So no shit there I was short hairy balding(30)and recently divorced to someone I had been with since I was 20. For good measure I had quit my evil big city corporate job and was planning on finding a remote job and wandering aimlessly around. I was sad truly sad and lonely and scared but also excited and with nothing to lose I was more open then I'd ever been.

My best friend from college had been telling me to come to a medieval reenactment event called the War for the last 10 years. It's 2 weeks of living outdoors as a historical personae that you've created in tents with on average 10,000 other dorks. Every year I had told him no. Or made up some excuse because what? who has two weeks to do something like that.

But this time I went. And I met someone. It was my college best friends really good friend that had also been going to this festival since she was a kid. She was hot like a skinnier Cameron diaz with a raspy smoky voice. She was smart with a masters degree and a vast array of knowledge about history literature poetry and art. She was kind having recently burnt out of her job helping asylum seekers resettle. She was feral she could drink like a fish danced like a candleflame told stories like rodney dangerfield and sang badly but with such passion that it reminded me how important singing is for the soul. It's hard to explain but in this place where everyone is believing in things that are not real she was magic. Or just really feeling herself I dunno.

Early on in the festival I kissed her when it was just the two of us by the fire. The next day we went shopping and watching her browse the various items I saw her pick out a snake ring. I offered to buy it for her and she accepted. Her father had passed that year suddenly and there was a service for him at another campsite. She and her siblings went and so did everyone I was with. I didn't want to go I didn't think it was my place to be there but there I was watching her read a poem in memoriam. The poem was about flawed people finding love and trying their best. I didn't have a chance I fell hard.

Over the course of the next few weeks we got close. I told her my story she told me hers we howled at the moon and danced and laughed and loved and cried. It was surreal AF. I invited her to be my date to a different dear friends wedding. She said she'd think about it. We went to her families house showered hooked up one more time and I left back to my home in NY. I left for Greece a week later and she texted me accepting my invitation to be my date. I could not shut up about her to my friends. I swam out to caves and sang the songs she taught me to the sunset and the waves things were real bad dear reader. I picked her up and brought her and of course she was the most amazing wedding date, funny kind genuinely interested and the life of the party. I gave the best mans speech and we danced the night away.

We made love one last night before leaving eachother and my heart started to react from tasting her pheromones. I had never had this before my heart literally started to slow down and I started to get dizzy. I told her what was going on She looked at me smiled and said "classic mistake...never buy a witchy lady a snake ring." Ooooooh I had It bad.

I drove most of the way home before receiving a call from my newly married friend sobbing. His wife the morning after the ceremony had gone into the ER with spinal meningitis and the doctors were saying she might die. I drove 8 hours in the opposite direction and got a speeding ticket but I made it. I went to the E.R. where it was just him and his family and put my lucky charm around his wife's neck. I held him in my arms while he cried. The next morning things were less dark the bride made a recovery and I went home.

The witchy lady began being more distant and explained that while she liked me she wanted space to recover from her trauma. I got needy and wierd and I texted her more and more and finally she told me to leave her alone entirely. So I did. I went out again and dated and mostly wasted a lot of good women's time because deep down inside I was hoping for her to feel better and remember me and reach out again. I was a better version of myself creative kind and passionate. A lot of wonderful things happened to me that year.

My friend the groom on the other hand was divorced in 3 months. His wife recovered and for a variety of stupid reasons left him. I told him I have just the place to heal you. You're coming to this festival with me this year.

Regarding seeing the witchy woman again I figured my best plan was to just be myself and give her space. I had invited my dear friend and my little sister also recently divorced and I figured in between the two of them being cool loving funny awesome people they'd do a pretty good job of reminding her that i was amazing.

The third day in I found my dear friend and the witchy woman cuddling in his tent and I died a little inside. Over the next two weeks they proceeded to recreate the entire romance I had had the previous year in front of me despite my begging my good friend who I had held in my arms while he sobbed repeatedly not to. Like me he had been snared.

The words ring truer then ever in my head as my despair and shame and anger grow.

"Classic mistake, never buy a witchy lady a snake ring."