> You must live in a terrible place.

Dipends how you see it. For North American standards, it's a lovely suburban neighbourhood in the Midwest; for us it's suburban hell because we love cities.

> the expats are sending time together instead of trying to assimilate

What do you mean by "assimilate" ?

You are getting a lot of downvotes but I 100% agree with you. These are the types of conversations where someone's cultural background / bias is evident and its obvious to me most of your responders have never spent time outside the US.