously all of us being from different sectors of the Armenian tree, each one of them brings their own ideology to the situation. Everyone has closed doors; some of them have open doors. So if you’re having trouble with, for example, people saying ‘you’re too much’ or ‘I can’t handle you’ or whatever, that comes from the background. Not necessarily you.”
All three of them were born and raised in California. They are part of the new, up and coming generation of Armenians. Although all different in personality, they shared in the experience of being children of immigrant parents trying to find a balance between the culture of their birth and the culture of their parents adopted country. The most difficult aspect of this effort seems to be the area of dating and marriage. Unlike a generation or two before when there was little interaction, the new generation cannot avoid each other. In a city like Los Angeles, where Armenians from varying backgrounds now call home, the subtle culture clash of Armenian origins, in addition to the expected gender clash, plays out amongst this generation in unexpected ways.
“Obviously, although my parents are hayastantsi, my mdadzelagerbs mikich ourish a vontsvor (mentality is a bit different than) someone who’s been here ten or fifteen years,” he goes on to say.
“I’ve never delivered those standard phrases myself,” adds Manouk and laughs
“’I can’t handle this.’ That’s another one,” says Mary.
“Handle what?” he asks
“Exactly!” she says. “I don’t need to be handled by anyone. I’m not looking for someone to handle me,” exclaims Mary.
“So what have been some of your reasons for not going out with a girl?” I ask Manouk.
“I was super picky,” he responds. “It was a first date where I can’t wait to get out of the car type of thing. You don’t necessarily have to give a reason why you don’t want to further continue things.”
“So where are the nice decent girls hiding that these men can’t seem to find,” I ask of Mary and Ani.
“In the library at UCLA,” Mary responds immediately.
“By Kerckhoff (Hall). The Armenian hangout spot where the jerk-offs are waiting,” Manouk clarifies for me.
“Those guys don’t have the guts to approach the girls,” Mary comments. “The Armenian guys just sit and stare.”
“They wouldn’t because the girls are smart enough to go to UCLA and they don’t want a smart girl,” Ani adds suddenly. She has been silent throughout the discussion. At 27, she is older than the other two and much more reserved. She prefers to observe rather than impetuously jump into the fray.
“Absolutely,” confirms Manouk.
“I second that. It’s so much a pain in the ass to be in a relationship. Seriously I don’t picture myself getting married,” Manouk says. “I don’t,” he insists, trying to convince us or maybe himself. “I don’t want to get married – at this point ever – but I might be open to the idea once the other part of my brain says marriage is okay.”
The conversation is reminiscent of the one that took place for the recent column, “Where Are the Men.” There, the dialogue was amongst an older generation, immigrants themselves, whereas here the Manouk, Mary and Ani are considered part of the much more assimilated generation. But the issues facing both seem to universal.
I find it amazing that most of the articles I’ve read in this section have a tendency of portraying the situation between Hye men and women as that of the victimized sophisticated “female” that cannot hope to find someone “on her level” she can get along with and the seemingly lost blue collar hye guy that simply can’t cut it for the “women of this generation”
Let me first say that I am a 29 year old Armenian physician that grew up right here in SoCal and have bore witness to the dissociation taking place between the sexes in my generation amongst some Hye men and women. None of the reasons you’ve ever written about has anything to do with the problem. On the contrary, you’re own personal approach and mindset as an Armenian woman writing about these issues is in fact a testament to the actual root of the problem.
The issue at hand is twofold, both having to do with how the propagation or lack-there-of, of Armenian values has taken place from the immediate previous immigrant generation to the present generation of 15-29 year old age demographic. Namely, in most families, what I have encountered is a virulent tendency to pamper and prissy the girl in the house in absurdly unnecessary ways while the male sibling in the house is prematurely expected to grow to manhood and begin thinking about “life” and “making money”. All the while, the little princess of the household gets to continue on to college and post-graduate professional training without any cultural or financial obligations except for the one dimensional end goal of “becoming highly educated”. Her brother on the other hand is expected to run the family business at age 18, start a business of his own to contribute, or some other variant of these two eventualities.
