On being goth

During the last weeks I have stumbled across some interesting posts about being goth so I thought why not give it a go for yourself? First of all: Stereotypes. There are various clichés and stereotypes that are shown on television and that are stuck in peoples minds and most of them a rubbish BUT: Some of them are true. They are what I call my guilty pleasures.

- I only wear black. Even if I see a clothing item that i like I won't buy it if it isn't black. It's my colour and I will stick to it, full stop. I do wear coloured tights occasionally or some coloured accessoires but that's it basically. My standard question in shops is and will always be: 'It's nice, do you have it in black?'

- I love, love, love platform shoes. I have tiny feet and huge platforms make them look weird and unproportional, I like it.

- My style rolemodels are Wednesday Addams from the Addams Family and Abby Sciuto from Navi CIS.

- I think bats are cute. I don't really wear bats as accessoires but the real life ones are simply adorable.

- I'm pretty crafty, I make my own jewelry etc...

- I am constantly overdressed and I don't give a damn. My clothes are not practical ore useful, they simply look good.

- I enjoy old literature such as Bram Stoker's Dracula, Oscar Wilde, Sherlock Holmes or Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I even took a class called 'Gothic Fiction', it was amazing because we got to discuss popular gothic motifs, psychology (e.g. why Freud sucks), the modern vampire and why Twilight is neither spooky nor gothic.

-I like graveyards, I think they're pretty.

-I also like old churches and chapels, my favourite being the Cologne cathedral and despite the fact that the Count says otherwise, I CAN enter churches, thank you very much.

- I love the victorian era. As a feminist I, of course, would never want to actually live in that time but it still fascinates me.

- The goths shown in mainstream television are often nerds that would rather spend the night reading a book and drinking tea instead of going to a club. I myself have never been to a club, I have occasionally visited cocktail bars with friends but that's it. I'm pretty indoorsy.

Ok, so much about stereotypes but there are also many, many ungothy things about me:

- I don't like gothic music. So, 'why are you a goth then' you might ask. To me being gothic is a lifestyle and a lifestyle needs more than just music. Even though there are very popular gothic festivals here in Germany such as the Amphi or the WGT I don't really have the wish to go to any of these.

- I don't like skull motives, I don't find them appealing at all.

- I like pink. Yes, seriously.

- None of my friends are goth. They're all kind of alternative but not in a bat-loving, black, spooky way.

- I tan extremely fast and therefor I have given up trying to stay pale.

- I own about 70 different nail polishes and even though 11 of them are various colours of red most of them have very non-gothy colours.

- As the Count says: I'm not a night-person. Neither am I a day person. He says I'm asleep constantly.

- I have a spider phobia and I don't really like cats. They're kind of cool but scary...

- I'm also afraid of the dark.

You can probably see now why I don't only classify myself as goth but rather as a Quaintrelle. Who cares about labels, anyway?