Halloween For Misanthropes: How To Celebrate Halloween When You Hate People

Previously: What To Do On Halloween.

Well, friends, we’re about a week and a half out from Oct. 31 — traditionally the time at which we’d be publishing our What To Do On Halloween megapost (or, as we did last year, our big ol’ list of What To Read On Halloween book recommendations megapost). This year, we’re doing a good old fashioned blog post. The topic? What I’ve been thinking of as “Halloween for misanthropes” — or, put a bit less loftily, “how to celebrate Halloween when you hate people.”

Perhaps an explanation is in order.

I hear the question, “Got any plans on Halloween?” a lot around this time of year. Many of us do, probably. And when it comes up casually — as water cooler conversation, or small talk, or idle chit-chat, or what have you — what those who ask it frequently mean is, “Are you going out on Halloween?”

[Like what you read? Check out Dangerous Games To Play In The Dark, available from Chronicle Books now!]

Despite the fact that it is literally my job to think about and write about weird, eerie, scary, and mysterious topics of all sorts, people who ask me this question invariably find my answer disappointing.

I never have the kinds of plans they mean. I am never “going out” in the colloquial sense on Halloween. I am not going to an event at a club or a bar; I am not going to a party somewhere; and I’m not throwing a party, either. I am never doing any of these things, because of one major reason:

Those are people activities. And I hate people.

To be fair, when I say that I hate people, I don’t (always) mean it literally; it’s more tongue-in-cheek than it might sound. What I mostly mean when I say that I hate people is that I am a textbook introvert (and also that I have a mélange of anxiety disorders. Aren’t brains fun?). As such, while I do enjoy, y’know, spending time with friends and loved ones, participating in large-scale and/or many social activities and gatherings within too tight a timeframe leaves me feeling drained. If I reach oversaturation, then I have to go crawl into a metaphorical hole and be alone for a while until I feel okay again.

This makes the modern landscape of Halloween celebrations aimed at adults somewhat fraught for me. These kinds of events are often either parties or party-adjacent in some way, and I find those exhausting. This was true to some degree when I was still in the 20-something target demographic for most of them, but the older I get — and I am rapidly approaching middle-age — the truer it becomes.

I do love Halloween, though. And hey, guess what? You can, in fact, still celebrate Halloween when you hate people.

This is not to say that parties and events and other big, social Halloween celebrations are bad, by the way — if those are your jam, awesome! Go to them! I hope you have so much fun! They are just absolutely not for me, and since it occurred to me that they are also probably not for some other people out there, too — well, here we are.

Hating people can come in several flavors. Me, for instance? Sometimes, I don’t mind being around people, but I don’t necessarily want to be actively people-ing, if that makes sense; other times, however, I want to be a complete hermit, with no other humans around at all (aside, maybe, from my spouse. There’s a reason I married him, after all). So, the options and ideas below run the gamut from things you can do totally alone, to things you can do near other people, to things you can do with just one or two of your favorite people instead of a big crowd.

(There are no sponsored or affiliate links below, by the way; anything I’ve linked to is just something I genuinely enjoy, or think might be useful, or both.)

Basic safety rules apply for some of them — e.g. if you’re going solo hiking, tell a friend exactly what trail you’ll be on and when. (Best to avoid any 127 Hours situations, right?) Also, for the ones that involve visiting specific kinds of spaces, be respectful and don’t do any trespassing or anything like that.

Otherwise, though? Have fun. ‘Tis the season, after all.

1. Take a walk.

Not just any walk, though; take a Halloween walk. Some themes to try:

• Do you live somewhere people go all in on their yard decorations? Go on a hunt for the best Halloween yard displays you can find.
• Are there excellent woods or spectacular hiking near you? Get out into the wilderness. Whether your trail of choice takes you through stunning fall foliage or eerie, dead trees with bare branches whispering in the wind, a Halloween season hike can truly hit the spot at this time of year.
• Is there a weird, old graveyard in your town? Take a contemplative cemetery stroll. Be respectful — those were all actual people below your feet once — but you can still enjoy the atmosphere and the landscaping, and maybe learn something about your town’s history while you’re there.

2. Hunt some ghosts.

Friends, I love ghost tours. I take myself on one almost every time I travel, whether I’m with a group of friends or on my own. I’ve also been lucky enough to spend my entire adult life living in a variety of different locations all known for having terrific ghost tours. It’s always fun, whether you actually do believe in ghosts, or whether you just like to hear gifted storytellers spin some eerie yarns.

