How To Find Other Goths

Where I live, I'm one of the few people who identify with the goth lifestyle. The only goth I've ever met in real life lives across the street and is one of my friend's dad's girlfriend, she's about thirty or so, and from what I've gathered, she's romantigoth mixed with corpgoth and some perky goth. She's also a D&D geek, and she's the person who influenced me to become goth. I've only spoken to her twice, but in those few times, I knew I wanted to be like her. The first time, I was playing video games (Oblivion, if I remember correctly, I was eleven at the time) with my friend Drake. We said hello, talked a bit about the game I was playing with Drake, and that was it. I continued to play on my Khajiit (cat-person) character. The second time, I was going to Drake's birthday (now that I think of it, his thirteenth or fourteenth is coming up soon...). I was with my friend Meredith and there was one other person there, some kid with a really dirty mind that I found quite amusing. Then, about an hour or so later, the goth woman comes in and brings in party favors. She brought in little tombstones and plastic skull necklaces. I still have the tombstone (which has a small spiderweb and  skulls on it) and it's on the desk I'm using to type this. Ah, nostalgia.

So, anyway, how to find goths. You may have some at your school, but I have none whatsoever. I'm part of a group with two "bronies" (male fans of my little ponies, a popular internet subculture, though since they're both girls are both twelve, myself being thirteen, I prefer to call them elder pony fans. Just saying.), one of which tried to become a goth after I started getting into it. By getting into it, I mean adorning a jacket with safety pins and making a T-shirt that has Bauhaus written on it in Sharpie. I'm wearing that shirt and jacket right now, even if it looked half-assed.... I tried to help her, but she's just... I don't know. She only wanted to become goth to "impress" me, or to seem "cool" to me. It did neither, just bugged me. I was twelve at the time. My little "group" has four people in it- Kali, who is pretty much a "prep" or "chav" but doesn't act that way, really. Emily, a "brony" who became both goth and a brony to impress Meredith and I, and then Meredith, who's been my friend for ages and went into an emo phase with me a few years ago, but other than that, she doesn't refer to herself as anything but a brony. The whole "brony" thing is annoying to me, but moving on.

 Most of my friends like some things that could be considered goth (Emily likes The Cure, Meredith likes Anne Rice, Bauhaus, The Cure, Creature Feature, medieval stuff, Victorian stuff, horror. Aye, she'd fit swimmingly into the subculture....) With the friends you already have, try to show them some gothy things that you like. Sing them/show them a song you like, let them borrow your copy of Dracula, just don't rant. I rant about goth a lot. And no one knows what I'm talking about.... But moving on.

I actually found out in my sixth grade (don't know what that is in the U.K.) that my teacher that year liked Siouxsie and the Banshees and The Cure. The day before a school play (Cats, I recall) she played Cities in Dust. A kid named Joseph and I also joked about goth music by writing a funny little song that sounds uber-serious (isn't that what a lot of goth music is? Like that Fishcakes song by Bauhaus...) when it's meant as a joke.

But about finding other goths, what this was originally about before I started ranting. If there are no goths you know of in your area, there are bound to be a few you haven't noticed. Go drive your butt to the bookstore, put on your gothy band shirt (or just where some ubergoth clothes), bring your gothy magazine, read it for awhile near the fiction and philosophy sections, or in the coffee area if there is one. Stay in the store for an hour or so, reading and eyeing those around you. If you see someone you believe to be goth, smile and say hello. Hell, if anyone comes up to you, sits near you, smile and say hello. It should become a habit of a sort.

I'm not saying that you should treat grocery shopping as club night to find other goths. But if you see someone who if obviously part of the subculture, greet them, if they want to talk, talk to them. Don't act antisocial when you're waiting somewhere, you never know when you might encounter someone who's goth.