It is a well known fact that men, and on a slightly lesser level females, are constantly looking for that sure thing. This can clearly be seen in the amount of time and money spent in places such as bars with the hope that if enough drinks are bought for an individual that a person may get "lucky" that evening. In the long list of places that these individuals go to search for Miss Right Now, they tend to overlook a little golden nugget of a place, a place most single men don’t even consider. What is this golden nugget, you ask? This much overlooked place is the Renaissance Fair.
Now I know you are probably laughing right about now, but don’t. I am going to explain to you why the Renaissance Fairs are heaven on earth for single men.
First off, where else can a man walk around heavily armed and get away with it? In fact, not only do you get away with it, but it is highly encouraged. The more sharp objects you have on your person the better.
Now we come to the part I know you are looking forward to. The women. I want you to imagine cleavage as far as the eye can see. The wonderful thing about all this beautiful cleavage on display at the Renaissance Fair is that, unlike for most of society, not only it is perfectly acceptable to look, but it is highly encouraged. In fact, I know some wenches who have gotten upset at me for not noticing their cleavage. To them it was akin to a personal insult, as if theirs wasn’t good enough.
Some women at the Renaissance Fair go through great trouble to bring attention to their cleavage. There are flower vendors that sell roses to be placed in a woman’s cleavage. Some of the more savvy women, if asked nicely enough, will allow you to smell the roses. Some women wear daggers in their bosom or bodice goblets. Bodice goblets are small goblets specifically designed to fit in a women’s cleavage. On a few occasions I have witnessed a very lucky lad being allowed to drink from a lady’s bodice goblet while it was still tucked snugly in her ample bosom. Now this is a rare occurrence but still it does occur. Some wenches wear fruit tucked in their cleavage or perhaps a small stuffed animal. All the same, the reason is to draw attention to their breasts.
Now come on guys, really, where else are you going to find this?
Another Renaissance Fair tradition is the use of fox tails. I know this probably has you scratching your head but bear with me and it will all become clear. First let me give you a bit of history, and then I will explain the applications as it is used in the Renaissance Fair.In Elizabethan times women would wear the tails from foxes with the belief that their fleas would leave their bodies and congregate onto the foxes’s tails. Now since we don’t have this problem in modern days, thanks to better hygiene, the tails have come to mean something else entirely. The tails have come to represent one’s dating status. If a woman wears her tail in the center she is looking for a hook up.
The most telling use of the tail comes in the quantity of tails worn. In the case of multiple tails being worn, each tail signifies the number of lovers the woman has had. So a woman with three tails has had three lovers. This is a rather blatant show to advertise how easy the woman is for the guys that are interested in that type of woman.Another fun little tradition of the Renaissance Fair is the cloven fruit. As with the tails, the cloven fruit had its practical application during the Elizabethan times and has been modified into a romantic ice-breaker. The Elizabethan application was to help deal with the poor hygiene of the time. Since people didn’t bathe, they had a tendency to smell a bit ripe. So people of class who could afford to would take a citrus fruit and place a number of cloves into it. They would then carry this around and smell it to help combat the stench of unwashed persons.
Now this simple cloven fruit has progressed into the folklore and traditions of the Renaissance Fair. As the story now goes, if a man or woman has a cloven fruit (any fruit can be used but a lemon is still preferred) the individual will take this fruit and place upon it whole cloves, usually thirteen. It is said whole cloves are used because in the old days people didn’t brush their teeth so they would chew on cloves to freshen their breath.
To make things simple we are going to use a man as the example here. So now we get to the fun part. If this man is interested in a certain woman he will offer her his cloven fruit. If the woman rejects the cloven fruit it is a horrible insult. She may as well spit in his face, kick him in the balls and rape his horse. To say the least it is a bad thing. But if she accepts a clove from his cloven fruit then he gets to kiss her. The type of kiss depends on how she took the clove.
If she is not too interested in him as a romantic possibility, or is already spoken for, she can take it by the hand. The gentleman will then kiss her upon the hand. On most occasions he would do this in such a manner so as to let her know that she should have taken it in one of the other manners available. If the woman takes the clove and holds it with her teeth then the man retrieves it with his teeth and kisses her on the lips.
If the woman hides the clove then the man must retrieve it by tooth or tongue, much to the pleasure of both parties involved.
There is one case when the cloven fruit can be refused without it being an insult. That is the case when the cloven fruit has but one clove. If a cloven fruit with only one clove is accepted then the woman has agreed to have sex with the man. That is why the single cloven fruit is the only time it can be rejected without insult.
After-hours becomes a party for those active in the Renaissance Fairs. The various guilds tend to throw parties based on their guild activities. The pirate guilds will have a Pirates of the Caribbean movie night, the gypsies have drum circles and belly dancing, various guilds have campfires with storytelling and sing-along’s where whiskey and Guinness are passed freely.
Some guilds are organized simply so that their members can party and this is where you will find the hookah parties and Jell-O shots among other forms of drunken debauchery. It is within these last mentioned guilds where the saying, “You only sleep alone at the Renaissance Fair when you want to sleep alone,” is most permanently used.
In conclusion the Renaissance Fairs can hold surprising opportunities for single men and women along the dating spectrum.