Or, get yourself a book of local ghost stories and map out a self-guided haunted walking tour of your own. Read about the places; then go check ‘em out.

Or, wander around your own home with some ghost-hunting equipment and see what you find. It doesn’t have to be fancy stuff, either; there are some fairly affordable EMF meters on the market, for example. Heck, you can even try a smartphone app, although your mileage may vary.

3. Book yourself a room in a haunted hotel.

Just for one night. It doesn’t have to be on Halloween, but bonus points if it is. It can be close to home, or far away; it’s up to you. But whatever you do, do it in that room.

Personally, my ideal no-other-humans-allowed Halloween celebration involves booking a haunted hotel room for myself, bringing a huge stack of horror novels with me, getting my favorite takeout, opening up a nice bottle of wine, and spending the night reading scary books in a scary room with a lovely glass of red.

For you, maybe it’s bringing a Steam Deck with you and playing scary games in a scary room with an endless supply of coffee. Or maybe it’s packing up a deck of tarot cards and spending some time in a scary room doing a little quality reflection while you sip your favorite tea (and maybe read the leaves in the process). You can do a lot more in a hotel room than just sleep!

Haunted Rooms might be a useful resource to find what you’re looking for. Just, y’know. FYI.

4. Discover some abandoned ruins.

Good news: Visiting abandoned locations doesn’t have to be illegal or dangerous; there are quite a few abandoned places around the world that are open to the public and, sometimes, pretty easy to get to and explore. Here are some options to start you off. Tread carefully, though — even when it’s fine to visit, sometimes abandoned locations can still be a little treacherous underfoot.

5. Go legend-tripping.

Every place in the world has its own local legends. True, you might have to dig to find them — but they’re there. Waiting. Maybe it’s that rickety old bridge just out of town. Maybe it’s that dark and lonely stretch of road your car always stalls out on. Maybe it’s the gelato shop on the high street that an informed few know has a ghost living in the attic. (Yes, that one’s true — there’s one in my neck of the woods!).  

Take a trip to the library, or the historical society, or even just around the internet, and see what you’ve got in your area. Then, make a plan to visit. Again, be respectful, don’t trespass, and don’t do anything illegal or dangerous — but give yourself a thrill by learning about the legends, and then seeing where they’re meant to have occurred. Sometimes there’s some overlap between abandoned places and urban legend locations, too, so you might be able to take out two proverbial birds with one stone here.

Need some ideas? Here are a bunch of legend tripping spots you can navigate to via Google Maps in the United States, and here are a bunch more in other places.

6. Get crafty.

Some options:

• DIY some seasonal décor. Fun fact: DIY projects can be large or intricate, but they don’t have to be! These nine picks, for instance, are all quite doable for even the least handy of humans; I’m particularly into the bat terrarium idea, which requires only minimal supplies that won’t cost you much more than $10 to assemble.

• Get into creative journaling. I’ve gotten incredibly into this kind of journaling in recent years, probably because there’s such a huge visual aspect to it; given that my job is to put words on the internet — meaning the sheer volume of words I write every week is somewhat staggering — it’s nice to have a different sort of creative outlet for my downtime.

  It goes by many names, usually defined by either the aesthetic or the function of the journal — junk journaling, bullet journaling, kawaii journaling, and so on — but “creative journaling” works pretty well as a catch-all term, so that’s what I’m going with here. This kind of journaling allows for a lot of freedom; you can write, of course, but you can also use stickers, washi tape, notepad pages, doodles, ticket stubs, torn book pages or sheet music, cute or aesthetic packaging… you name it.

  Need some ideas? Try a Halloween journaling challenge, like this one  or this one. Or, here’s a general fall/autumn one. You don’t have to journal every day, if you don’t have the bandwidth for that; just pick the prompt or prompts that fire you up and go to town.

• Make a miniature. I’ve also gotten really into miniature-building over the past five or so years. They are taking over my house; every available surface has at least one, if not more on it now. Small creatures have started to move in and call these tiny environments home. They just keep telling me to build more, and so I do, and then their friends come, and then I end up with more creatures and more miniatures and more creatures and more miniatures. Please send help.