By the time all is said and done, you have a female that has acquired an undergraduate degree and most of the time a professional (insert Lawyer, Dentist, Doctor, etc) or graduate degree while the male of the same household was expected to either A) start earning in his late teens or early 20s to contribute to the family (including the education of his female sibling) or B) was only allowed enough tolerance time-wise to finish a paltry “quick and dirty” undergraduate degree and then again “begin earning” to supplement the family income.
Given the huge disparity in expectations the two sexes experience in their own households, is it not a wonder then that you have these spoiled hye women in your articles claiming things like “I’ve dated them all,” without successfully having found a hye guy to her liking? The classic statements you hear from these women is “I want someone with goals and a good shoulder on their heads” (TRANSLATED: I want someone that went through as much post-high school education as me, a blue collar Hye is not good enough). Another audacious response is “I want someone that is open minded” , (TRANSLATED: I want to someone that will tolerate my long history of odar relationships and partners while I was receiving my “education” in college/graduate school).
The sad truth is that more and more Armenian women of this generation are being raised to shun their traditional roles within the Armenian family unit and nucleus in lieu of re-asserting themselves as “strong women” based on the degenerate post-modern norms of MTV and pop-culture not too mention 1970’s feministic extremes.
Armenian men have had a greater tendency to retain their cultural identity and expectations, as such, a cultural gap has occurred, that of the Armenian male and his cultural expectations/norms of a Armenian woman, and the post-modern Armenian female, that has been pampered into a state of progressive cultural degeneration. The evidence is staring the whole community in the face, more and more you see Armenian males unwilling to take Armenian wives amongst the population of Hye women here in the US due to a cultural gap which in theory should not even exist amongst opposing sexes within the same ethnic group. Instead, many Hye men either opt to meet someone abroad in Lebanon, Armenia, Iran, etc due to the greater retention of common cultural values and identity which those women have shown to possess.
Ironically enough, many of these “post-modern” women are a by-product of their own mother’s upbringing. It’s become trendy for an Armenian mother to tell her daughter things like “Hye dxamarteeg kezi ztaraee nman ge pahen, ezgoosh elir”, or “Hye dxamarteeg gorroz en, odar dxamarteeg shat batz mitkov ke metazten”. This type of shameless “motherly advice” has done nothing more than accelerate the centrifugal assimilation of the Armenian identity of the Diaspora. These Hye mothers in their anger toward their own failed marriages are committing a great disservice to our culture and identity in poisoning the minds of their daughters towards Hye men before they are even “out of the gate” so to speak. All this, in the name of personal female spite a woman may have against her husband due to inter-personal marriage related problems. In essence, a mother in an unhappy marriage passes on her spite towards her husband onto her daughter that has yet to even attempt to establish an Armenian family; what possible chance could that girl have of establishing a healthy relationship with an Armenian man based on the tradition and cultural values which keeps the Hye idenitity alive when the young Armenian male is demonized as “hetamenatz”, or “ankeert” ?
If an ANY woman magnanimously can assert that she has dated all varieties of men in her respective culture without being able to satiate her desire to find the “right person”; logic beckons to question whether SHE has something wrong with her within the context of her own culture and furthermore, it becomes obvious that the expectations she has developed for herself in who that right person is are grossly inappropriate both culturally as well as on an interpersonal basis.
I think it is high time all of those Hye women in their late 20s and early 30s still single should quickly learn to value Hye men a whole lot more rather than spend their time exaggerating the flaws of Hye men that have been ingrained in them by their shameless mothers. Moreover, these same women must also accept the fact that a 4000+ year old culture is not about to abandon its traditions and values in order to conform to standards of a faction of Diasporan Hye women that have been duped to believe that the pop-culture norms of their host countries somehow supersedes in quality when compared to those norms set forth by thousands of years of Armenian ethnic tradition and way of life.
