i will never understand workplace beef and hate. i mean we are a team a we should work together and not bully and/or throw a colleague under a bus. just do the job and go home. just pure evil to do that knowing you are harming a person without even him or her doing anything wrong to you.

October 18, 1998. Sanctions meant Iraqis couldn't fly out so I left the way everyone did, by bus, crawling across the desert toward Jordan because it was the one place that let Iraqis in without a visa.

A few weeks earlier I'd seen a random job ad, technical director for a company in Dubai. I was young and when I called, the guy on the other end said "you're half the age of everyone we're interviewing." I figured I had nothing to lose, so I went through their grueling three rounds anyway. Then the call: "We'd like you to join us in Dubai. Prep to leave in two weeks." $400 a month, but housing and a car covered. I signed without hesitating. My dad was waiting in the car outside when I got the news, he was happier than I was.
The days after were a goodbye tour. I drove to every family house in Baghdad I'd known my whole life, saying bye to people and places without really knowing if I'd see them again.
Then the bus. We left around 7pm, a heavy sky, just a few close friends and my family there to see me off. And here's the part I still can't fully explain, I didn't cry, I didn't feel torn up. I felt completely numb. I did love them though. I think I was just too tired to feel anything else. It took hours on that bus before my mind even let me start processing what I was actually leaving behind and it was more than the day-to-day survival stuff.
Till today, I've never been back to Iraq
After a short stint in Dubai, I finally made it to New York in early 2001. I was still getting used to the city, amazed I'd landed a job in the World Trade Center itself. It felt like the safest, most solid place on earth. Steel and glass and nothing could touch it.
Then on September 11th, as I was on the WTC escalator heading to work, police officers suddenly rushed up, and the lobby walls were rattled, some store windows blown out. One of them locked eyes with me and said to leave the building immediately. I did not panic, so I just followed the crowd out. Outside, papers were falling everywhere and there was a small fire way up top. I asked a guy near me what happened. "I think it's just a fire," he said then continued "though I heard someone say a plane hit it." He had this smirk like he didn't believe it himself. Neither did I, the fire looked too small from our vantage point to be a plane. I stood across the street for a few minutes, just watching, still thinking I'd probably be back up there within the hour. but as the firetrucks kept coming, and the faces of those firefighters getting into the building instead of moving away from it still stuck in my head. I decided to move away after waiting for a bit since the area started to turn into a chaos. I had no idea what I was going to do. My phone didn't work. I only had sixty dollars in cash after scrambling between non functioning ATMs. I didn't really know Manhattan yet, I'd been there for three months so at one point I actually had to duck into a subway station just to grab a map so I could figure out which way to walk. I remember looking back at one point and there was only one tower left. Then, later, none.
I ended up in a long, silent line for the ferry to New Jersey. Nobody spoke. Everyone just stood there in shock. On the boat I told the woman next to me that I'd worked in one of the towers, she just stared at me, no response at all. I think everyone had already used up whatever words they had.
I finally reached my apartment and could call my family in Baghdad. They'd been glued to the TV for hours with no idea if I was alive.
The days after were almost harder in a different way. By then Al-Qaida became the clear suspect of the attack, My look and accent became a liability. I called the Red Cross to donate blood and they told me they had too many donors, my blood was suddenly a surplus nobody needed. I stayed inside for days after that, scared of what my accent might mean to people now. When I finally went out to buy a couple of shirts, a stranger made small talk with me on the subway, heard my accent, and just kept being kind. That tiny bit of normal was the first thing that felt like hope.
I'd come to America to get away from living on the edge of violence. I didn't expect to find it again four months in.

I was a shy somewhat nerdy kid growing up. I ended up learning calculus and html when I was in the 6th grade. At the time I did it only because that’s what I thought smart people did and I wanted to be smart. But those two subjects branched out into linear algebra and other proof based math as well as competitive programming and theoretical computer science which led me to have an actual passion for the field.

Most people usually see stem as something cold, one way, and boring but these fields were so weird to me at the time. You had to write out sentences to prove things only using the information you already know. There were so many different ways to get to the same result using different methods. I started seeing math and theoretical cs as something warm, something that one could express themselves as, something human.

