This Halloween I was very conflicted. Wednesday? Really? Do you party the weekend before (Perez, Madison, etc.). Or do you party the weekend after? You know, the weekend conveniently appropriated Parents Weekend.

You’re done with midterms (mostly) and having celebrated Halloween at least six days ago seems like a long time since you’ve last celebrated Halloween (unless you’re that cool and got wasted on a Wednesday). And the fact that it’s Parents Weekend, you know your friends’ hot older brothers and jailbait sisters might be on the prowl for some naughty nurses or pimpin’ popes.

Most people went all-out in costume the weekend before Halloween, but that wasn’t really Halloween. On the actual Halloween Wednesday, I was disappointed to see only eight costumes. Although I did see a pretty sick David Bowie.

I’ve always loved dressing up for Halloween. The planning, the fun, the creativity. The great thing about it is no, not that you can get away with dressing like a slut, but that you can wear sunglasses at night without people thinking you’re on drugs. But I digress.

So do you bust out the fro? Rock your vibrantly colored Studio 54 fan-sleeve polyester get-up one last time? I did, but only because there were costume parties still happening this past weekend and it was too pimp of a costume to not wear again.

Despite the parties, some of my friends chose not to dress up again. They said it didn’t feel right, and that’s totally legit. You shouldn’t do something just because you think other people are doing it or think they want you to do it. And that holds true in more ways than one.

Remember the time you went to that open bar, blacked out and were told you started making out with that random girl you just met? The flirty bar talk, turned blacked-out make-out, turned “Oh my god, she’s at my place, and I’m sobering up and she’s not that cute anymore” debacle. Hey, we were all freshmen once. (Current freshmen: beware of this).

Or ladies, that time when your presumed platonic male friend invited you over to his place to “hang out with a bunch of people” but instead when you arrived, there was no one else there but him, and he was pouring wine and giving you a creep-ass smile. Yeah, not cool.

So what do you do? If you’re uncomfortable at any point in the interaction, whether intimate or friendly, by no means should you ever compromise. Engaging in sexual activity against your will is about enjoyable as a sandpaper hand-job, so be up-front about it. Tell whoever this is not what you expected and politely excuse yourself from the situation. That might be more difficult when your belt’s unbuckled and your shirt is on the other side of the room, but you need to be firm. If s/he starts imposing, that’s rape. Get out of the situation as quick as you can: mase, screaming, ninja kick, etc. If this Halloween has taught you anything, I hope it’s that if it just doesn’t feel right, don’t do it.

Medill senior Nina Kim is a PLAY sex columnist. She can be reached at [email protected].