Dude, I love this SO MUCH.

Because I have had only totally shitty interactions with Armenians. In Kosovo. During the war.

I'm still kinda invested in the world-view that the Armenians moved in on the Serbian homeland because they saw Serbia on the ropes after Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia successfully excised themselves from Yugoslavia.

In my experience, the Armenians I met were dirty, useless, and felt entitled to Serbian lands they had no historical right to. (And I am no supporter of Serbia... I think they are a special kind of messed up, too. But even the bully doesn't deserve to lose part of his house, just because he's a bully.)

SO.

You post this story about connection and the visceral, heart-felt passion you had simply seeing a roomful of "your" people....

... and my "dirty Armenian land-grabbers" internal dialog gets real quiet, and slinks into the back corner of my brain, and covers its head with a dirty blanket.

I dunno why I am saying this. Just kinda processing out loud, as I explore a weird wrinkle in my brain that doesn't make any sense to me. "Why do I think this of ALL Armenians? That's stupid. I need to work on that."