  But really: They’re super fun to build! I have mostly just been building easily-acquirable kits; among my collection, for instance, are this little detective agency and this gothic shadow box. Those are the two most thematically appropriate ones I have, but you can also just build, say, this library/bookshop one (which I also have! It was one of my favorites to build!), and add your own little touches to make it a haunted library/bookshop.

  Or, try a kit from a creative Etsy seller. This one makes a little witch’s desk, for instance. This one has fairy garden options for both tarot and talking board scenes. This one lets you build a “Roombook” — a little room designed within the cracked-open spine of a book—which you can then fill with your own little scene.

• Give crochet a shot — even if you’ve never done it before. Tons of crafty folks have made patterns available for free on the wonder that is the internet; here’s an adorable ghost amigurumi pattern, for example. Or, if you don’t want to go through the rigmarole of finding a pattern, picking out yarn, finding the right hooks, etc. yourself, you can get full kits that have everything you need to make an entire project. Here’s another cute little ghostie, and here’s a set for some classy and cozy pumpkins.

7. Indulge in some nostalgia.

For me, Halloween nostalgia might look like:

• Cracking open a John Bellairs book;
• Averting my eyes from the illustrations in a classic edition of Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark;
• Conducting my annual Hocus Pocus viewing;
• Reliving the best Are You Afraid Of The Dark? episodes;
• Playing a few old favorites, like (speak of the devil) the Are You Afraid Of The Dark? PC game The Tale Of Orpheo’s Curse, or maybe “Crimson Room” and the other Takagism browser games;
• And/or putting on some old Travel Channel Halloween specials for background noise while I do the aforementioned crafting. (Fun fact: A bunch of those specials are on HBO Max now!)

For you, maybe it’s more like Halloweentown and a trip to Spirit Halloween. Or maybe it’s the original Ghostbusters with a bowl of Boo-berry to snack on while you watch. You do you, friends.

8. Make yourself something tasty.

Whether you opt for seasonally appropriate ingredients or picks with some excellent, Halloween-centric presentation, you deserve to feast on Halloween, even if it’s a feast for one. Taking the time to make myself one of my favorite meals is one of my favorite forms of self-care; if you’re a Halloween person, kick it up a notch with something thematically resonant. Some ideas:

• How about some pumpkin mac and cheese? Pro tip: This one is especially good if you make some bacon to go along with it and crumble it across the top.
• Or, for something more elaborate: How about a butternut squash Wellington? Fair warning that this one, although not particularly difficult, does take some time to make — but it’s also absolutely delicious and my favorite festive meal for this time of year. It works great as turnovers instead of the traditional Wellington shape, too.
• Are your knife skills better than the average home chef’s? How about this Halloween vegetable soup? Turn your carrot slices into pumpkins and your mushrooms into skulls, and bam — the eeriest bowl of deliciousness you ever did see.
• If you’re more into baked goods, might I recommend these whole wheat pumpkin muffins?  They are the best pumpkin muffins. They are the platonic ideal of pumpkin muffins. They are everything I have ever wanted in a pumpkin muffin, and they are on constant rotation in my kitchen for weekend breakfasts — no matter what time of year it is.

9. Turn on some tunes.

A few favorite Spotify playlists that are particularly good at this time of year:

• Faculty Of Horror’s Tunes Of Terror. A playlist full of the end-of-episode songs used in my favorite horror movie podcast, Faculty Of Horror. Bangers, each and every one.
• Lo-Fi For Ghosts (Only). Perfect if you like your autumn tunes to be chill, rather than eerie.
• Songs About Ghosts. Who doesn’t love a good ghost story song? Artists include Kate Bush, The Decemberists, Phoebe Bridgers, Florence + The Machine, and more.
• Witchcore. Very witchy. Also very Celtic.
• Creepy Piano. I find creepy piano music incredibly soothing. This playlist is very moody and atmospheric. Mostly instrumental. Lots of Myuu in this one, so bonus points for also hitting the nostalgia buttons; there was a particular era of eerie YouTube content that featured a ton of Myuu as background tracks.
• Cryptidcore Playlist. Weird and quirky. Great for hunting Bigfoot to. Artists featured include Lord Huron, Cosmo Sheldrake, and American Murder Songs. The inclusion of the Gravity Falls theme is a nice touch.
• Yess, Goblincore vibes <3. Indie alt stuff to listen to while you nest in your goblin swamp. If the Paper Kits, the Pierces, and Cavetown are your jam, this playlist probably will be, too.
• Murder Ballads. Love a good murder ballad? This playlist is full of them: Extremely old murder ballads, classic murder ballads, new murder ballads… they’re all here.