Perhaps the most astounding revelation to come of all this is the simple fact of the Armenian Genocide. Hundreds of thousands of women marched desserts, tolerated rape, were humiliated, and eventually met their untimely death but still refused to simply establish a relationship with their odar persecutors to save their own lives. In essence, they never abandoned their culture, way of life, ethnic identity, and most importantly their men with the delusion of finding something “better” or even “safer”. Some even took arms against their persecutors in physical struggle alongside Armenian men and later on fulfilled their roles within their respective Armenian family structure with the utmost of pride, dignity, and resolve as Armenian mothers.
Yet today, all I read about is moans, groans, and whines from these “Armenian women” about how their so called expectations are not met. Please, enough is enough. It is these very blue collar Armenian men that work 10 hour shifts to put these spoiled brats through college not too mention the BMWs and Range Rovers they drive to and forth from UCLA, USC, or Boston University. We have supported, protected, and died for our culture and now those that live under the very protection and community that we have establish, declare that amongst all of us men, they cannot find ONE individual suitable to their expectations?
The author and all of these women need a reality check, one which many self-respecting Armenian men now a days have already declared; as the famous adage goes, “LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT”! Just remember, if you do decide to leave, don’t bring what you’ve left this culture for back into our communities, no odar can ever take the place of an Armenian man, regardless of how many Armenian words and sentences the odar may learn.
The post above was amazing. Finally someone said it.
Dear Mr. Pat,
I am so surprised by the long and elaborate post.
First and foremost, I come from a healthy Armenian family. My father never suppressed my mother, my mother never resented my father. In fact they have been happily married for over 30 years. The model that I have looked up to in terms of a relationship has been one filled with love, support, friendship, and nonjudgemental partnership. I am one of the few Armenian females that is actually able to sit down with her father or brothers and have a conversation that is beyond the scope of sports, what’s for lunch, or a curfew.
In regards to “Her brother on the other hand is expected to run the family business at age 18, start a business of his own to contribute, or some other variant of these two eventualities,” my brothers dropped out of college and DID NOT and WERE NOT expected to run any family business.
The Fendis, my rent, car I drive, and all my materialistic entities were and are provided by my own hard earned cash.
In terms of dating an odar, that was not addressed. It is a mere assumption on your part. As a young Armenian lady, what I want in a mate is someone I can have an intellectual conversation and one I can be ME with. There is no issue of a “past,” the issue or problem is why MOST Armenian men no mater what education, background, or demographic are intimated by a woman who knows who she is what she wants. We are not looking for the lawyer, doctor, or a man that will “treat us like the princesses our daddies brought us up to be.”
We are a product of our times and our conditions. So to reference back to the famous adage, LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT my dear.
Pats response is pure genius, a literary marvel for the ages. In Armenian dating economics the marketplace is irrational based on many factors. Almost every Armenian family became dysfunctional because of the genocide. Too bad there isn’t an Armenian dating website that comprehensively assesses the needs, wants and desires of the individual person. It would be nice to have more stable Armenian couples and create a higher percentage of couples that were not mixed. It’s bad enough that the most popular Armenian dating service is owned and run by turks. Since Sibel Edmonds spilled the beans as to what turkish organizations do in terms of espionage on others and undoubtably on the Armenian community, it would be amazing if the mentioned Armenian dating service did not maintain a data base of all chats and emails exchanged for future reference, a practice of any good intelligence service. Spin chilling to say the least.
I have been reading the past few articles in this series with interest. There are some questions that seem to elude both the writer and the readers who have submitted responses. Why should Armenians date Armenians? Why should Armenians marry Armenians? More specifically, what does it mean to each individual man or woman (since we are living in and are strongly impacted by a larger cultural context that values individuality above all) to date or marry an Armenian? The most obvious and immediate response might be, “To preserve and propagate the Armenian culture and language.” Fine and good. But what does preserving and propagating culture mean? Perhaps it means continuing to live according to very specific, hierarchical norms of relating between genders and among generations, even though the culture at large does not support these ways of relating. And, given that with the passing of generations, the Armenian language will inevitably no longer be used as a family’s “first language”, marrying an Armenian will not guarantee the preservation or propagation of the language, either. So now what? My sense is that many young Armenians are searching or holding out for an Armenian mate for the sake of somehow making their parents happy; to fulfill an obligation that has more to do with ideology than the reality of their lives, of who they are in the here and now.
