I’m sure you’ve read the name of the article, and I’m sure you think it really isn’t that serious. Well, I’m here to assure you that it is that serious. This is more than just an opinion article. This is a generational hatred and loathing I will keep deep in my soul until the day I die.

It would be difficult to name all the reasons why I despise the number five, so I have compiled them into a short list. 

1. Five is mid. I mean that in both a figurative and literal sense. It’s in the MIDdle of 1 and 10.

2. I just think five should be more original. We already have a four-letter number beneath ten that starts with f, has one syllable, and two vowels. And it’s four. There was no need to add another one.

3. People who give five out of ten stars on anything are cowards who refuse to make any surmountable change to society. Five out of ten is neither good nor bad. It’s just in the middle. You refuse to have any opinion and instead use the most spineless number for the most spineless opinion.

4. This reason should have gone first, but the truth is just that it’s ugly. Having it next to four is a crime. Four is one of the most flexible, aesthetic, beautiful numbers. You can write it in so many different ways. But five will always just be five. Ugly, alone, and unloved.

6. Five started a trend that ruined geometry. If something has one side, it’s just a point. Two sides is a line. Three is a triangle. Four is a square. But five? Five is a pentagon. What rules even apply to a pentagon? And then six is a hexagon? A heptagon? An enneagon? Are you kidding me????? What is an enneagon? Mathematicians are just making things up at this point. And five started this.

7. In handwriting, all the other numbers before five begin at the top, either on the left or in the middle. One just goes straight down. Two? Left. Three? Left. Four? Either the left or the middle. But five? You have to START from the right side, and END on the left side. It’s ridiculous. It completely throws off the handwriting process. 

8. Five takes so much effort to write, and like any sensible person, you’d want to shorten it. But you can’t. There is no shortcut. No way out. If you try to curve out the straight lines, it just reverts to its original form, S. Then people question you about your handwriting, which is embarrassing.

9. Five is impractical. You might argue that five has some uses. But you’d be wrong. What animal has five legs? None. You might argue, “Oh, but kangaroos-” NO. A TAIL IS NOT A LEG. GET IT RIGHT. What things are there five of? Fingers. Toes. Olympic rings. Stars. What else? Senses? Helen Keller wrote a book without two of them. Five isn’t all that.

10. No matter which way you count, whether from one to ten or ten to one, five always stays the same. It doesn’t change position. No sense of flexibility, no accommodation for any number but itself. Selfish and narcissistic much?

11. There is literally no font that makes five look good. 5? It’s trying too hard. 5? Ugly hat. 5? The slant is horrible, and don’t get me started on the weird little tail it has. 5? Off balance. Disgusting. 5? Arguably the worst one. What were they even thinking? They tried to make it fancy but failed miserably. 5? It’s an S. It is literally an S. 5? Genuinely hard to look at. Whoever made it should be fired immediately.

12. What is the correct way to write a five? There are at the very least four different ways to write it, and nobody can agree on how to do it. Anything you have to think about that much can’t be good.

13. In order to write a five, you have to make two 90-degree angles and then a curve. It’s as if someone couldn’t make up their mind halfway through. Do you want it to be boxy or not? Are you trying to make an S or an E?

As we get closer to the dreaded day of reckoning (5/5), I only hope you all will keep in mind my thoughts and heed my warnings. Remember that beyond a doubt, five is the worst, most deplorable number.