10. Fire up your PC or console.

It’s hard to beat turning down the lights, putting on your headphones, and immersing yourself in the wonderfully weird world of a new video game. Some recent games to try, on a variety of consoles and at a wide range of price points (including free!):

• Withering Rooms. My favorite Steam review for Withering Rooms reads as follows: “So, guys, should we make a stealth game, a puzzle game, a survival horror adventure, a metroidvania, a Victorian era dream simulator, what? Developers: yes.” Somehow, all of those pieces come together to make something much, much bigger than the sum of its parts.

  In this eerie action roguelike, make your way through Mostyn House, the constantly evolving Victorian mansion of your nightmares — literally — doing your best to survive and unravel the mystery at the heart of this extremely cursed, extremely Eldritch place. Players can’t stop praising its originality and effectiveness — definitely worth checking out. There’s a demo, too, if you want to try before you buy.(Available on: Steam, PS5, and Xbox.)

• Home Safety Hotline. Welcome to your new job! Here at the Home Safety Hotline, help is just a phone call away. You’ll embark on a rich and rewarding career assisting callers with common household issues, such as burst pipes, black mold, attic gnomes, and strange portals suddenly appearing in the basement. Listen to their problems, then work quickly to diagnose the root cause and find them a solution. We pride ourselves in our award-winning customer service, so failure is not an option! Do not fail. If you fail, the homeowner will suffer. And worse: You might get reprimanded. For those who like a little analog with their horror and a dash of comedy on the side, Home Safety Hotline is a delight. (Available on: Steam and Ich.io.)

• This Bed We Made. If you’re a little on the nosy side — or if you know better than to be in real life, but appreciate games that give you a way to scratch that itch from the safety of your own computer — you might enjoy taking a shift with Sophie in the hotel she works at. It’s the ‘50s, and she’s in housekeeping — and the people who are staying this hotel? They’re… often much more than they seem.

  Cleverly written and with many mysteries to unearth, This Bed We Made tells rich stories through the items people carry with them. Just… be sure you really want to know what those stories are. Some things, you can’t unlearn once you know them. (Available on: Steam, PS4, PS5, and Xbox.)

• Crow Country. Do you like weird amusement parks? How about retro, PS1-style graphics and gameplay? Then, my friend, Crow Country is for you. Take on the role of special agent Mara Forest as you investigate a defunct amusement park, shut down as much for bad publicity as it was for its shady dealings. Because here’s the thing: Sometimes, when people went to Crow Country… they never came back out. And there is much more going on below the surface than it might at first seem… (Available on: Steam, PS5, and Xbox.)

• Paranormasight: The Seven Of Honjo. For the visual novel fans, this 2023 title is a real treat. Using a classic “seven wonders” story as its frame, this one sees you investigating a series of strange phenomena and urban legends said to be connected to various spots in Tokyo’s Sumida ward — only for things to get much, much weirder the further you go. Branching narrative paths bring you closer and closer to the truth behind the stories with each attempt at survival… but you do have to survive to solve the many mysteries at play here. (Available on: Steam, Switch, and mobile.)

• Rental and The Ghost Cage. Looking for something shorter? These two bite-sized picks about rental properties make for fun little diversions — and the best part is, they’re both absolutely free to play.

  Rental looks like an old school Animal Crossing game and plays according to nightmare logic; you, a small bunny, have arrived at a cabin with your parents and sibling for a family getaway, only to find that the cabin is definitely cursed. (Available on: Steam.)

  The Ghost Cage, meanwhile, is spooky-cute; it turns out the rental house you’ve taken up residence in comes with a ghost, which you can make friends with if you like. (Available on: Steam.)

• Lorelei And The Laser Eyes. While not overtly horror, per se, this brain-tickling puzzle box of a game feels… right for the season, somehow. There’s something odd going on in this old hotel somewhere in central Europe, you see — something eerie. There are many locked doors. There are many secrets hiding behind those doors. Some of those doors don’t look like doors at all. You’ll have to find a way to unlock them all, and to bring all those secrets to light, in order to unravel the truth of what, precisely, is happening here. Prepare to take actual notes on actual paper — this one is a fierce challenge, all wrapped up in a stylish arthouse mystery. (Available on: Steam and Switch.)

