Teen Gothic

Hello there everyone, hope y’all are having a lovely day. So I would say that I’ve only realized recently that I’d think of myself as a part of this subculture (always loved gothic horror in video games, music and movies like Castlevania, black metal and what have you, but recently for the past year or so I’ve been listening to a lot of goth music to the point where it’s more than half of what I listen to,) but I feel kinda guilty for calling myself a goth because I don’t dress the part.

The thing is I live in a country where that is very frowned upon (to the point where I don’t think we even have a goth community here, and if we do they’re definitely minuscule, because I have literally never met another goth person before.)

Even the way I dress now I get a lot of funny looks from people (aka I literally just wear metal band T-shirts and I’ll still get funny looks from people.)

Like I remember I once wore black nail polish and got a lot of shit from people because apparently I looked too “gay” for them (for some reason a lot of people are very backwards and think you can look “gay” and they still think that being gay is a bad thing and is something you can use to insult people) and mainly for all this from my parents as they believe that men should have short hair, dress nicely, etc. (btw I know I sound like a teenager but I’m not that young, I just turned 20 last week and still live with my parents because of college.)

Over the past two years I’ve been really getting into the goth subculture (before this I’d say that I was more of a metal head and industrial person that had gothic tendencies haha,) but because I can’t dress the part (even though I’d love to) I’m not sure if I can still be considered a part of this sub culture.

Do let me know what you guys think yea, and apologies if this question turned into a bit of a rant.

(wasn't sure on which flair to use)

I've never actually been to a club because I only turned 18 recently, but I feel like there wouldn't be much for me to do there. I would be too shy to talk to anyone, I don't like drinking, and I don't dance. And those are the things you do at clubs so I don't really know what else I would do there.

So as a socially anxious person what do I do to meet people in real life? Do I just suck it up and go to clubs a few times until I somehow gain a friend group? My city doesn't have many alternative events outside of club nights except for like, one picnic a year which is more my speed. But that's one day out of the whole year. Is there any chance of finding goths in places like comic conventions? From my experience online there is quite a bit of overlap with alternative and nerd culture but I think this might be too much of a reach. Maybe the friend tab on bumble? I'm kinda grasping at straws here. I mean shit even the last good clothing store I knew of shut down so I literally don't know where to go