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If you are a goth, you might know all this, but you might be amused. So read on. If not, these are important things to remember about goths. Never mind that the look is all dressed in black, dyed black hair, makeup, and so on -- that's heraldry. That's recognition so that you can tell who's a goth and listens to your music. Listen to goth music and look up the lyrics.

Many goths are socially critical. Many goths are intelligent deep people who may seem depressed because they don't avoid dark topics, denial is the antithesis of goth. Many goths are actually cheerful happy people -- think of Didi in the Sandman comics as the archetypal cool goth person. She's nowhere near as depressed as Sandman. She looks at the dark side of life and still has a smile and a warm heart.

Goths also appreciate a sense of humor, and the greatest source of goth humor is easily available -- check out The Addams Family movies and the old TV show. If you are getting romantic with a goth, you're Morticia or you're Gomez. Get flamboyant, get intense, don't be selfconscious at all.

Write up a first draft of your letter in a plain notebook with a pencil, you want the words to be good. Read it aloud. If you need to take a breath before finishing the sentence, break the sentence. It's too easy to create hard to read paragraph-long sentences when you're writing emotionally.

Be descriptive and original. Write about the things your goth beloved really does well, compliment ideas and intelligence and depth as well as how great he or she looks. Don't say "I understand you." Show that you understand your beloved. If you can, quote something cool your beloved said and talk about how meaningful it was to you, how much sense it made. Goths love ideas. It's not just black candles and cool paraphernalia, it's the ideas that get raised in Poe and Anne Rice and other dark novelists that excite goths.

If your beloved is depressed about something, commiserate but don't make that the bulk of your letter. This is about love. This is about why you think your beloved is the coolest person on the planet, everything you like about your goth love. Do not even mention the things you don't like, that can come later after the relationship and the fights and the breakup. Focus on what's great about your goth love. :*

Include a few florid, silly declarations that go way over the top, get extravagant. "Rennie goths" who like including bits of medieval garb in their clothing are particularly fond of bits of Shakespeare and occasional "thee" and "thine" and maybe a sonnet if you can write an original one.

Unless you are a poet, do not try to write a poem for your beloved. Go to the classics. Look up something like the Norton Anthology of Poetry and find something unusual, if it mentions death or contrasts love and death like "to his mistress" did in talking about how they'd both decay and get love so let's love now while we're young, that may be exactly what you mean to say. Chances are at some point in history a famous poet shared your feelings.

Quote some of your beloved's favorite songs, especially if one of them hangs in your memory and always means your love. Music is a great connector and it could be your song. Choose a quote that is romantic, don't quote something like "I want to kill the world and eviscerate its corpse" in a love letter unless you're contrasting how you feel when your love's not around with how you feel when your love is.

Black leather roses are not just for the S&M crowd. They are a dramatic and expensive permanent gift that can get your goth beloved's attention. On a lesser budget, find a black silk rose at the silk flowers section in a hobby shop or department store. As trimmings go, the black rose is a dramatic statement that your goth love is not ordinary, not Perky, not Normal and not boring, not the least boring.

If you have bad handwriting, put parchment paper in your computer printer and choose an interesting font like Vivaldi or Bocklin or Old English, something decorative and archaic. Type your letter in and print it out, then decorate the letter with sketches and scent it with something like sandalwood or musk, not a cute floral or citrus scent but something atmospheric and intriguing.

Use a gold or silver pen to embellish parts of it, or put in a graphic of something dark and cool like a black rose or a skull or some Victorian border. You can get very fancy on this or very simple, it depends on how artistic you are, but sign it yourself and sign it boldly. Maybe sign it in red if you printed it out in black, to hint that you sign it in your heart's blood.

 

Dead rose in a black vase with a spiderweb. You don't need to provide the spiderweb, but a dead rose is thoughtful and permanent.

Press a real rose if you want to include a dead rose to declare your love. You can take one from the garden, put lots of paper towels above and below it, then put it on a shelf and stack a lot of books on it. Wait for some days or weeks till it's dry and flat, it'll have some faded color -- and the nice thing is that it doesn't matter for this what color it used to be, it'll either be blood-dark red-brown or pale faded ivory possibly with hints of pink.

Or set the rose aside without water in a very dry area. There are dehumidifying crystals you can get to speed how roses dry, to get a three dimensional dried rose to present to your goth beloved. It's a charming, weird, thoughtful cool little thing to do.

You can also seal your letter with sealing wax and a seal, they're not hard to come by. Look for dark red or black, and use a seal that isn't cute like a daisy -- something ornate and medieval or an initial is best.

Put in an artistic gift that you made, if you have any creative side at all. This could be as simple as a bookmark done with satin ribbon and something interesting attached to it. Interesting in the case of goths being "spooky but fancy." Keep your particular goth's interests in mind.

Purchase a small artwork from someone you know that is something you know your goth love would like, and include that if you're not an artist or personally creative. Appreciating creativity is as important as being a poet or artist -- and most goths have a strong interest in dance, or acting, or art, or poetry, the arts are a resistance to conformity and dull bland denial.

If you can do reasonably good calligraphy, shorten your letter by tightening it to the best, most important parts and use a calligraphy pen to create it by hand. Don't let it run over two or three pages though, it will make more of an impression if it's simple and powerful, spooky and dramatic.

Self-deprecating humor is always a plus, but keep it in the spirit of the Addams Family. Do not talk about your insecurities, your needs, your dysfunctional family or how rotten school is. Your goth love knows all those things and doesn't need the reminder of genuinely depressing topics. Talk instead about what's wonderful about your beloved, and talk about things you share an interest in. Talk about what reminds you of your beloved and why.

Do not go into flights of fantasy about what it would be like to be married and where you'll live and what she'll wear to the wedding or whether he'd like to meet your parents. Instead talk about how wonderful it would be to hold your beloved's hand, to spend a long night together talking about life and everything in the world, describe how fantastic and precious every moment in your goth love's company is. If your goth love is hot tempered, talk about how exciting your love is and passionate. Find positive ways to describe everything real about your love, rather than trying to impose qualities that aren't there.

Don't try to impose things your goth love may not want or like. Don't go into describing things you like that you think your goth love should want. Make no assumptions. Even if at a distance goths look as if they all share similar tastes in everything and similar habits, the point of goth is originality and being individual. Wearing black is the heraldry of individual personal rebellion against mass culture -- it's a signal that says "I am going to say and think and do things that are shocking" without saying what those things are.

So think of everything your beloved, that one special goth, said and meant. Think of what matters most to that person in the world and praise your love's tastes in everything in life, most of all ideas and activities. It's not about looking like everyone else. It's about filtering out people who expect you to act like everyone else -- and if you pay attention to that one goth's real personality, likes, dislikes, ideas, loves and hates, and still praise and love every one of those things about your love, then your letter will be both passionate and true and please your goth love. Real listening is the most impressive thing any lover can do, and love letters are a way to show you listened