Goth, n: (Web definition): A goth is someone who is usually into the darker side of the world. Where punk is mostly about government, freedom, and politics, goth is mostly about religion (theology), philosophy and mysticism. A true goth is not a depressed suicidal person. They are deep into thought and feeling (and) know who they are. From Urban Dictionary.

Goth, n: (my experience): A kind, interesting, funny and artistic person, usually with quite a few arcane interests (learning Scottish Gaelic, for example) and a sarcastic sense of humor, who enjoys darker media, dressing in glamorous-if-slightly-socially-unacceptable clothing and dancing to good club music in the company of friends.

It's around 9 on a Friday night at a table inside Portland's Asylum club and restaurant. Twenty-nine-year-old Melian Young is showing off pictures of her young daughter and chatting about the joys and challenges of home schooling. Next to her, Amy Black, 31, a software engineer, is sipping a cosmo and chatting with Rachelle Campbell, an aspiring oceanographer. Black's husband, Jamie, a DuckTours driver, is egging on DJ Znuh to retell a funny story involving a roller coaster.

I am seated in the corner of the booth, attempting to follow all the conversations at once (and eat dinner, too) while ignoring the looks thrown my way by patrons at other tables. I'm not sure if they're "looking at me" or if I'm just feeling self-conscious in my "goth" outfit - black-and-silver corset, spider-web-patterned skirt, heavy makeup and black-and-white wig.

Truth is (and I am ashamed to admit this), if I hadn't gotten all dressed up at the Blacks' house and seen a similar transformation by many of the others at the table, I may have felt the the people sitting next to me looked a bit odd too.

But as it is, I'm just enjoying the moment.

It started a few months ago when an assignment brought me in contact with Jamie, who told me his wife promotes goth/industrial events through Gothic Maine (www.gothicmaine.com).

Not knowing much about the lifestyle, I wanted to learn more.

In the short time I'd known Jamie, it was clear he - and by extension, his pals - wouldn't conform to the goth stereotypes of dark, depressed and violent people somehow obsessed with the sick and the spooky. (Before I went to Portland at least five people told me to be careful and to "leave if something didn't feel right.")

Every e-mail exchanged between Amy and me reinforced my idea that goth folks would be interesting and fun to hang out with. And I was curious to learn what drew them to a culture that has earned such a stereotype.

I arrive at Amy and Jamie's house just as it's getting dark on a Friday night. Makeup artist Carol "Voodoo Dollie" Basserman and her boyfriend, actor Bryan Burns-Fedele, are there too, waiting in the living room as I walk in the door. No one's dressed up yet, just lounging around the Black's beautiful living room and chatting. I notice art on the walls, history books on the coffee table and some fishnets in a package on the side of the couch.

I'm nervous about being dressed; all the more so when discussion turns to what I'll be wearing. A corset is held up, glimmering with some glow-in-the-dark stripes. The merits and drawbacks of a matching skirt - basically several strips of artistically ripped material decorated with spider webs and attached to a waistband - are discussed.

Then it's on to the bathroom, where I'm seated on a stool and made up.

Jamie regales us with stories of being a DuckTour operator in Boston and chats with Melian about broadsword. Basserman, who focused on my makeup for at least a half-hour, encourages her boyfriend to talk about a Japanese-language production of Hamlet, in which he had played Laertes. Melian discusses her job working at the only women-only shelter in Maine, telling us how rewarding it is. Amy talks about the night's events, the rehabbing of the house's kitchen and the ins and outs of software engineering.

By the time my makeup and clothing are on and everyone else is dressed up, they have stopped being "goths" or "strangers" or even "story subjects," and have turned into "friends." In their heavy makeup, short skirts and big platform shoes, the girls just look glammed up and ready to go out. The boys, true to boy-form, didn't really dress up. Normal, ya know?

I'm a little uncomfortable; getting laced into my corset had been fun and had a very Regency-era feeling to me, but sitting down, walking and eating in it is quite another story.

