Ghosts and goblins, creeps and crawlers, and problems can and usually arise during the Halloween season. Guest writer Serenity Fournier recounts a time when Halloween and peer pressure collided in very uncomfortable ways.
I’ll be the first to admit I’m not the biggest fan of Halloween. Not because of my “high and mighty” Christian upbringing, but because it always felt like too much work. Think about it – you dress up in a costume that might not be good for the October weather in an effort to get some candy (and I’m not talking about those weird stories of adults lacing candy with drugs and razor blades) from people you might only see once a year. I was and still am just happy to get some free candy from my parents without the tediousness.
By the time I was ten, I was done going out for Halloween candy. I wasn’t greedy. I didn’t need a whole bunch of candy my brother would eventually mooch off of because he was too old to go out dressed up as The Hulk to get candy. It would take another seven years before I’d head out for some Halloween fun. This time I wasn’t dressing up for free candy and held onto my parents’ hands looking like a princess or the Pink Power Ranger. Only a few months after my seventeenth birthday I hit the streets with two of my friends to party.
The plan was simple: Lisa, Brianna and I (yep, all of our names end with “a”) dress up and go to this house party a few other girls from my high school was throwing. You’d think parents would be a little more cautious about planning business trips around Halloween, but luckily for us some parents didn’t think twice about letting their children stay at home during a serious party holiday.
Being teenagers, you know we had to get one over our parents. Our parents’ approved costumes were pretty much black jumpsuits featuring various masks. My parents believed I was going as The Black Kat from the Spider-Man comic. For some reason both Lisa and Brianna dressed as Catwoman. But underneath our costumes were the real looks we were going for. Not far from my house, all three of us met up; giggling like only three girls who truly believed they were smarter than their parents would.
We weren’t far from the party site before we all stripped out of our jumpsuits to reveal our real costumes. I was Princess Jasmine, Lisa was Ariel from “The Little Mermaid” and Brianna did her best at being Pocahontas. Rather than wear gowns or look as close as the animated versions, we went for the skanky route by all wearing booty shorts. We felt like the best things walking into that house – all eyes would be on us.
But I didn’t care too much about all of that. My mind was on one guy – a linebacker on school’s football team named Joseph. He wasn’t the tallest boy, but had muscles for days. As Brianna and Lisa chatted up with anyone paying a little bit of attention to them and their costumes, Joseph had me cornered. The conversation was lacking to the say the least. I never accounted that most of his muscle power existed from the neck down. Even with Joseph’s inability to carry on a coherent conversation with me I just couldn’t get over how cute he was.
It didn’t take long before I realized his lack of intellect didn’t change the fact I wanted to kiss this guy, and that’s exactly what I did. This sloppy make out session was the highlight of my night because things quickly spiraled downhill.
Not far from me was Brianna talking up a storm with another football player who seemed to have had one too many before we even got there. This athlete’s drunken poetry somehow convinced Brianna to follow him upstairs. Lisa and I broke away from what we were doing to stop Brianna from doing whatever she had in mind, but she wanted some alone time with this guy (who wasn’t a bad person or anything, but the dude is so forgettable that I can’t even remember his name).
It didn’t take long before the two came back downstairs, somewhat disheveled and disappointed looking. Lisa and I put two and two together and decided it’d be best if we took Brianna home. Brianna had no problems leaving the house, but I found it somewhat difficult. Seemingly Joseph got an idea from his football buddy and decided he wanted to fulfill his childhood dream and be Aladdin to my Princess Jasmine. I’m not going to pretend I’m some kind of wholesome, goody-two-shoes, but I had no intentions of taking off any more clothes in that house; let alone lay up with some guy who I only had a crush on. As I tried to explain why I needed to go, Joseph insisted that I just go upstairs with him, “For a few minutes.”
I quickly realized Joseph didn’t understand that “No” means “no.” Being the person that I am, and having been raised to not take disrespect, I made him understand what my “no” meant by kneeing him in the junk. I still remember the loud groan coming from Joseph when he dropped, bringing all eyes on me. I guess I got my wish of being the center of this party’s attention.
We all were able to get back in our houses without our parents seeing our costumes (we were too busy trying to get out of a potential situation to change back into our jumpsuits). A couple of days later we were all back at school. The talk of me abusing Joseph was on the minds and lips of our schoolmates more than Brianna’s escapades. Brianna continuously thanked me throughout the day because my attempted castration of Joseph dispelled her fear that everyone would think about her as a slut. Brianna never was, is, or more than likely will be a woman of loose virtue, but we all make mistakes we regret. Brianna – who is cool enough to let me write about this – understood her mistake of letting the pressure of someone else’s intentions get the better of her. For weeks, she talked about how much she wished she hadn’t given into the will of someone else.
It’s hard sometimes to hold onto your values under peer pressure. The end result of giving end usually ends with disappointment and a feeling of regret. Brianna’s learning experience taught me this so well.
