North Dakota swimming in oil

Well I'm sure no one in the national media would intentionally slant the coverage to make the energy industry look bad...

 

I'm not a drinker. I live and work right down the street from a place called The Pour House. Honest to God, it was eight months in before I realized it was a liquor store. As I rarely drive by at night, I never see cars there and just figured it was an abandoned barn-like building in the Walmart parking lot.

 

Some of the women I know who still live there say they won't go out after dark at night by themselves or even in groups of two, even to the store.

I'm sure it's not as bad as that mensjournal article made it sound, provided you have a real place to live away from the oil transients, but it's bad enough.

But damn if I don't miss covering North Dakota high school hockey

 

I live here and anyone afraid to go out at night is paranoid. There is crime here. The type of crime that didn't really exist before. However, the crime rate is still much lower than your typical city in a more populated area.

Should a woman go out to the bars by herself? No. The bars are 90 percent guys who will fight over the one girl. The bars can be dangerous because you have 200 guys who make $80,000+ who are all looking for the girl in a haystack. That said, they aren't that dangerous. There are bouncers everywhere and they are very active inside the bar. I know quite a bit about the bar scene because I dealt blackjack in them for 10 months.

Stay away from the bars when you are by yourself and the town is extremely safe compared to the typical crime rate and that's not to say the bars are ridiculously dangerous.

 

OK, so we have an overabundance of overaggressive guys ... and a bar scene that attracts women of lesser repute ... and gambling in those bars ... and lots and lots of money from something that comes out of the ground.

Deadwood lives!

 

It never left.

 

What about women who won't go jogging by themselves?

(I know, single data points don't prove trends. But it's enough that I'm glad I don't live there anymore).

 

[SIZE=medium]I went to the touristy version of Deadwood a few years ago. No one called me a fucking cocksucker, though. :'( [/SIZE]

 

You're a cocksucker.

 

Depends on the area. I wouldn't suggest it anywhere around Million Dollar Way but then again I've seen joggers around there many times. Basically, don't go past the bars. Running in the west side of town where there aren't any bars is perfectly safe.

Some people are over reacting to the teacher from Sidney. Yes, a female got kidnapped while jogging but that is the only case in seven years of the boom. She was also running along the highway outside of town if memory serves.

 

Plus the two guys who did it are nuts and didn't live here. They were passing through from Wyoming I believe and decided on a whim to kidnap her.

 

I think it's very easy to dismiss these women's fears when you are a (I'm sure very attractive) man who doesn't face the same issues.