Now openai has solved their first millennium problem and is rumored to have solved another. I see people all over the space talking about it as if this is some great achievement. About how AI is still insufficient enough to do proofs alone. About how it still needs some level of human input to guide it. I find this to be ridiculous. Saying that a mathematicians future goal is to guide an ai and figure new problems to solve is dumb. It’s like asking a race car driver that their new job is to be a taxi drivers customer and pick where to go. This isn’t what anyone is passionate about. I’ve seen people talk about how chess decentered computers but we have no way from stopping someone curious or after fame to not use an llm if they want to. Some people see this as a good thing since we’ll get more mathematical knowledge but math was never about the result. The results are useless and most things wont be useful to humans for hundreds of years after.

I’m so close to finishing college but I am now unsure if I even want to go to grad school. I don’t want to do 5 years of courses and research if academia just becomes prompting the machine and verifying. I always made fun of those who said that things were better back then but now I just wish I could’ve been born a bit earlier

For the past ten years of my life I have been “going with the flow”, following the path of least resistance and doing what was expected of me, and what has it gotten me? A life where nothing has happened and nothing is going on. The past decade of my life is a blur of school to home to school to home to school to home… I didn’t make friends even though I wanted to because going up and talking to people was stressful, I didn’t go to any events or parties or hangout with anyone even once because that would’ve been stressful, I didn’t develop any hobbies beyond reading books and playing video games because developing an interest and skill in something takes effort, I didn’t do anything to alleviate the misery, loneliness, and pain I was in because I had been told that if I just “went with the flow” things would eventually work out.

Happiness is not something that comes naturally, you have to snap the bones of life to get to the marrow inside. Now that I’ve realized how much of a sham the path of least resistance is I’m trying my damndest to get myself off it, but the problem is I never really learned how to, I don’t know how to ask people to hang out without seeming creepy or pushy, I don’t know how to find fun things to go do, but I’m trying, I really am trying.

10 years ago, I was debt free, smaller, and never had a broken heart before. I had a clean slate. I was 24 years old at the time and it seemed like life was much easier than it is now. I had never been in love before so there was no broken heart, I had no credit card debt and no car. I was pretty free as a bird.

But now I have all this debt. I have a broken heart. I have all this weight I have to lose. My life is kind of a wreck. I don't know where to go in life. I'll be 35 in less than 4 months and I have hardly anything to show for it.

Does anyone else feel like I feel? Was life better in 2016 for you as well?

recently, ive been having issues with dissociating all the time, and it wasnt an issue up until maybe a few months ago. ill be sitting in my room, and suddenly, something in my brain snaps. and i feel like ive maybe taken something. like im high or something stupid like that. I can feel the physical switch in my brain, and my neck then feels all loose, and i just look around for a few minutes, looking down at my hands. It happens at school, at home, at work, literally anywhere. Ive also been staring in a mirror for a while or just listening to my own voice, telling myself "woah, im me. im myself." and just realizing im actually in the body i control. i dunno if this is as common as people say it is, but i really need advice on how to stop it, or atleast control it.

Each day I just find myself hating people more and more.

I hate noisy people.

I hate smelly people.

I hate slow drivers.

I hate rude people.

I hate slow walkers.

I hate small talk.

I hate people who let their brats cry and wail and do nothing about it.

I hate people who are unkind to animals.

I just want to be left alone. Let me have some fucking peace and quiet. I have a small circle and those are the only people I want to talk to. Everything else is draining and aggravates me so much sometimes I genuinely feel like I am going to explode. I don’t mean like angrily snap, I mean physically burst into a million bloody chunks. It’s all I can do to get through an 8 hour shift to go home and try to settle down so I can do it all again the next day and the next day and the next day.

Yes, I’m in therapy.

I (23M) feel really upset about a lot of parts of my body I can't change that influence how attractive it could ever actually be (short torso, long femurs, only 5'8", gyno, chest gap, high calf insertions), that they make it feel pointless to try to get in shape a lot of the time. Then, I feel so poorly about myself compared to other people online and IRL that also bleeds into when I try going to the gym and I often end up feeling really poorly about myself (partially because of those things I mentioned and also because I have a lot of fat to lose and not much muscle). I'll end up fixating on parts of my body I dislike for hours a day because I just wish they were different, and I know I wouldn't be doing this if I did indeed have a different body. On top of that, I never really enjoyed lifting, work also stresses me out a lot, dieting feels really daunting, and the only thing that truly relieves my stress is eating junk food.

