The real nightmare of Halloween is deciding what to wear

On Halloween 2015, you made yourself a promise – please, for the love of god, don’t have a shit costume next year. But it seems as though your word is as good as Boris Johnson’s, as you’ve faffed about for too long and now have to find a way to make the best out of a terrible situation.

It was all going to be so good. After reluctantly leaving the house last year donning yet another pair of cat ears and black leggings, you solemnly swore to your friends, the bouncers, the bar staff, the taxi driver, and everyone else you met, that you were going to have an amazing costume next year. Your costume would be inextricably witty, both contemporary and classic, and just down right fabulous. You were ready for the likes to pour in, for the multiple screenshots sent your way exclaiming, “Your costume was SO good!” Yes, the satisfaction of Costume Supremacy was so close you could taste it. In between the vomiting, of course.

With Freshers’ over and October approaching, Halloween is the next thing on the student’s agenda. But you, ever the complacent one, still feel like you have plenty of time to get a costume sorted. At this stage you’re still thinking of an idea, and your ideas are rather ambitious. You overestimate the dedication you’re willing to put into it, but ignoring that realistic voice in your head, you gravitate towards the most impressive costumes, often involving paint. You imagine yourself as an Avatar, skeleton – perhaps even a remaking of Gotye’s ‘Somebody That I Used To Know.’

However, you don’t pursue these fantastical ideas, deciding that paint is too much of a hassle and will probably be patchy and look quite shit in photos. In fact, apparently you don’t need to plan at all. You can relax in the assurance that because you want to have the best costume ever, you’re going to have it, and therefore don’t need to plan one, it’ll just happen cause you’re an omnipotent being.

By now it’s a week to Halloween and you’re starting to get pissed off at that housemate who actually has their costume organised. They even have the audacity to prance about in it in front of you. But they’re “so excited to see yours!” which just makes you even angrier since you have no idea what you’re wearing at this point. You comfort yourself by judging their “oh so alt” Donnie Darko costume, even though you’re kicking yourself you didn’t think of it before them.

You now resolve to find a costume. You consider the easy route of Harley Quinn or the Joker, then reprimand yourself for being so basic. Your friends seem to be going as a mixture of cute Disney characters or eye-roll worthy ‘punny’ costumes, or worse: objects. For a brief second you consider going as a pencil. A fucking pencil. The internet seems to be the answer to all your problems, and you order a perfectly reasonably-sized costume off Ebay. Or so you think. Once you try it on your left questioning the very dimensions of your body and wondering when it was made general knowledge that Wonder Woman’s boobs sit on her stomach.

It’s the day before Halloween and, livid from the £3 you spent on delivering your ill-fitting costume, you force yourself to venture into town. At this point you have your annual Halloween existential crisis. Are you comforted by the hundreds of last minute people running around the shops, or do you see them as a bleak reminder of all the costumes that you somehow have to beat? Your options seem to be fake blood, a hilarious orange clown wig, or a full blown outfit priced at a painful £30. You quickly mentally scan the items in your wardrobe to see if you can somehow make an outfit with this one severed hand you’ve found in a basket on the floor.

Do Elliots do any of these? Asking for a friend

All of a sudden the big night is here and you’re still not 100% sure what you’re going as. But, like the resilient fellow you are, you have faith that you’ll pull something together – even if it is a cat again – and have a great night regardless.

The world will have to wait another year for your best costume ever.