u/Practical_Self_9849

I recently spoke with a friend who worked at an Indian restaurant in the U.S. He told me that, in his experience, the waiters did not receive the tips customers paid. He said they were paid a very low base wage instead.
I wanted to ask people here because I’ve heard similar things about Indian restaurants, but I don’t know how common it actually is.
If you have worked at an Indian restaurant in the U.S., do the waiters and other front-of-house workers receive the tips customers leave? Or are they paid a fixed wage or salary while the restaurant keeps the tips?
I’m asking because I think customers should know where their tips are going. If the money is intended to reward the people serving us, it seems fair that those workers should actually receive it.
I’m not saying every Indian restaurant does this. I’m trying to understand whether this is a common practice, and whether there are differences between restaurants.
If you’ve worked in an Indian restaurant in the U.S., I’d really appreciate hearing your experience. Also, if you know how the tip system works in these restaurants, please share.
Do you think customers should ask the waiter whether they receive the tips before deciding whether to tip?

More info : My in-laws have been staying with us for about two months. They normally live with my brother-in-law, and this is the first time they have stayed with us for this long.
Until now, I genuinely thought everything was going well. I was very open and comfortable with them. I would joke around, talk freely, spend time with them, and I never felt like there was any major issue between us. I also didn’t realize they had certain expectations from me that they had never communicated directly.
A couple of days ago, I overheard them talking about how I don’t make tea for them and that I should be doing that. I felt a little strange about it, but I decided to ignore it because I thought it was a small thing and didn’t want to make an issue out of it.
Today, something similar happened again, and this time it really hurt me.
I wasn’t feeling well, but I was still in the kitchen with my mother-in-law and finished the work I needed to do. After that, I went upstairs because I wanted to rest. I actually still had some work to finish on my laptop, so I was sitting on the stairs working before planning to lie down.
They didn’t know I was still nearby, and I overheard them talking about me again — saying things like I don’t clean, I don’t do enough, and mentioning other things they apparently feel I should be doing.
I felt terrible hearing it because, from my side, I honestly thought I was doing everything I reasonably could. If they wanted something different from me, I wish they had just told me directly. I would have been open to hearing it.
What hurt me most wasn’t even the tea or cleaning comments. It was realizing that while I thought we were living together happily and had a comfortable relationship, they apparently had a lot of unspoken complaints about me.
I think I just feel betrayed and embarrassed now, and I don’t know how to behave around them naturally after hearing all of this.

Edit: I just want to say thank you to all the women commenting here.
I don’t know any of you personally, but somehow it feels really comforting to have this small community of women warning me, sharing your own experiences, telling me where I might hurt myself by trying too hard, and helping me understand things I probably wouldn’t have understood on my own right now.
You are all strangers, but still you took the time to help me in whatever way you could, and that genuinely means a lot to me.
Sometimes we hear that women are other women’s worst enemies, but honestly, not this time. Today I felt supported by women I’ve never even met.
I was feeling really hurt and alone when I made this post, but after reading so many of your comments, I actually feel a little better. Maybe I’m not as alone in this as I thought.
Thank you, seriously. ❤️

I don’t really know how to explain this without sounding ungrateful, because my partner is genuinely a very good man. He is caring, helpful, responsible, and kind. I don’t have complaints about his character or the way he treats me in general.

But somehow, I still feel empty in this relationship.

The biggest thing I struggle with is that I don’t feel like he is genuinely interested in me—my thoughts, my day, the little things happening in my life, what I like, what I’m excited about, what I’m choosing, or what is going on in my head.

I have always wanted the kind of relationship where you naturally want to tell your partner everything. If something happens, they are the first person you want to tell. If you see something interesting, you think of them. You want to know what they did, what they thought, what they liked, what made them happy.

That is how I feel toward him. But I don’t feel the same curiosity or excitement coming from him.

He does try when I tell him what I need. He will make an effort to share things, ask things, or do things I expect from him. But sometimes that hurts even more because I can feel that he is doing it because he knows he should, not because it naturally comes from his heart.

And I don’t know how to be angry at him for that. You can ask someone to change a behavior, but can you ask someone to genuinely feel curious about you? Can you force someone to be excited to talk to you or share their life with you? I don’t think you can.

There’s another small example that probably sounds silly. He does prioritize my wishes, but even when something would make me really happy, his first instinct is still to think logically about everything, whether it makes sense, whether it is practical, what the alternatives are, etc. Sometimes I just want to feel, “She wants this and it will make her happy, so I want to do it for her.” I miss that spontaneous excitement.

It feels like somewhere along the way, the happiness and excitement in my own life disappeared too. I miss the version of myself who felt excited about things.

When I try to talk about this with other people, I sometimes feel like they don’t consider it a “real” problem because there are couples dealing with cheating, abuse, financial problems, terrible fights, and much worse situations. I know people have problems much bigger than mine.

But this is still my problem, and it is eating me alive.

We have so many things that people would consider important in a good relationship. There is kindness, stability, care, and respect. And yet there is this emptiness in my heart that never completely goes away.

Sometimes I just want to cry because I don’t know what the solution is. I don’t want to leave a good person searching for some imaginary perfect relationship, but I also don’t know if I can spend my whole life feeling emotionally lonely beside someone I love.

Has anyone been in a relationship like this? Can emotional curiosity and connection actually grow between two people, or is this simply a compatibility issue that I need to accept?

How do you know the difference between expecting too much from a good partner and recognizing that an important emotional need just isn’t being met?

Remember when we used to watch our favorite shows on TV and just accept that there would be ads in between?

Then streaming came along, and one of the biggest appeals was: pay a subscription, watch what you want, and no annoying commercial breaks.

And now here we are again.

I’m watching Prime, already paying for the subscription, and suddenly there are ads in between shows — sometimes around a minute and a half long.

So basically… we escaped traditional TV, paid for streaming services to avoid ads, and now streaming services are slowly becoming traditional TV again.

History really does repeat itself.