It's hard to not like Halloween. On any other day dressing up in a random costume and showing up at a perfect stranger's door asking for candy would at a minimum result in a call to the police. Do that on October 31st however, and you get free candy. FREE CANDY! Are there two better words in the English language? Any that I can think of aren't appropriate for this blog.
Unfortunately for me, Halloween has lost much of its appeal as I've gotten older. Alas, now all that Halloween means for me is the anxiety associated with trying to find a clever costume. Since I can almost never think of something, I just avoid the holiday altogether. And even if I was to come up with a really great costume, I still wouldn't get free candy since (apparently) someone decided that men in their late 20s aren't entitled to free candy even if they say, "trick or treat."
As near as I can tell Halloween is really for three distinct groups of people: little kids (and their parents), gay men and girls in college (up to their mid-20s). The first group is pretty obvious, and I have no problem with them. I loved Halloween as a little kid. My friends who have little kids seem to have a great time doing Halloween related activities with them, so we'll lump them together. The next group of people who really enjoy Halloween are gay men, and I have nothing against them either. Frankly I'm jealous that as a group they've decided to embrace the holiday. I've been to Castro and Market a couple of times on Halloween and from my limited experience I think gay men also have the most clever costumes (and they probably spend the most on them). Once while watching MTV they referred to Halloween as the "High Holidays" for gay men, which I thought was pretty funny.
The last group of people who seem to really embrace the holiday are college-aged women (maybe a little older) for whom Halloween affords them the chance to dress very (how shall I say this?) promiscuously under the guise of a Halloween costume. There are a some tried and true costumes here that I'm sure you're all very familiar with: cat, devil, nurse, french maid, playboy bunny and (of course) prostitute. Oh, and one year it was cool to dress up like Britney Spears in the "Oops I did it Again" video. Basically anything that allows them the chance to bare as much skin as possible (as a side note, going to school in Michigan it was amusing to watch this behavior at a time that it's typically pretty cold outside). I don't necessarily have any issues with this group so much as it really has nothing to do with Halloween.
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