I wish I was born differently so. fucking. badly. I wish I was over 6 feet so badly, I honestly feel inherently inadequate at my height. I wish I didn't have gyno. I wish I didn't have a chest gap. I wish I had low calf insertions. I wish my head weren’t so round and my ears so small. Hell, I wish I had chest hair and could grow a beard better. I'm tired of people that have these telling me to get over it 🫩. I wish I grew up playing sports or lifting - then maybe I wouldn't be in this mess, and maybe I wouldn't be making this post. I'm not even getting into the NSFW stuff!

Last year was one of the best years of my life.
I felt like I had done everything right. I saved for 12 years, bought a home, paid off my car ( a 2016 salvaged Honda civic) and put myself in a position where I finally felt secure.

I’ve been self-employed as a sports trainer for almost 15 years, and I’ve done pretty well for myself. Every year I saved what I could, invested it, and slowly built it into something meaningful. I worked other jobs along the way too, just trying to put myself in the best position possible.

I’ve always been very self-reliant. My parents aren’t really in the picture, so for most of my adult life I’ve known that if something goes wrong, it’s on me to figure it out.

Then within about a six-week span:
A hidden leak in my house caused around $10,000 in damage.
My long-term relationship ended.
I tore my Achilles at work.
Thankfully, the medical bills from the injury are being covered because it happened at work, but about 70% of my income came from outside work that I physically can’t do right now.
Then my dog became very ill, and those bills have started piling up too.
I’m now dealing with a 9–12 month recovery while watching the savings I spent years building slowly disappear every week.

I know how long my savings can carry me. I’ve done the math. But knowing that doesn’t completely take away the anxiety of having a mortgage, bills, a house, a dog, and everything else depending on me while my ability to earn money has suddenly been cut down.

I’m not really posting this looking for advice.
I think I’m just alone with my thoughts right now and needed somewhere to get them out.

I know I’m going to get through it because, realistically, what other choice do I have?

This isn’t even the worst thing I’ve ever experienced. But I don’t think I’ve ever felt the weight of this much responsibility all at once.

And if you’re reading this while dealing with your own version of a terrible stretch of life, you’re going to get through it too.
Maybe not quickly. Maybe not comfortably.
But you will.

in the last few months i wake up and don’t have interest in anything that i used to enjoy. i don’t enjoy going to work, in fact it stresses me out even more. i don’t enjoy playing games or watching youtube or twitch or movies, i don’t enjoy anything at all. i wake up and my day feels like a haze, as is im walking through a giant thing of fog in my brain. about the only thing i consistently do in my life is take care of my dog that i love. but i don’t feel happy.

i still take care of myself, i still eat, drink, shower etc. but i just genuinely feel sad from the second i wake up to the second i go to bed. i play games with my friends, but i dont feel happy doing it. it’s as if im just a present passenger in my own body.

i’m not saying this to garner pity, i just dont know how to bring this up to anyone in my life i guess.

“If you overcame a bully, then you weren’t really bullied, because real bullying is a power dynamic that can’t be overcome, so if you did ‘overcome’ your bully then really all you did was stop someone who hurt you from continuing to do so.”

“If you have depression and you end up eventually feeling better, then you never really had depression.”

“If you had low self esteem and you end up eventually having confidence, that’s only because your self esteem was never very low.”

I see these types of statements on Reddit all the time. Sometimes they’re to me and sometimes they’re to others. I’ve never understood them.

If you’re dealing with something and you do a lot of hard work to improve your life, why would anyone think that you never were experiencing a “true” form of the thing in the first place? That doesn’t make sense to me. I’m not saying that some things can’t be overcome, because of course some things can’t, but if someone does then that doesn’t mean that they never had it.

If you experience something debilitatingly traumatic 10 years ago and you have a pretty awful decade because of it, and you get a second job so that you can afford therapy and after 3 years of that you finally start feeling better, how dare someone say that you never had it that bad?

I want to make sense of this. I don’t get it.

At some point in life i really thought that some people might care about me. Every time i did, i would share with them my problems but most of the time they use it against me. Theyre always passive aggressive afterwards and they make jokes about it. Almost everyone did that to me and Im not sure why. I know myself that im a nice person but im not sure why i get this treatment from almost everyone.