• Dark Roast Café. A café management game for the goth soul. Brew coffee, decorate your café, and summon demons whenever you need to staff up. Because, uh… you may have made a deal with a certain someone in order to get this place off the ground — and that loan is coming due. It’s a good time, and it’s free! (Available on: Itch.io.)

• Myhouse.wad. Did you somehow miss this overwhelmingly creative Doom mod when it was making the rounds last year? We still don’t know who made it; it just appeared on a Doom forum with a striking backstory from its mystery modder. And it is… quite the experience. The less you know about it going in, the better. Just… give it a shot. Trust me. (Available on: PC.)

11. Or, take to the tabletop.

I mean, yes, playing tabletop games with other people is all well and good — but, fun fact: There are also tons of tabletop options you can play solo. Things to try:

• The Final Girl series, which puts you in the shoes of, well, a final girl trying to survive the classic horror movie scenario of your choice. The fun thing about these games is that they’re sort of mix-and-match; that does, however, make it a little complicated to get the ball rolling in the first place, so here’s a handy starter guide for what you need to play these games and how to go about getting it all set up.
• The Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective series, if you’re more of a mystery-solver than an outwit-the-killer kind of person. They’re kind of like Choose Your Own Adventure books, but even more hands-on. I have the Jack The Ripper and West End Adventures set, and I love them. Great fun!
• In Village Witch, you’re a newly-minted witch; now you just need to find a village to go do your witching in. A journaling game, this one requires — in addition to the game itself of course (which is a steal at an under-$10 price point) — only a six-sided die, a deck of standard playing cards or tarot cards, and something to write down or otherwise record your story. Might be fun to combine with the creative journaling idea I mentioned earlier.

• Or, if you like the idea of a journaling game, but aren’t into witches, try The Portal At Hill House. There’s a house, of course — but also lots and lots of cosmic horror.

• Heck, you could even give a jigsaw puzzle a try. When I was a kid, I was very into jigsaw puzzles that had a whole mystery-solving aspect to them — and I’ve been thrilled to discover that these kinds of puzzles have been making a comeback recently. Here are two from Murder Most Puzzling; one is set at a clairvoyants’ convention, and the other involves a tricky will situation.

12. Two words: Movie marathon.

This is typically what I do every year on Halloween myself: I pour myself a glass of wine, I grab a bunch of snacks, and I watch a ton of movies. Some favorites I’ve seen recently:

• Stopmotion. Stop-motion animator Ella (Aisling Franciosi) has spent her life under the thumb of her mother, also a celebrated stop-motion animator — but as her mother’s life comes to an end, Ella finds herself unmoored, rather than free. As a longtime lover of stop-motion animation, I had a feeling this one would be up my proverbial alley — and boy, was it ever. Did I guess one of the big reveals early on? Yes. Did I mind? Not at all. (Watch it on: Shudder.)

• Talk To Me. There’s a game — a game that, purportedly, lets players talk to, and even be temporarily possessed by, the spirit of someone who has passed. There are rules, though, and the most important one is not to go beyond a certain time limit. But when 17-year-old Mia (Sophie Wilde) — who has been increasingly disconnected from the world in the two years since her mother’s untimely death — plays, she exceeds the time limit… and it soon becomes clear why the time limit is there in the first place. A heartbreaking examination of grief and how destructive it can be, this one is heavy, but absolutely worth it. (Watch it on: Kanopy and Paramount+.)

• The Feast (Gwledd). A wealthy family in the Welsh mountains prepares for a dinner party meant to woo a business investor and to convince a local farmer to allow them to drill on her land. The land, however, has other ideas, and the young woman from a nearby village the family has employed to help with the dinner party may not be watch she seems. I watched this Welsh-language film after hearing about it on the home invasion season of the Evolution Of Horror podcast, and y’all, it’s a terrific slow burn of a film. (Watch it on: Hulu and Kanopy.)

• The Menu. A group of upsettingly wealthy people assemble on an island to partake in a reclusive chef’s (Ralph Fiennes) ultimate tasting menu — and things do not go well for anyone involved.