Islamized crypto Armenians living in Sasoon, Varto, Hinis, Malatya, Kharpert and other regions of turkish occupied Greater and Lesser Armenia marry Armenians in astronomically higher percentages than in the diaspora. Based on the facts this should not be the case. They dont speak Armenian. They speak in most cases kurdish. They live and work with kurds and turks. You can’t tell apart them from a turk or a kurd. They have never been in a church. They dont know the lord’s prayer. They never read a book on Armenian history. They would not even know the meaning of the years 301 and 451. They have turkish first and last names. Yet, they are more Armenian than you or I. They know the sky above them is Armenian and the ground they walk on is Armenian and the mountains they view from the windows of their homes are Armenian. They know first hand, day in , day out, the inherent evil nature of their neighbors. It’s an imperative for them to marry an Armenian. It’s loathsome to marry outside the gene pool. And the best among them who are lucky enough to live in europe or the western hemisphere don’t even listen to turkish music. Enjoying turkish music is a clear sign of a disturbed Armenian psyche especially if one did not grow up in so called turkey.
Most Armenians in the diaspora whether educated or not are ignorant of the tenets of the Armenian Ethos and ignorant of our territorial imperative. This is where all the mental masterbation of why should an Armenian create an Armenian family life comes from. The bottom line on continuing to be Armenian in the diaspora is two prong, it’s what the turks don’t want and the future is an unknown variable. The Jews kept it together for 2,000 years as a diaspora. Next year Jerusalem was the saying for 2,000 years. That’s an imperative worth emulating. Who would deny the collapse of the Soviet Union was a crazy idea or think the equally crazy idea that an independent Armenia would come into existence in our lifetime?
it’s not about the here and now for those crypto Armenians or for true Armenians in the diaspora. It’s the about the past and the future. Nothing is impossible as long as one is true to the tenets of the Armenian Ethos.
Just to let Pat know…
Just because you may have these ideas on how armenian men are and what not still does not mean that they are the best. I didnt even bother to read the rest of your post because you are only looking at part of the story that you want to focus on. Most of us are exploring this big world and just want someone that is a bit more open minded to do it with. I have found my, as you put it ARMENIAN man, but that does not justify that he is the best at everything everyone has their flaws and we all bust our ass to make it. Its sad to know that girls in our culture as Mary put it cant even have a decent conversation with their fathers. THAT IS PATHETIC! BUT ITS TRUE! My sister and I are both outisde of our homes trying to make something of ourselves and we get the same crap everyday, that we are like you said odar because we are not home having children or cooking! The only things these girls are saying is that they want a guy who treats them right, who wonT judge them, and they want to find common ground between being armenian and living in the states. Most of us girls who are trying to make something of ourselves have worked hard for it and no one has handed anything to us on a silver platter, so whereever you are getting this info from is WRONG! I personally see the guys and just because they see smart, intelligent young ladies run the other way because one day they might talk back to them and say “no you are wrong”! If you ask a Armenian guy they will tell you that a girl should not be saying that! SAD JUST SAD! This culture needs a wake up call and just to realize that its ok that woman are being educated and have their own views on various topics. JUST TO LET YOU KNOW YOU ARE A SAD A BITTER PERSON! I dont know about other people but I was born in Armenia moved here when I was one and my parents are both big on preserving the Armenian culture but they also know that we are here and must adapt. That is why my sister moved out to a dorm, I came to med school in the caribbean and we both can have a decent convo with both parents about any subject. I am happy to be who I am and just because I have my own opinion and state that great armenian guys dont come around that often anymore does not make me any less of an armenian and more importantly does not make me less worthy of a guy who will treat me right and let me voice my opinion!
To Dino Ajemian: First of all, what is it that you actually mean when you write “Armenian Ethos”? You make it sound like the so-called “crypto-Armenians” are making personal choices to marry within their group.
