If you suppose that he is distasteful to me, you are wrong. Wherever I've been able to look behind the mask I've found a human being, responsive to sympathetic interest. For you the point is the nearer you come to conforming to the type the better your chances of enjoying the bars and of meeting peopleprobably.

Here are a few 'dos' and 'don'ts' that might be helpful. Don't go to bars when you are tired, as a general rule, although it depends on how you are tired. When you do go, give yourself time to become somewhat attuned to the tangible and intangible things, which, taken together, make up the mood and spirit of the place unless your reason for going is to be scornful. On the other hand, if you happen to look into an unfamiliar and impossible bar, leave without buying a drink-you are not lacking discrimination. Drink enough alcohol to become 'high', not intoxicated, and try to keep yourself relaxed and easily controlled (controlled by yourself, that is). If there is any life in the place, you will sense the patterns underlying the movements and conversations; and if there is a cue for you, act your part with good will and whatever graces and talents you command. To enjoy the occasion you must 'act' a bit the serious-minded fail to understand this. Given a suitable opportunity you can be inventive and imaginative without being false.

Perhaps I should add what I think is wrong with gay bars and in so doing give you a clearer picture of what they are and aren't. In the first place the law and society scares away from the bars those people who might go in otherwise, which means that those who do go are not representative of the entire gay or half-gay population. And so the bars have acquired the reputation of being resorts of the young and brazen or of the very needy. Thus the people who would call themselves 'nicer', 'more intelligent', 'more mature, are discouraged from going to them on two counts: the tinge of disrepute and the disinclination to associate with those who do go. The question of why shouldn't there be nicer gay bars is a little question on the edge of a big one. The big question is why gay people shouldn't have the right to assemble decently in a public place without fearing for their reputations. The question is so fundamental I can only mention it here.

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What I've written above sounds as if I don't appreciate the bars as they are. I do. The bars serve more than one good purpose In a gay bar I was never robbed or assaulted; in them I've rarely seen fights or serious disturbances (of an outward nature)-never a police raid. Perhaps I could remember as many cold shoulders as warm hand shakes, if such remembrance were of value. . . I prefer to remember such things as, the soft snow falling on McDougal Street in the Village while we waited outside the Tavern for our turn to be admitted---or a Christmas party at the bar near Market Street, San Francisco or a fortunate encounter in San Antonio.

I feel I haven't given you much help with the problem of meeting people. I'm inclined to take the view that I once magnified the importance of the problem and I think that was because things were out of balance in my life. Î can hear you say that I would try to be wise and rational about the irrational. You might be right. However, I'll offer this advice, although I don't expect you to give it a second thought. I suggest that you give less thought to meeting people and more thought to doing something constructive or to being something that grows rather than fades.