Gay Person Shocked When Straight Person Recognizes Their Costume as Meryl Streep in Kramer vs Kramer

Halloweekend has recently passed, but if you’re a Halloween purist, then you know that the real fun goes down on the actual big day, October 31. If someone says that you can’t get down and lose your mind on a Tuesday night, then they clearly aren’t imbued with the mystical Halloween spirit! Oh, you don’t think I’ll be able to party like an animal, Dan? I’m dressed like a slutty armadillo, it’d be impossible for me not to party like an animal!

I have had the chance to interview a few people who were out this weekend, though, and I had the chance to ask them for advice for the October 31 crowd. A girl in a sexy mouse costume told me to believe in myself and to stream someone on Spotify (I don’t remember the artist’s name… Tailor’s Shift?). A dude in a football jersey either told me to root for the Hawkeyes or to root around for hot guys. Somebody in a Flash costume body-slammed me for trying to take a video with them, then went to beat up a woman in a Hawaii-themed karaoke bar.

A particularly distraught interviewee came in the form of Lizzie Bush, a lesbian with a costume she’d thought would be so obscure that she would be perceived as the smartest person out and about. Unfortunately, the crowd at Brother’s was uncharacteristically sharp and caught onto her shtick in an instant.

Lizzie tearfully recounted her night to me as she shivered in the rain:

“There I was, dressed regally in my white dress shirt and beige suit jacket. I was feeling pretty good about myself, you know? I’d been asked if I was a reporter, a food critic, and Ally McBeal, but nobody had guessed who I was actually dressed as.

“But then,” she sobbed, “a drunk girl in a Reverse Cowboy costume came up to me, took one look at me, and accurately guessed who I was supposed to be!”

“Who, Meryl Streep’s character in Kramer vs. Kramer?” I asked her.

“Oh no, another straight has figured me out!”

“Bi, actually.”

“Bye, hetero!” And with that, she took off.

She was certainly an odd duck, but she was not the only fruitcake to share their woes with me that night. Several other gay people came up to me that night to give similar accounts to that of Ms. Bush’s.

“My girlfriend and I thought that our clever couples costume of Monsieur Mallah and The Brain in Doom Patrol #86 would only be recognized by gay nerds, but a chick in a Barbie costume knew who we were!” a dyke in a gorilla suit cried.

“I was sure that no one outside of my exclusive group of friends would get my costume,” a distressed twink shared, “yet somehow a straight dude knew I was supposed to be one of the ensemble members of the 2009 Broadway revival of Finian’s Rainbow!”

“How was I supposed to know that Lisa Friede’s character Carol in the 1986 horror film Spookies wasn’t the deep cut I thought it was? Have I lost my touch? If I can’t be pretentious and self-righteous, what am I going to do???”

Let this be a lesson to every LGBTQ+ individual out there picking last-minute costumes: If you think you’ve chosen a costume that no one else in the world will understand, consider choosing something even more obscure. After all, what’s the point of Halloween if you don’t get confused looks from others? That’s why I’m going as the pee stain on my dad’s couch.