  I know, I know — The Menu isn’t new anymore, and was a pretty major release when it did come out in 2022, so depending on how much you’ve heard about it, it might now lack the punch it had then — but friends, I had a wild time watching this one the first time ‘round. It’s adjacent to dinner party horror (one of my favorite, oddly specific subgenres); one day, maybe I’ll write something bigger on why I love this subgenre so much and what usually makes it tick, but for now, just… know this one is worth it, although it also requires every content warning you can possibly think of. Just, y’know, FYI. (Rent it on: Amazon Prime.)

• Slay. As many people have observed, Slay is essentially From Dusk ‘Til Dawn but magnificently queer and full of glitter and drag queens. It’s super fun! (Watch it on: Tubi.)

And some things I haven’t seen yet, but have heard excellent things about and can’t wait to watch:

• I Saw The TV Glow. I found Jane Schoenbrun’s debut film, We’re All Going To The World’s Fair, terrifically effective and thought-provoking, and I’ve heard some really incredible things about I Saw The TV Glow, as well.
• Longlegs. I mean, this one looks truly wild, does it not?
• Cuckoo. It will never not be hilarious to me that Cousin Matthew has become a staple of slick thrillers and gritty horror flicks. (See also: The Guest, Apostle, The Rental, Abigail, et al.)

13. Or, venture into the depths of YouTube.

There is so much good horror on YouTube. Yes, there’s a lot of… not so good horror, too — but if you’re willing to dig, there are tons of gems to be found, particularly if you’re into screenlife, found footage, or analog horror.

Many, many options can be found here; more recently, I’ve also assembled a whole bunch of series, both in-process and completed options, that tap into the best of found footage and analog horror.

Favorites include, in no particular order:

• DOORS [Analog Horror]
• In The Dark (Louise Is Missing)
• Paranormal Paranoids
• School Basement
• Fake Documentary “Q”
• No-Through Road
• Hi I’m Mary Mary

14. Pick up a book.

Set the perfect atmosphere, make yourself a warm drink, and curl up somewhere cozy with something that’ll send some shivers down your spine. Some picks I’ve read recently that I particularly enjoyed:

• Natural Beauty by Ling Ling Huang. The horrors of perfectionism, the classical music world, and the beauty industry, all in one go. I loved this one.
• Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay. Nesting narratives told by the most untrustworthy of narrators about the legendary creation of a film so troubled, no one has ever seen it. I loved this one, too — for similar reasons as why I loved Clay McLeod Chapman’s The Remaking last year. Possibly my favorite Tremblay to date; it might even have kicked Head Full Of Ghosts out of the top slot.
• Like Smoke, Like Light by Yukimi Ogawa. A short story collection full of modern, feminist riffs on traditional Japanese folklore. Gorgeous stuff.
• Flux by Jinwoo Chong. The horrors of Big Tech when it goes unchecked. A puzzle box of a story to unravel. Might make you want to delete all of your social media and throw all your devices into the sea. ALL OF IT.
• The Angel Of Indian Lake by Stephen Graham Jones. The conclusion of the Indian Lake trilogy. A cathartic and resonant end.
• Haunt Sweet Home by Sarah Pinsker. Things get weird on the set of a ghost hunting/home makeover reality show. It’s like this one was written just for me.

15. And lastly: Commune with the Otherside.

I would be remiss if I didn’t remind you that there are many, many eerie, scary, urban legend games and ritual games out there that only require one player and very few other supplies.

You might also consider checking out my book, Dangerous Games To Play In The Dark, which has many of the classics in it — and, crucially, doesn’t require internet access in case you want to refer back to it while you play, because it’s, well, a book.

Good luck.

And Happy Halloween, friends.

***

Follow The Ghost In My Machine on Bluesky @GhostMachine13.bsky.social, Twitter @GhostMachine13, and Facebook @TheGhostInMyMachine. And for more games, don’t forget to check out Dangerous Games To Play In The Dark, available now from Chronicle Books!

[Photos via blaze_rob, kabe32, EdWhiteImages, Tama66, DariuszSankowski, Javaistan, Skitterphoto, anaterate, igorovsyannykov, Ylanite/Pixabay]

Source: https://theghostinmymachine.com/2024/10/21/halloween-for-misanthropes-how-to-celebrate-halloween-when-you-hate-people/