A few minutes later we're at Asylum and they're answering more of my "who, what, where and why" questions about their chosen culture.

They'd all fallen into it, it seems. Commonalities included shared feelings of disgust at corporate and commercial culture, a sarcastic sense of humor, an interest in art and literature and a feeling of not quite fitting in - or wanting to fit in - with "trendy" culture.

Black had started going to clubs and shows when she was in college in Boston. The goth clubs were where she felt most at home - more because of the kind of people there than the clothing or anything else. They were kind, interesting and genuine, she says.

"I'd go in (to clubs) and sit at the bar," she says, "and guys would come up and start talking to me." Not into the random-hookup thing, she'd make it clear there wasn't going to be any...hanky panky. "And they'd keep talking to you. They were friendly. They were smarter. They weren't about the whole meat-market thing. And I finally felt at home, after all these years."

Black also liked the "playing dress-up" part of gothic/industrial culture. An affinity for the music and the art followed.

"Why all the dark stuff?" I ask again and again. Black talks of movies and books - "Blade Runner," "Lost Boys," "Sweeney Todd," almost anything by Lovecraft and Tim Burton. The darkness is "very tongue-in-cheek," she says. "I don't take it very seriously."

Seriously enough, though, she started Gothic Maine and the Asylum's weekly Plague Night (downstairs from 9-1 on Fridays). "I wanted to provide an outlet for people who gravitate toward the darker side of life, so they could be themselves. A creative outlet - a stage for people like that," she explains.

Jamie Black said he got into the culture years ago when his older sister did. Now a lawyer, she's still into the goth scene, although she tones down her hairstyle during the work week.

"Back when I started out, each person had their own tragic reason for being there," Jamie says. Not so much anymore, they all agree. Of course, there are depressed people in every lifestyle, and some young, depressed teens gravitate toward goth fashions and music - although now it's "emo" style that acts as a beacon for most of those. "For me, it's just the place I felt most at home," Jamie says, echoing his wife. "Most of the people are very diverse and intellectual, and very open-minded, in general."

He looks at goth clothing, to a certain extent anyway, as a device for filtering out the shallow. "There are people out there that stereotype others based on their appearance." He describes numerous tours he's led when, after taking off his cap, patrons have expressed shock that a blue-haired man could "narrate a tour of Boston with perfect diction."

Melian - a 29-year-old home-schooling mother with a shock of pink bangs and a love of learning - also started going goth because it's where she feels most at home. She's not a dark person, she says. It'd be hard to see her as dark, even without talking to her. This Friday she's dressed in a blue and red outfit with colorful tights and, of course, the pink hair. "I like the...aesthetic," she says. "And I'm...fatalistic." As a kid, seeing punk on TV, she loved it but assumed it would be gone by the time she was old enough. When she slowly began entering the goth scene, she says, she was surprised that "there are actually people like me, out there."

By now people have started arriving, and the music - courtesy of DJ Znuh - is pumping. It's got a deep, heavy beat and, to be perfectly honest, sounds and looks like a lot more fun to dance to than most of what else is out there.

I find myself loving my outfit. Aside from the fact that I'm getting more compliments than normal, it's fun and exciting. You know those dreams you have, where you wind up in some public place without your clothes or your car or whatever? Scary, right? Actually being in public wearing something as different and as attention-grabbing as my outfit, though, is oddly fun. Who cares if people think I looked weird? I just stare right back at them, and smile.

I stand at the door while Amy and Melian greet people and take their $4 cover. Some of the folks walking in have that traditionally goth spook factor: vampire teeth, black lipstick, artificially pale complexions. Maybe, in a different situation, I'd be put off by it. But standing where I am, you can't help but notice the way they smile - sweet, genuine smiles that go all the way up to their eyes. And the way they interact with me: complimenting my outfit, welcoming me, asking questions and then standing still, listening, while I answer, and then divulging some of their own stories to me. I find myself charmed, really, and don't leave until midnight.

And think, driving home, that I want to go back sometime.