The Halloween Tales Part 1

Halloween. For most college students, it is the first real excuse to get fucked up with a solid group of friends (if you have been there for a more than a year.) If you are sadly, like me, a freshman, it is still the first real excuse to get fucked up, but instead, you are with friends that you have had for a much shorter amount of time. For many people who are not socially awkward, this isn't a problem, and the massive amount of house parties, raves, and random parties happening across the country, in every city in the US provide ample destinations to party to your hearts content, and rack up an impressive repertoire of drunken stories to wow your friends with the next morning.

However, as most of you know, I am not a normal college student. I have never been drunk, I have never been high. Hell, I have never even smoked, and the last time that I took a shot (1 single shot of JD) my head was spinning for hours. Add on to that my life long loathing of Halloween, you can see how this weekend posed some serious problems for me. Ever since I was young, I have steadfastly boycotted Halloween, turning all the lights off and locking the doors to deter trick or treaters, and finding some large paper to write on Halloween to deter friends. However, I have found that as I get older, this is a harder and harder tradition to enforce. Particularly so now that I am at college.

As you should all know, Halloween was on a Saturday night this year. For us college students, this means two nights of hardcore partying, possibly even three if you don't have class on Friday, or don't care about class on Friday. Friday night, I was supposed to go to a fencing party, hosted at a house that is a 20 minute walk from my dorm room. That night, I had gone downtown with a friend to go to a used bookstore and grocery shopping. When we were downtown, it started pissing down with rain while I, clad in all cotton, watched with despair from the book store. My friend had been texting me all afternoon trying to get me to come to the party, and after hours of me telling her I didn't want to go, I finally got her to stop texting me. I didn't realize until I went grocery shopping, and received a phone call, that the reason she had stopped texting me was because she had called someone else, Marc (one of the coaches on the fencing team) to persuade me to go. Even though I had promised myself I wouldn't go to the party, I agreed to go anyway. Why you might ask? I have no idea.

I don't know why Halloween stresses me out so much. There is no logical reason for it. It is some combination of thinking of a costume, being judged on the costume, and then hanging out with lots of people that I just can't handle. Don't ask me me why. Not to mention, someone only has to mention the word "party" to get me nervous and tense. that would be due to my extreme lack of social experiences with people my age. What do I do with my arms? My legs? How should I dance? Where should I look? What should I drink? What do I do with my drink? What if I am the only one not drinking alcohol? Will they judge me? Of course, these are all silly questions, and when I am in control of my emotions, I know this. However, at the time, I absolutely was not in control of my emotions.

After agreeing to go to the party, I hung up the phone, and immediately freaked out. Why did I agree to go? I HATE HALLOWEEN AND DON'T WANT TO GO TO ANY PARTY! After a 20 minute bitch fest with my friend while walking back up to campus, I calmed down enough to realize that I just needed to tell him that I didn't want to go, and it would be okay. Phew. Crisis averted. I texted Marc, said very politely that I didn't want to go, but have fun. At the time, I was exceedingly happy with my decision. On hindsight, there was no good reason for me not to go and if I had gone, I probably would have had a good time. Ah well. Freshman year is a learning experience. Instead, I went to my friends dorm, and spent the better part of the night watching movies, and just chilling out.