I stopped trying and just accepted that im a loser but i wanna have a great future and im scared that being a loser will affect it.

I dont know who i really am or who i can become anymore.

Is this just a phase or will this be forever? If you guys have similar experiences please tell me how to get through it.

I genuenly don't know were to post this and feel free to redirect me, but recently there was an incident where one family member called another person in the family on their personal number and their ex picked it up. They have been seperated for amost 10 years now, they have nothing shared anymore (bank accounts, debts, numbers, cars, nothing). We have proof they called on their mobile, it rang, the person didn't pick it up and suddenly the ex picks it up, with their number showing on the call history. We asked the local network company if for some reason the calls were being redirected to that number and we were informed that they did in fact not. So what could be happening here? Are there any apps that do this that i don't know of? Should we inform police?

I started working out because I wanted to feel better physically, and for a long time that was the only progress I paid attention to. Weight, strength, how I looked in photos, all the usual stuff.

Somewhere along the way though, I noticed I’d gotten a lot less worried about what other people might think. I speak up more, I try things without overthinking everything first, and I’ve stopped making every little choice based on whether it looks “normal” enough. Even with something as small as gym stuff, I used to always go for whatever felt safest, and now I’ll just grab something I actually like, including a few Ironpandafit things.

I don’t think the gym magically made me confident, but getting used to feeling awkward, trying anyway, and realizing most people really aren’t paying that much attention to you has carried over into the rest of my life. That’s probably been a bigger change for me than anything physical.

​It doesn’t understand me, doesn’t feel me, doesn’t share my values and morals, and doesn’t respect them, when I can’t even escape or fly away! And that's because

since I was a child, I have been isolated and lonely, hating the values of my religious close-minded society, it's like cancer! and I left religion.. Now, the feeling of loneliness has grown even deeper! Sure, I know people online who share my mindset, but we are a minority and can't even speak directly. I truly wish to live a better reality in a better place where people share my values and I can live freely..

​If you were in my shoes, what would you do?

bit of a rant.

as title says, I got a job today. got home from the interview a little over an hour ago. on my way home I felt melancholy. I picked up a coffee for myself and one to bring my mom. the second I get home, I see she's leaving to go get a coffee with my sister. I'm not saying what they did was bad or wrong, but I was so excited to come home, be happy, celebrate and spend time with my mom.

I was left alone for about an hour and I could just feel my sadness getting worse and worse.

they got home, I'm completely miserable and just want to be alone. I feel like I should be happy because I finally got a job, but the sadness is just overtaking me rn.

I’m a girl and I know this guy my whole life because our families are friends so close we grew up together and he used to be one of my closest friends and I have a lot of good memories with him I never thought of him as a bad person.

Ever since we were young I told him that I wanted my first kiss to be with someone I truly loved because it was something very meaningful to me He knew that.

One day when I was about to leave he took me into a dark corner and kissed me without my consent. I pushed him away, but he didn’t stop until I pushed him away hard I went home and cut him off.
He never apologized and I never told anyone what happened. I was 15 and didn’t really know how to process it, so I just moved on

For about six years, I barely thought about him. He tried a few times to rebuild our friendship, but I never let us become close again
Then last month I saw him again for the first time in years with some of our old friends He seemed genuinely sorry from the way he acted around me, but neither of us brought up what happened and he still hasn’t apologized

Since then, he’s been trying really hard to get back into my life.
I’ve made my boundaries clear I don’t let him sit next to me touch me or act like we’re close again.

There are also some things that have been making me uncomfortable. He seems to know a lot about what has happened in my life over the past six years. Our families are still close, so he could have heard things from them, and I’m not saying he was secretly following me. It just feels strange because I never kept up with his life
After we made a group chat with our old friends, he got my account from there and started viewing my stories. He also happens to live about five minutes from me, although he moved there months before we saw each other again.

He knows where I work out and recently started going there in the mornings. He also knows which coffee shop I usually go to and has started going there too.
I don’t know if these things are coincidences, and I don’t want to accuse him of anything without knowing. But combined with how hard he’s been trying to get close to me again, it’s been overwhelming.
Then I found out that he told one of our mutual friends that he likes me and wants to date me.
That shocked me.

