Eugene, I am currently in a nearly year-long pattern of not going to my neighborhood bar for three reasons:

1. My physical prowess has diminished markedly to the extent that I have been attracting predators. I feel fully confident in my ability to defend myself, but no longer with my hands, rather with a knife, which means—in our current Dindu-favorable society—that my life will become nothing but a zero-sum court case should I be attacked. Should I butcher my unarmed, knife-wielding, innocent attackers I will face criminal charges, online censorship, federal hate crime charges and civil charges. So for me, I see a successful self-defense as the end of my creative life and a hospice on social life support.

2. Predation has gone from common to guaranteed if you are a nocturnal pedestrian in Hamilton, my neighborhood, making the above more likely.

3. I’m done researching working class urban men. This process has netted me over 20 Harm City books, characters for ten non-selling science-fiction books featuring working class men and seven weird tales of urban life featuring black characters, which have sold a total of 12 copies. Why plumb this well any longer when my interest in history and ancient future type science-fiction is so strong?

That said, it is nice to relax in the company of an intelligent person among strangers and unfamiliar walls and speak of things near and far. There are five men who I have done this with in the past who have all recently asked me if I’d like to accompany them to a bar and I have declined or accepted based purely on their personality traits and how these might interact with the suggested venue. First my only reason for drinking at a bar instead of at my place would be to relax away from my work materials. So, my answer comes down to, is this going to be relaxing?

All of these men are effective combatants. Therefore these decisions as to where to socialize with these men are based only on the risk for attracting aggression that their personalities and appearances pose. I am offering the following examples of men who have recently offered to go out for a drink with me as an example of the process not a guide on, don’t go anywhere with this kind or that. None of these men are prone to drunkenness so alcohol tolerance is not part of this process.

Do not socialize in bad places with someone known for or prone to drunkenness, especially if you have to leave with them.

These men will be slotted as alpha-males [leaders], beta-males [followers] and omega-males [loners].

Man #1: [alpha] A Large, older, verbose man with no real pedestrian experience—a man who has always driven, who wants to walk to our local bar as a statement of racial solidarity that the hoodrats have not taken over his neighborhood, despite the fact that he chooses to drink at a bar out of town because the food is better. He has a history of unplanned confrontations with loud blacks. He is a strong believer in right and wrong no matter the consequences and, for instance, is the kind of guy who would try to stop a strange man from slapping his wife, or admonish a black mamma for punching her child. Also, the N-word is something he says regularly, so there is a chance it comes out when we get attacked, then after we slaughter these hoodrats one of them tells the State and we are KKK associates for life, up for hate crimes charges.

My answer to this fellow is to drink at home or go out of the area. He is a great roommate, with all the qualities you want in someone who you might have to join with to defend your home, but you don’t take this guy out into Indian Country on foot—he’s a fight waiting to happen. Next to him—especially knowing that since he is older and bigger than me and is an alpha male, he would not heed my warnings—I’d be at Def-Con 4 the entire time and have no pleasure at all.

Suburban/rural: yes

Urban: no

Man #2: [alpha] A man I coached for who is a pillar of the community, is well-connected with lawyers, doctors and cops. He’s verbose as well, but gets cagey as soon as something seems off. An alpha-male, he actually hired me as an expert on urban situations, body language and avoidance to teach his students survival methods, so would defer to me in a shitty setting, where, in suburbia and beyond, I’m the clear second man.

Suburban/rural/urban: yes.

Man #3: [omega] A younger fighter of mine who has become very good at projecting menace and warding off the attention of hoodrats, but has, with his prowling, muscular gate and intense tattooed visage proven a police magnet and an occasional wolfing target for Dindus trying to build cohesion for a group fight. This man defers to my judgment, but is hotheaded and emotional and a high risk for confrontational aggression on the street, which, in terms of avoidance, puts him in that transitional phase I was in in my thirties, where he wards of predatory intentions easily with his menacing demeanor but attracts social aggressors like cops and groups of recreational attackers.

I enjoy spending suburban time with this man, but in an urban setting I cannot relax with him as he is keyed to explode at the first threat. Shoulder to shoulder in some End Time battle he’d be my go-to guy, but I will only go to urban locales with him when I am at my physical best—now well behind me—or in situations where the police are an ever present threat and I can count on his knowledge that cops are ever ready to take out their institutional animus on a tough white guy as a calming agent.

Suburban/rural: yes

Urban: no

Man #4: [omega] A younger black man with a high level of diplomacy skill and conversational talent in mixed race settings. He is very masculine but not aggressive and has often been the calming voice in heated situations among people his age. He is not comfortable in a flat-out ghetto environment, prefers upscale suburban venues, and defers to me in that setting.

Suburban: yes

Urban: depends on my fitness and level of acuity, as he would be looking to follow my lead.

Rural: depends on whether I know the area or not, as rural bars still have some attraction to young whites seeking recreational combat ego boosts and there would be no sense in putting this fellow in that situation.

Man #5: [omega] This young man is quiet and cagey, a black fellow who has lived and worked in the worst places, has managed to get out of the ghetto and into an upscale suburban life largely due to his ability to communicate and network effectively with whites. He is extremely reserved and understated because his dark skin has made him an object of aggression by lighter skinned blacks since childhood. His urban awareness skills are the closest to mine that I have noticed in a companion. Unfortunately, like Man #3, his physicality makes him a brawling risk and cop magnet, which he is aware of and adjusts for, rather than bristling at it.

Urban/suburban: yes

Rural: He’s just too damned black! We’d be asking for a fight, so outside the city we would look for chain outfits and steakhouses, not roadhouse bars, as both of us are highly risk averse outside the combat space.

Do note that I do not associate with betas as, since I am not an alpha or beta, there is no point in the relationship.