Gothic Charm School (29 page)

Manners on the dance floor

Goths and dancing are closely intertwined. The most common social activity for Goths is going out to the local Goth club (with the social activity of
getting ready
to go out to the local Goth club coming in at a close second). Gathering together in gloom-shrouded clubs dressed in dark finery and swirling around a dance floor to a morbid tune is the skeleton that the Goth subculture is built
upon. Younger
gothlings
and
babybats
long for the night they'll be old enough to mingle with the dark and glamorous throng, while
ElderGoths
speak wistfully of times past when they were able to survive on four hours of sleep a night and still function at work the next day.

You would think that since going out dancing is such an important social activity for Goths, everyone in our gloomy little subculture would instinctively know how to behave when out swooping and stomping on the dance floor. Sadly, you would be wrong. Very wrong. So what are some common faux pas and mishaps Goths have to deal with while swaying and swirling to “Bela Lugosi's Dead”?

Oh, how about cigarettes and drinks? If the Lady of the Manners had her way, no one would ever take a lit cigarette onto a dance floor ever again. Because it seems that the people who feel the need to smoke while dancing aren't content with just keeping the cigarette in their mouths—oh no. They invariably feel the need to transcribe mysterious
lines and arcs in the air with it and usually don't pay any attention to the fact that
there are other people around them
. Burning someone's flesh or damaging her clothing is, as a matter of fact, terribly rude. If you discover you are responsible for such a thing, apologize immediately to the person you singed, and ask if the damage to her wardrobe is minor. Offers of first aid and repairs or replacements to clothing would also not be amiss. Now, the Lady of the Manners has heard indignant responses from smokers about this, such as “People shouldn't be wearing stuff to the club they're worried about getting damaged anyway!” Sorry, oh smoke-wreathed Snarklings, but the Lady of the Manners does not agree. If you aren't able to keep from singeing or damaging someone with your lit cigarette, you are the one at fault.

Much the same thing applies to taking drinks out onto the dance floor. The Lady of the Manners used to be adamantly against drinks on the dance floor, but now she believes that the potential for spills, alcohol-soaked clothing, and accidents from wet floors do not counterbalance the grim possibility of someone's drink being dosed when he or she isn't there to keep a close eye on it. What this means, however, is that if you have a beverage and hear a song you must go dance to, you should ask a friend to keep an eye on your drink. If there isn't anyone nearby who you trust to guard your drink, or if the song being played is so compelling that all of you are rushing the floor, by all means, take your drink with you. Just be
very
careful with it while dancing; no extravagant arm gestures, no pogoing, etc. If you do spill your beverage, let one of the club staff know so it can be cleaned up. (That is, if the clubs you go to care about drinks spilled on the floor. The Goth clubs that the Lady of the Manners attends do, but she realizes that some clubs may have a more punk rock, devil-may-care approach to such things.) If, heaven for-
fend, you end up drenching someone with the contents of your glass, promptly apologize and ask if there's anything you can do to help clean up the mess. That includes offering to pay any dry cleaning costs.

Speaking of extravagant arm gestures and such, Goth dancing tends toward the more interpretive style, what with the dramatic flinging of hands, swooping around, and other such theatrics. (The Lady of the Manners says this with all possible fondness and with perhaps a smidge of self-mockery. Just a smidge.) This means that all the dancers must be aware of their surroundings, not just the ones with lit cigarettes or full drinks. It's rude to smack a fellow dance floor denizen with an outflung hand, no matter how “signature” a move it is for you. Not to mention that with the elaborate outfits, jewelry, and hairstyles favored by Goths, a dramatic swooping movement could cause you to become very awkwardly tangled up with another person. (The Lady of the Manners has many such memories of herself and friends having to slink off the dance floor to disentangle assorted fluttering veils, lace trains, and rosaries that had accidentally tied them together. Untangling ourselves was the easy part; managing to exit the dance floor to the beat like we had
intended
to entangle ourselves was another trick entirely.)

If you are one of the Goths who, like the Lady of the Manners, favors elaborate outfits with trailing sleeves, flaring coat skirts, hats, bustles, yards and yards of petticoats, or other assorted fripperies, please be sure you know how to manage and contain your sartorial extravagance. It takes a certain amount of skill and grace to swirl about a crowded dance floor and not knock anyone over with your petticoats and bustle, and there is nothing wrong with practicing such things in the privacy of your
own home, particularly when your blinds are closed, before becoming a dance floor tragedy.

Manners and socializing at the club (including “don't touch people without invitation” and “always be nice to the staff”)

Of course, you have to be aware of more than just dance floor etiquette when you go to a Goth club. The Lady of the Manners has previously mentioned some of these: the club is not a petting zoo, and you shouldn't touch anyone without asking
and
being told that it's okay. (Yes, that includes touching someone's clothing and hair or offering friendly back rubs. The Lady of the Manners knows that many Goths consider their local club to be a safe space, and having people you barely know or don't consider close friends come up and touch you, no matter how friendly they think they're being, is disconcerting to say the least. )

Another thing the Lady of the Manners mentioned in other chapters is to
always
be polite to the staff at the club. If an employee asks you to move or stop behaving in a certain way, do not argue. On the other hand, don't take it upon yourself to act like a club employee when you are not; as a patron of a club, you have the right to complain about people's behavior but not the authority to make them leave. Along these lines, don't expect to be on the guest list for an event unless someone associated with the club has specifically told you so, and don't pull the “But don't you know who I am?!” routine to get away with not paying for drinks or a cover charge. Speaking of paying for drinks, tip
the bar staff. If you cannot afford to tip the staff, you shouldn't be buying drinks. That may seem a tad harsh, but it's true. Also do not assume the bar staff are there for your amusement; they are a captive audience and have to put up with a lot of attention they may not want, including flirtation and inappropriate comments, so don't make their job any more difficult than it already is.