In reality, marriage patterns and rules among traditional people have less to do with personal choice than with hierarchichal standards decided and enforced by the agnates of the particular group. Most people in places where traditional norms are upheld are probably not marrying outside of their particular gene pool, and more than likely, marriages are being arranged by the elders. There has been a lot written by people who study kinship and marriage patterns in the part of the world you are referring to. It may very well be that your crypto-Armenians are for the most part endogamous within their culture. But this becomes difficult when first-cousin marriage is not permitted. Eventually, somebody has got to marry out. Armenians, for the most part, tend to follow the dominant marriage patterns of where they live. For example, in some Middle Eastern countries, you will find Armenians marrying first cousins, because that’s considered acceptable in the larger culture. And Armenians in Western countries tend to marry for reasons of compatibility and emotional connection, as is the pattern in the larger Western culture.
Also, if you look at marriage patterns among Armenians you’ll probably find that it is considered far more taboo to give daughters for marriage to non-Armenians. There are far greater restraints on women in terms of who they eventually marry. So, in a sense, I guess we are talking about gender inequality, after all. It’s OK for men to date or marry “out” but not for women.
By the way, I am an Armenian married to an Armenian, and although our coming together made both of our families very happy, we met and married under very coincidental conditions, and would not dream of dictating who our children eventually choose to date or marry.
To Patricia Constantinian:
I am a descendant of crypto Armenians from Kharpert. “In reality”? “traditional people”? Are you kidding me? Your going “Margaret Mead” is quaint. The social anthropology is irrelevant. Ultimately, Armenian endogamy and maintaining Armenian culture outside Armenia is an absurdity WITHOUT the desire to live on our ancestral patrimony. If one is not active in Armenian cultural pursuits and does not have a desire for a life in the fatherland, whether in present day Armenia or ultimately in a liberated turkish occupied Armenia, then what does it matter if you marry Armenian or your children marry Armenian? It does not. You marrying an Armenian was happenstance and your lack of desire of who your children marry and thus also your orientation to Armenian culture is buffet style. Cafeteria Armenian. Pick and choose. This dearmenization process accelerates when one joins non traditional religions, Scientology, Roman Catholicism, Jehovah Witness’ etc. by the way.
Westernized Armenians, such as yourself, are part and parcel a cog of homogenized modernity. Globalization full steam ahead. The death nell of Greater Europa. Your world view is not Armenian. Your desires are not Armenian. In the course of Armenian Civilization and Armenian thought you are irrelevant. Your children of whom you don’t care whether they marry Armenian or not are irrelevant.
As for the Armenian Ethos this is the fundamental character of our culture which is derived from historical precedent before the destructive sociological processes of Ottomanism, globalization, Americanization and Russification. We must think as true Armenians, live as true Armenians, following one path, one desire to defeat our enemies and live happy lives in the Armenian Highlands. You Ms Constantinian, enjoy your life, enjoy your opinions making small talk about Armenian subjects. My point is there is a reason to maintain Armenian endogamy and Armenian culture in the diaspora: our return to our ancestral homes. For you, I believe, it is a matter of conversation like that of how many angels can fit on the head of a needle. Rest assured, the future of Armenia is not in your hands or your descendants and you and I should be warm and fuzzy about this one fact.
To Dino Ajemian:
It’s unfortunate that you find the social sciences to be irrelevant, and think that Armenians, or for that matter, any group of people, can function and advance their cause without participating in processes that are global. I would not want to live in your version of Armenia where, “We must think as true Armenians, live as true Armenians, following one path, one desire to defeat our enemies and live happy lives in the Armenian Highlands”, any more than I’d want to live in the Taliban version of Afghanistan. I’m just guessing here, but once having defeated the enemies and moving back to the ancestral lands, I imagine you might also find it necessary to ban all forms of contraception in order to increase the population of “true Armenians”, kind of like what the fundamentalist Christian “Quiverfull” movement is doing right here in the United States.
