Leave me and my bitterness be, mmkay?

First of all, if you’re an absolute Halloween Kween then this is the point where you should stop reading this article.

This is a cynicism only zone.

No ‘but pretending to be someone you’re not is so thrilling!’ type mantras are welcome here, this is just a hater spilling some tea.

My hatred for Halloween began when I was eight years old and my mother’s prized pumpkin lights electrocuted me.

Thus began a major grudge, and it’s only getting stronger as the years roll by.

Reason number 1 for Halloween Hatred is: you guessed it, the horror that is female costumes.

Sexy nurse, sexy policewoman, Harley Quinn and of course, the Spice Girls. That’s essentially the limit of female costume options.

“Women aren’t funny” is a phrase I’ve heard far too many times around Halloween whenever I complain about having no costume to wear if I don’t want to obsess over looking as attractive as possible and then get slut shamed for dressing as society geared us to dress.

It makes no sense. Women are all kinds of gas, we can wear what we want, so make better costumes for all shapes, sizes and ethnicities that don’t offend.

I mean, the Handmaid’s Tale costume? Really? C’mon.

Reason number 2: the nightmare of figuring out your plans

Unless you’re an adolescent worrying about which field to drink Druids in while hiding from your parents, planning for Halloween is an absolute logistical mess.

Literally everyone expects you to have plans, and those plans rarely live up to expectations.

Town is always crawling with people either desperate to get in to any club or else just on the hunt for drunk McDonalds.

Yet choosing which house party to go to can insult the wrong group of people, and then themed costume parties are a whole other layer of stress. Can’t cope.

Reason number 3: Pretending to understand someone’s costume.

It’s the pinnacle of anxiety for those of us with social awkwardness.

The glance up and down your outfit, the eyebrow crease whereby they’re scanning their brain in an effort to realise what you’re supposed to be dressed up as and then drawing a blank. “Nice costume,” they say, “what are you meant to be…?”

Reason number 4: Ridiculously written horror movies

Whatever happened to just staying in with a few friends and watching a movie that won’t make you terrified of being alone in the dark in your house clutching a hockey stick and frying pan for protection?

An especially stupid aspect of horror movies is that the women in them are portrayed as being damsels in distress, and constantly terrified of everything around them, when in real life women have to face these scary realities 24 hours a day.

We can handle a dark corridor, or a swing creaking in a playground, at the very least.

Reason number 5: Cultural appropriation

Dressing up as a cultural stereotype/blackface/terrorist (@Chris Brown you terrible human) can cause far more damage than people realise.

A certain date doesn’t mean you can take someone else’s culture and tokenise it, people.

Let’s not forget the time Hillary Duff and her boyfriend got in hot water for dressing up as a sexy pilgrim and Native American… dodgy stuff.

Reason number 6: It’s spenny af $$$

Splashing the cash on a costume that you will only wear once for roughly seven hours during the year genuinely breaks my heart. It also breaks my bank balance.

How do these costume shops get away with charging a vital organ for a costume that you can probably make at home if you’re creative enough? It’s borderline offensive hun.

Especially the fact that women’s costumes are literally just scraps of material that you freeze to death in later on…

Reason number 7: Decorations

Why is pumpkin carving the most difficult thing in the world?! Stop making me feel mediocre in the name of having some random vegetable rotting in front of our house with a few holes cut out of it. It’s weird and smells bad.

Also my severe arachnophobia applies even to fake spiders so those decorations need to die a slow death too.

Reason number 8: People being forced to stay indoors just for the sake of hooliganism

I’ve said it before and i’ll say it again. This ain’t the Purge.

Why are you scaring the poor elderly people when all they want is to watch the Late Late show in peace? Also quit scaring the poor doggos and kitties with the illegal fireworks, they just want a quiet night by the fire like the rest of us cranky old people.

Reason number 9: Social media

The pressure to have the best Insta-posts and showcase in all its filtered glory how great you looked just leads to comparisons and the dreaded FOMO.

Peer pressure for girls is already bad enough about their appearance without added stresses of costumes and body image. Especially during a holiday that pressurises girls to look as sexy as possible.

That’s my annual Halloween rant over, tune in next year for the lowdown on how many people dressed up as a couple version of Kanye West in his MAGA hat and Donald Trump.

*sighs*