Being polite to the staff at the club includes the DJs. When requesting a song, try to know the title and artist. Don't go up expecting the DJ to read your mind or be able to identify a song just because you can hum the chorus. If the DJ tells you that a song by that artist already has been played, don't throw a tantrum or insist on getting your way. And if the DJ does play your request, go dance to it, for goodness' sake! (The Lady of the Manners's DJ friends have ranted quite a bit about people who request songs but can't be bothered to dance to them.)

Of course, DJs need to practice basic courtesy too. Don't roll your eyes or sneer when someone comes up to request an “old favorite.” Just
because you're tired of certain songs does not mean that the club patrons are. While the Lady of the Manners understands that DJs want to play new music they're excited about, they need to remember that for many, part of the attraction of going to a Goth club is the chance to get dressed up and dance to the music that makes them happy. Yes, even if that music is almost thirty years old and has been played in Goth clubs since the scene started. There are Goth clubs and DJs who enforce a certain thing known as a
do not request
list. It's exactly what it sounds like, a list of songs that the DJ refuses to play. The Lady of the Manners thinks that such lists are a touch rude, really. The Lady of the Manners understands that DJs and club employees can get tired of certain songs very quickly, but that is no reason to completely ban a song from ever being heard in a club. You certainly don't have to play “This Corrosion” or “Dead Stars” every Friday night, but you shouldn't refuse to play a song
ever again
.

(Contrariwise, the Lady of the Manners has known of DJs who played the same thing from week to week, to the point where the club patrons could predict the order of almost every song, and that sort of thing got a bit, well, tiring. By all means, play the old favorites, but mix them up with new discoveries so that the club patrons can learn new songs to request over and over.)

Along with the seemingly never-ending old vs. new music DJ quandary, there are the always-amusing scuffles that start when the DJ plays things to amuse him or herself. As the Lady of the Manners alluded at the beginning of the chapter, there are many DJs who love to throw an oddball pop hit into the mix to see if anyone will dance to it. On the whole, most club patrons are just as amused as the DJs by these sorts of hijinks and will gleefully lurch onto the dance floor to try to Goth-dance to “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” before dissolving into hilarity. But the DJs need to remember that there will always be a few people who are not amused at all by this sort of thing, who will complain endlessly, saying things like, “Ohmygod, they're not even playing Goth music! They're ruining the club! I can't believe people are out there dancing to this crap,” and so on. Please try not to laugh directly at these people. The Lady of the Manners agrees they're overreacting and really do need to develop a sense of humor about the Goth scene, but mocking them to their faces is unkind. And to the people fuming that the sanctity of their musical church has been ruined (to use a phrase the Lady of the Manners did indeed once see in reference to this sort of thing), the Lady of the Manners would like to point out that nowhere in the Goth handbook (which doesn't actually exist) does it say that they must listen only to Goth music. Nor does it say that Goth clubs must play
only Goth music. But if the Goth handbook did exist, it would probably have quite a few chapters about the absolute necessity of maintaining a sense of humor and how taking oneself dead seriously is, perhaps, a bit ridiculous. But such a Goth handbook doesn't exist, so these poor humorless
gothlings
will just have to resign themselves to sitting in a darkened corner of the club and seething not-so-quietly to themselves as everyone else runs out to the dance floor to flail around to “I Kissed a Girl.”

Why yelling “Freebird” isn't as amusing as you might think and other advice for concertgoers

Concerts are special events. They offer rare chances to see favorite musicians perform live and hear familiar songs in new arrangements. People attending should be respectful and appreciative. Respectful and appreciative does not mean shouting things out at the performers. No questions, no “I love you!” (until the end of the performance, when it's a bit more acceptable to shout praise). Unless, of course, it's a rock concert of some sort, because shrieking one's lungs out is the proper thing to do at those sorts of shows. Oh, and no requests! Because while there may be a song you're longing to hear performed, the band has these things called set lists. Set lists are lists (imagine that) of the songs in the order the band plans to perform them. Many bands only rehearse a certain group of songs for their live act—the ones they think best showcase their talents in a live setting, the songs they know are audience favorites, and sometimes ones they themselves are fond of. Perhaps your favor
ite song doesn't fall into any of those categories. That doesn't mean you get to shout a request at the band. It is the height of rudeness to do so; it's rude to the band, and it's rude to the rest of the audience. Oh, and it's even ruder to shout requests for songs by other bands. Shouting “Freebird!” in the middle of a concert is tacky and dumb, not funny or ironic.