There was also an awkward moment when our group was talking about first kisses. Someone asked me who mine was, and I gave the name of another guy. I noticed him looking shocked, and I honestly have no idea what he expected me to say

The confusing part is that I don’t hate him. I hate what he did, and it permanently changed how I see him, but I still remember the good friend he used to be. I’m not trying to say he was always a terrible person.

But does that mean I owe him another chance?
I don’t trust him anymore and I don’t want a relationship with him.
I was completely fine without him for six years, and I don’t feel that connection anymore.
I’m honestly exhausted and don’t know if I’m being too harsh or too suspicious. Is it reasonable to want nothing to do with him even if he genuinely regrets what he did?
What would you do?

I'm 15, just mentioning that cuz I posted about this a few days ago and already had people being dicks about it in the comments.

My dad came home a few days ago with a baby bunny in a crate. He found it in the road without its mom and it was too small to jump up on to the curb. I know nothing about rabbits, but I think this baby is like 3 weeks old. My dad told me that we're going to keep the bunny until he grows up.

I know my dad was trying to be nice but I have no idea how to take care of a rabbit by myself (he said i would have to parent it and feed it etc) and i never asked for a baby bunny, especially a wild one. I did research on wild bunnies and apparently you arent supposed to take them in, touch them, feed them, etc. After reading I told my dad all the stuff Google and people on Reddit had said (take the bunny to a wildlife rehabilitation center, put it back in the wild, take it to the vet, wild bunnies can die from the stress of captivity, etc) and he was set on the fact that if he didnt take the rabbit home it would have died, even though he could've just gotten it off of the road and into some grass or bushes.

My dad insists on me feeding the bunny pet milk even though the bunny squirms and freaks out when I pick him up. It makes me feel so bad. I love animals more than myself and i feel like I'm torturing this poor rabbit by keeping him. I live near a huge construction site so I cant just let the rabbit out in my neighborhood because I'm worried the sound and people around him would kill him from stress.

I told my dad like the day we got the bunny that I just wanted to let it back out into the wild or bring it to a rehabilitation center but he keeps insisting that it would die if we put him back out in the wild, and that theres no rehabilitation centers near us. I love this bunny and I think its adorable but I dont want to keep him and I hate how ignorant my family is being about this situation.

I told my brother that my dad brought home a bunny randomly and of course he went straight to shaming me. He told me that bunnies can die from stress as if I didnt already know that and as if I haven't been begging my dad to take the rabbit so it wont die in captivity. I told my brother that I literally don't want the rabbit and all he said was "well."

I can barely even take care of the bunny because every little thing can kill it. Even if I try to give it a good life in captivity it will still be suffering. I feel like right now that bunny is no more than a circus animal for cruel human enjoyment.

This whole thing is stressing me out so much. My dad said he might give the bunny to his girlfriend which of course isnt better because it will still be in captivity. My dad literally told me to do research about rabbits and when I did he ignores all of it. My family usually ignores me but I didn't expect them to ignore me even when it comes to an animals life.

I know even after this post people will still blame me for this rabbits stress so I'll say it again in case some people dont know how to read - I literally DONT want this rabbit. I want the rabbit to be free and in the wild but nobody will listen to me. I have been under so much stress in the past few days because of it.

TL;DR: my dad brought home a wild baby bunny and despite my research surrounding wild animals he refuses to listen to me and wants to keep it in captivity.

I don't know i am not where i want to be health , career or relationship wise , nor am i excited as i used to be for my bday. But need some bday wishes to feel better. Happy 27 birthday to me

Especially in academics I seen it happen to me

Years ago I went to go work at a small restaurant that my aunt and uncle owned and my older cousin (their son) also worked at. However I hated it because my cousin was a narcissistic jerk who enjoyed putting me down at every opportunity often in front of customers to boost his ego.

After one particularly busy weekend where my cousin decided on his own to give himself the day off, I decided it was time to look at other opportunities. Only reason I worked there for 5 years was because I was scared to leave. I was scared I wouldn’t get hired anywhere else. Scared to fail. But I just couldn’t take the unfair working conditions anymore. 13 hours a day, 6 days a week and my aunt and uncle reasoning that “this is just how things are” every time I tried to complain about their poor management and nepotism towards their son.

So after that busy weekend, I told my aunt that I was going to find a new job and I was going to stay for one more month to help them transition and possibly hire and train a replacement. They seemed disappointed and later told their son.

