It's gotta be the shoes

A friend told me the other day that she believes that you can tell a lot about a person by looking at their shoes.

I told her that was nonsense, but then I did a little research (i.e., typed “what do your shoes say about you” into Google), and I found out that it is an actual phenomenon – there are people out there who form their first impression of others based on the shoes they’re wearing.

I’m not sure what my shoes say about me, other than “This guy shops at Famous Footwear during 'buy one, get one free' sales.” I don’t wear cheap shoes, but I don’t wear expensive ones either, and I probably wear them a little longer than I should. And I do wear black shoes with brown pants, but I’m partially color-blind, so you can’t hold that against me.

Shoe talk seems to be almost entirely confined to women. One day, the office hens were fluttering about because they said one of the women on our floor was wearing stripper shoes. I had no idea what they were talking about. Ask most men what stripper shoes are, and they’ll say, “Strippers wear shoes?”

Most of us don’t care, and we can’t understand why women walk around in those high-heeled torture devices they call shoes. I have heard it said that women tend to dress to impress each other, not men, and I tend to believe that’s true, especially when it comes to their feet. It’s not the part of women’s bodies that men tend to notice.

I mean, that’s what I hear.

I suspect that I am like many men who, quite frankly, only want shoes that won’t hurt their feet. I’d wear bedroom slippers to work if I could get away with it. And I think the idea that you can judge people by their shoes is preposterous. Who cares what people put on their feet?

During my exhaustive five minutes of research into this, I came across one “shoe expert” who said, “If his shoes consistently are unraveled, frayed or distressed, you might want to ask yourself the question, 'Where is he is unraveling, fraying or distressed?” Wow, I guess I’m coming apart at the seams and didn’t even know it.

The expert also said men who wear nice shoes care more about things and themselves and what people think about them. You know who was real particular about his shoes? O.J. Simpson. You know who didn’t care a whit about his shoes? Jesus.

I rest my case.

You know all of these Wall Street titans and bankers who were collecting huge bonuses while running our economy into the ditch? I bet you they all wear expensive, shiny, designer-brand shoes. And Imelda Marcos – way into shoes. Are these the people you want to be associated with?

So please, if you meet me, please don’t look at my feet and try to form an opinion about me. As a famous guy who didn’t care about shoes once said, “Judge not, lest ye be judged.”