{"id":1086,"date":"2016-06-10T11:19:28","date_gmt":"2016-06-10T19:19:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gothic-charm-school.com\/charm\/?p=1086"},"modified":"2016-06-10T11:19:28","modified_gmt":"2016-06-10T19:19:28","slug":"lack-of-vision-thing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gothic-charm-school.com\/charm\/?p=1086","title":{"rendered":"(Lack of) Vision Thing"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Lady of the Manners is going to say, right up front, that she very much<\/b> wants there to be reader comments on this particular post. Because, to be perfectly honest, she’s not sure how much useful advice she has to give to this Snarkling! The following question is one that has never fluttered into the Gothic Charm School mailbox before, and is a situation the Lady of the Manners has no experience with. <\/p>\n

\n

Greetings Mistress,
\n\tMy name is Sarah, and I have, for many years, been struggling with a rather unique problem regarding my gothiness, and I’ve come to the exhausting conclusion that I can’t solve it on my own. I hoped you’d be able to offer me some guidance because I fear I have nowhere else to turn. The crux of my dilemma, mistress, is that I am blind. I have been so since birth, and although that has not prevented me from living and experiencing life to its fullest, it certainly presents a plethora of challenges.<\/p>\n

\tFor starters, I don’t dare apply my own makeup. I couldn’t, even if I wanted to. I’d end up looking like I engaged in finger painting on my face. And I admit, I am a fiercely prideful person. I won’t ask someone else to do my makeup for me. If I can’t do something for myself at my own convenience, I’d rather not do it at all. Not that I’d consider asking my friends to assist me in attempting goth makeup. They’re all, to some extreme, redneck. They’d be as lost as I would be.<\/p>\n

\tAnother issue is clothing. I’m a starving college student with bills, rent, and a guide dog to feed. I can’t afford a whole new wardrobe. Luckily, a majority of the clothes I do own are black or in the darker color schemes. Black is quite frankly the only thing I’ve seen, so don’t bother trying to explain to me what periwinkle is; I won’t comprehend it. But how do goths dress? None of my friends or family are goth, I can’t stalk around my college campus and scan one out of the crowd, I can’t search the web for pictures or Youtube for instructional videos to help me muddle through it all. It’s embarrassing to say, but I need a personal demonstrator to take me by the hand and escort me into Hot Topic to tell me this is this and that is that. I find myself asking, is it even worth it? Are there any seasoned blind bats out there who can give suggestions, or does are blindness completely exclude us? Is it enough to say that we are goth on the inside, even if we have no one to teach us how to display it on the outside for the visual community to see? It’s a stupid irony, when you stop and think about it. The people in the world who actually understand the true meaning of perpetual darkness are isolated from dabbling in a culture that revolves around it.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Lady of the Manners immediate, knee-jerk response is that you don’t need to display your gothness on the outside for the visual community to see. Goth is so much more than the fashion and makeup, and someone doesn’t (shouldn’t!) need to be visually identified by those things.<\/p>\n

With that said, the Lady of the Manners also understands why you’d be interested in having things that signal your involvement with the subculture. How to go about doing that? The Lady of the Manners has a few well-intentioned, possibly of no help at all ideas, with the emphasis on WELL-INTENTIONED<\/b>.<\/p>\n