My sense is that your notion of the “return to ancestral homes” is in some ways a metaphor for psychological, emotional regression. Some people have so much difficulty living and participating in the here and now that they have to live in the past and create a future that is actually an interpreted, constructed version of the past. But, true and permanent going back, i.e., regression, is not possible without some form of accompanying psychosis.
The thing is, Dino, when one is so inflexible in one’s positions, when one is so two-dimensional in thinking, everything becomes black and white. And then you start getting ideas like the Bush-era “you’re with us or you’re against us”, or the Palin-esque “real vs. fake Americans”. It requires having a toddler-like tantrum anytime the outer world doesn’t appear to match the inner fantasy. This is the kind of thinking that, taken a few steps further, enables some people to believe the TV is sending special communications from God or extraterrestrials to them and only them, that street lamps are special spy antennae, that there are crypto Jews and crypto Armenians secretly navigating the streets, that flying airplanes into buildings will result in a room full of virgins as a celestial reward, etc…
Frankly, all of your posts have the flavor of hateful, suprematist rhetoric, and this rhetoric, complete with notions like “Greater Europa”, is irrelevant to the Armenian language, culture, and cause. The kind of Armenians and Armenia that you are envisioning are, in fact, irrelevant.
As for notions such as Armenian Ethos, Armenian character, and true Armenian-ness, I hope you come to realize that these are constructs that are about as solid and stable as any other man-made constructs. The harder your ideological grip around them, the quicker they crumble.
I would not dream of being so grandiose as to suggest that the future of Armenia is in my or my children’s hands. It’s not in your hands either, believe it or not. The future of Armenia (and of Lithuania, and Finland, and Zimbabwe, and Spain, and Uruguay, and Papua New Guinea…) is already here. It’s happening. It’s going to keep happening.
To Patricia Constantinian: I respond to you only because your ideas are the antithesis of Hye Tad. It is important to counter ideas that are inherently counter productive to our ( “ our” being the Armenian nation, this does not include you) sacred cause. Your rhetorical constructs are pure intellectual deception. You are deceiving yourself and others. You are an agent provocateur against Armenian national interests. You and your anti Armenian ideas need to be countered as much as those who deny the Armenian genocide. In fact your ideas are more dangerous than Armenian genocide denial.
I have an Armenian friend who had been going through a severe mid life crisis over a short period of time. Step by step she walked away from her culture. She pulled her children out of Armenian school, became an atheist, became a supporter of the protocols and fell in love with traditional Azeri music and made sure others on the internet knew about it. She joined the enemies of the Armenian people and she came up with every kind of reasoning in the book to deny her betrayal of self. She wanted every Armenian around her to drink her coolaid. People found her to be a zealous self loathing Armenian and she began losing her Armenian friends and gaining friendships with turks. It was very sad to see her mental unraveling. The brain candy did not work and she took her own life not too long ago. Why she unraveled is a question which I have no answer. It really does not matter. She became irrelevant to the Armenian people, Armenian culture and Hye Tad. She never espoused the heroic self which is part of the Armenian Ethos. True Armenians have in their hearts Hayk and David of Sasoon. True Armenians remember those who fought against being murdered like sheep at Musa Dagh, Shabin Karahisar, Hajin and Van. True Armenians remember our soldiers sacrifices at Sardarabad and in Artsakh. True Armenians fight tooth and nail to make sure Hye Tad is victorious. We will defeat and remove the barbarians from every square inch of our Hayots Ashkhar and we will make sure no one remembers the quislings among us.
P.S. Patricia, Patricia, Patricia, I got a chuckle out of your personal insults and the attempt to put a crazy spin to whatever I said. Afterall, insults are the last bastion of a weak mind.
Dino,
If your midlife crisis friend killed herself, it was probably because she had something very serious going on in there that had nothing to do with the Armenian nation and cause.
By the way, nothing you have written is in response to anything I wrote. You keep repeating yourself, saying the same things over and over, regardless of what the topic at hand happens to be. You seem to want to twist everything that everyone says to align with whatever your agenda is.
Anyhow, Dino. Good luck to you, man.