In my previous blog post, I wrote that there were approximately thirty-five occupied apartments where my employer has leased an apartment for me and a co-worker to stay in while working in Watford City. In these thirty-five occupied apartments, there are approximately twenty single men, and two single women. By single, I mean not married and not dating anyone.

Of the twenty men who are single, about twelve of these men do not go to bars and restaurants in Watford City, not even on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. These men are experienced oil field workers, electricians, welders, and inspectors. They have already seen or been through it themselves, whether in Williston, Watford City, Dickinson, Vernal, or Laredo, the police target working class men to give them a DUI. They have also all experienced in these oil field towns, that there is a shortage of women, there are hardly any attractive women at the bars and the restaurants, the waitresses already have boyfriends, and there probably is going to be a fight if people are drinking, so it is a good idea not to go out in an oil field town.

Of the twenty single men who live in the apartments, about eight of them will attempt to go out to bars and restaurants in Watford City, and they will also drive far far away to go drinking and have a good time, like Minneapolis or Billings, Montana. The twelve men who don’t go out, about half of them just sit in their truck in the apartment parking lot. They have room mates, they work all day together, and they want to be by themselves and have some privacy, so they go out to their truck to talk on the phone, listen to CDs, watch DVDs, or write blog posts like me. These twelve men who don’t go out, they or their room mates go to the grocery store and buy beer and groceries, and they just stay around the apartments and eat and drink beer.

I want to point out that these twenty single men at these apartments are the survivors. About 80% of the oil field jobs have gone away since 2015, there are very few job openings right now. Everybody in Western North Dakota even says it, “All of the oil field companies have gotten rid of their bad workers, that is who got cut, the only workers that they kept were the best, most knowledgeable, most experienced workers.” And that is the truth. So it doesn’t surprise me at all, that most of these single guys don’t go out in Watford City, there is no point, there are no attractive single women, the police try as hard as they can to give the workers DUIs, and there is likely to be a fight in any bar. These remaining men are able to stay out of trouble, even if it means sitting in your truck in the parking lot at the apartments where you live for hours each day. This is why I sometimes write that living in North Dakota is like being in prison.

Now to the meeting and dating part. At the very end of the apartments, there lived a single woman who was about 28 years old. She was not very pretty. On a scale of 1 to 10, she was about a 5. She was a little strange, and not friendly. One evening, the interior light was on in her vehicle for about an hour. I went and knocked on her door and told her through her door that her car interior light was on, she didn’t open her door. Later she went to turn her light off, and it would not go off, I offered to try, and it took me several minutes to get it to turn off. She was not very thankful. In the morning I had recently jump started two other people’s cars because they had left something on overnight. One of those housewives always talks to me. But not this 28 year old single woman. I got the impression that she thought that she was a 9, on the 1 to 10 scale.

One Saturday when the weather was nice, I was sitting in my truck, a young single welder was sitting in his $50,000 truck, a couple of single oil field workers were working on something on the tailgate of their truck, and a group of about six single oil field workers were drinking beer at another truck. This was almost all of the single men who lived at the apartments who don’t go to bars in Watford City. The 28 year old strange woman had just come back from the gym and she was wearing yoga pants. The most round-about, indirect way, to get to her apartment, was beside and between the men who were out at their trucks drinking beer, but that is what she did. I was watching this and I thought, “Uh oh, this is not going to turn out well.” To my surprise, nobody said a word. Nobody said, “Hey, why don’t you have a beer with us.” Nobody said, “Hey, all right, look at that.” Remember, this is a bunch of working class guys drinking beer, and a single woman walks by wearing yoga pants.

All of these workers, including me, were living in company leased apartments. None of these workers wanted some woman to call the leasing office, and say, “These men were bothering me.” Then the leasing office would relay the complaint to the company, then some worker would get questioned, maybe lose his job, for rudely accosting some young lady who was merely trying to get to her apartment. That’s how it goes, so nobody talked to this woman, ever. This woman moved away about one month later.

About one month later, another single woman about 28 years old moved into the apartment below my apartment. My room mate commented, “She ain’t bad looking.” She is not bad looking, maybe a 6 to 6.5 on a scale of 1 to 10. She is quiet and not very friendly. I have spoken to her briefly, and she has replied back with no more than one or two quick sentences. Though she is not very pretty, she is clean, doesn’t smoke, and she exercises a lot. She is wary of me I believe. She believes that I would like to catch her, and from there I believe that she imagines all kinds of horrendous things.

I feel sorry for her. I believe that she exercises every day because she wants to look attractive. She puts some thought into what clothing she wears, she tries to have an attractive appearance. No one at the apartments pays any attention to her. I must point out, that many working class men have unattractive girlfriends and unattractive wives. This 28 year old woman, and the 28 year old woman before her, are not nearly as ugly as some of the girlfriends and wives that many tradespeople have. Why do the men in Watford City and the single men in these apartments leave these women alone entirely?

I thought that I should try to speak to this woman some more for both our sakes. I believe that she needs to have someone trying to talk to her and asking her out, so that she gets used to it, so that she can deal with getting asked out, so that she might eventually date someone. I don’t really feel like dealing with women, especially especially very attractive women that cost so much money and think that they can get away with anything. This woman might not be so much trouble, apparently she can survive on her own, she wouldn’t be dependent on me, maybe she wouldn’t do a bunch of stupid shit. Maybe she would be O.K. company.

The fact that she doesn’t like me, in no way discourages me. I have had several cats that ran from me, hid from me, clawed and bit me. I would chase them and catch them. After a while, they were easier and easier to catch. Eventually, they would come and sit with me on their own. Then, when I came home, they would meow and meow until I picked them up and cuddled them. You can’t do this with women because they have cell phones and they will call the police. You have to talk to them, let them get used to you, get them to agree to go somewhere with you. However, I have the suspicion that if I even try to talk to this woman more, she will complain to the leasing office, which will in turn complain to my employer, which will in turn complain to me, and I don’t want to hear about what a bad, sinister, perverted person I am for bothering this poor young lady. This, is dating in Watford City.

Okay, I just got done writing the last sentence above, I got up, I saw that my neighbor, this woman, her car lights were left on, I went and knocked on her door, and she answered the door in her underwear. She looks very good naked. So I did talk to her briefly, and I will talk to her more. But I probably will get in trouble.