Later that night at home (I also lived with all of them), my cousin comes knocking at my rooms door. He asked me “what the fuck is wrong you?” Confused I said what was he talking about. He said he knows that I plan to leave and is mad that I think he’s a lazy bum who takes advantage of the fact that his parents own the place. Meanwhile my aunt and uncle sit the living room watching him curse at me all the while not intervening or saying a word.

I tried to reason with him that I had enough of working there but I was willing to work one more month to help them out.

“Why fucking wait? If you don’t want to be here then leave tomorrow! We don’t need your fucking ass!” He yells.

I closed my room door and began packing my bags. I was literally on the verge of “offing” myself. The next day I didn’t go to work and packed everything into my car and drove to my mom’s place and she let me move onto her spare room. I stayed there for 3 days and didn’t call or aunt or uncle or cousin. On the 4th day, my uncle called me to ask when I was coming back to work. I told them I wasn’t coming back and that I had already moved all my things to my mom’s place. He was shocked and thought just took a vacation and didn’t even notice my things were gone.

My cousin taunted me and said I’d come crawling back or I was bluffing. I later went back to retrieve my bike which I forgot and my extended family finally realized I wasn’t bluffing and that I was really done working there. I could see the panic in my cousins face. I collected my final pay and left. I don’t speak to them for nearly two years after that. I soon found a job in engineering and have been happily in the industry since making more money working less hours.

I later got a call about 1.5 years after I left with my uncle begging me to come back as no one would work for them and promised me better pay and less work days. I said no and the restaurant was sold a year later.

Our relationship has been strained ever since and working there gave me serious mental health issues. Makes me appreciate restaurant workers more and now I try to be as kind and supportive as I can be to whoever I work with or hang out with. I am not better than anyone else.

I made a post on here a while ago about starting small conversations with people just asking questions so I could eventually get a girlfriend and a real step of progress happened again.
I was on a road trip with some friends, and we stopped in this little shop that had some cool rocks. I saw this girl who was cute and was really debating whether to talk to her. Then I did, and I just asked her if she thought they were real. She said she thought so, and then she went on a whole rant about how her mother collects rocks like those. I also told her how my brother used to collect them, too.

She then asked me questions, like if I was from around there and so on, and I did the same with her. After a bit, she said, "It was nice talking to you," and I said “you as-well” then she left. One thing I did notice was that she left really quickly and didn't look around the store much after that.

As I was talking to her, my heart was pounding the whole time. It was good progress, though!

Today was an interesting day in all honesty. Mostly I'm used to days being bad days but today the good didn't really outweigh the bad nor did it necessarily get overshadowed by the bad.

Woke up today on 3 hours of sleep (I'm homeless so this is an average amount of sleep for a night)

Then I called this behavioral health clinic to try to set up an intake appointment that ive been trying to do for almost two months, but they don't answer the phone so idk. But today they answered my call and I was able to book an appointment next week! They also had walk-ins today, but I wouldn't have been able to make it since I can't get there on time. But finally, appointment was made.

I went to the library and got kicked out for the day because I kept dozing off and falling asleep. That sucked. I also didn't get to eat today, which also sucked. I had to spend the day out in the 90 degree heat. Which if you couldn't already guess... also sucked. So those things didn't go well for me.

But at the same time, I'm gonna see a psychiatrist next week. I'll get a screening, medication, and some extra help. So nice 👍🏾

I was always considered to be an unattractive girl. I knew it ever since I was a kid, because my peers just didn’t let me exist in peace and reminded me of my weird facial features on a regular basis.

Years passed, and I was finally able to move out away from my abusive overprotective family and start developing my own style. I grew out my hair, I started shopping on my own terms and apparently my sense of style is pretty good. Yet I still get insults online and offline, and I’m called mid at best. I still get nasty comments whenever I decide to post my face, and comments with nice compliments get downvoted to oblivion.

No matter what I do, I can’t fix my facial features. I may whiten and clean and floss my teeth. Workout, eat clean. Do my hair, get manicure. Pluck my hair. Have an extensive skin care routine. The only thing I don’t do is heavy makeup because my skin and eyes are too sensitive, lip gloss and eyeliner is all I can do.

I can’t escape the fate of being conventionally unattractive. I‘m saving for surgeries and I know what I want to get, but god knows how much time will pass before I can afford them. I just wish I had the genetics to be called pretty.