I hope they closed the drapes in the dining room.
Turned the AC down.
@Czarcasm I hope you didn’t mispell shitting with “sitting”. Ewww.
It was at an apartment building above the 25th floor, and there was a changing room near the entrance. The AC was adjusted accordingly.
Oh. It’s was true.
I thought you were joking.
Were socks provided though?
Butt in the chairs, one thing. But your nekkid feets? Nooooooooooooo!
Little white or black footsies were available, but none of the 14 or so guests used them.
I live in a place that has snow and slush. I never wear shoes at home for more than a few minutes, although I don’t care if other people do. My daughter’s house is “shoes off” for everyone but aside from her and my nephew, I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone who was shoes off all the time for everyone. I’m sure part of it it because I really don’t remember going inside anyone else’s living space after walking through deep snow.It’s not like I’m a kid and I was playing in the snow - I might have walked on the snow for the distance required for me to get from the car to the shoveled sidewalk.
I imagine following the etiquette of yesteryear it might be. By personally I am happy to consign that to the same dustbin of history as stuff like “never say congratulations to a women when they get engaged”.
YMMV of course. The critical thing for me would be is there any chance your guests might actually still consider it rude? Like i will happily say congratulations to a women when they get engaged but my mum will call me on it if i do it around her.
I never understood what the phobia was about feet being unclean. Your hands don’t have any covering indoors (usually), your face doesn’t have a mask (usually), and your arms don’t either. You might touch something in the house with your hands, and no one is upset, but if you walk barefoot, that is something to say “ewww” about?
I am used to a summer beach environment, where walking from the water into a house requires brushing or hosing off sand, but putting on shoes would be ridiculous and uncomfortable and wearing shoes on the beach or in the water makes no sense. Barefoot inside and outside is the norm in the summer here. Only if I have to walk in a hazardous environment (like a gravel driveway or a rock shore) would I put on some foot covering, and that’s not for hygiene.
Obviously, winter and non-beach locations aren’t the same.
Isn’t the critical question how ugly/smelly your feet are?
Also, how about us poor diabetics with neuropathy? I’m under strict orders to always wear protective feet coverings, at least slippers with firm soles.
I imagine there is a whole different set of etiquette rules for that situation 
Yeah i think its fine to accept this as a matter of etiquette rather than a practical hygiene advice. I never particularly cared about taking off shoes inside or took particular care over touching stuff with my feet. But thats a huge deal for my wife’s family.
fascinating…i am amused by the footsies being available.
I don’t think the etiquette rule is always take your shoes off. It’s always ask the host if they would prefer you to take your shoes off before walking in with your shoes on. Some people care a lot and so it’s rude to assume your hosts feel the same way you do.
This is essentially an informal poll for opinions, so IMHO is the best forum.
Moving from MPSIMS to IMHO.
The problem with shoes in the house is that they’ve been worn outdoors - I can’t imagine anyone would have a problem if you wore slippers or other shoes that were never worn outside. As long as you don’t do what my mother did - when told she should bring slippers to my nephew’s place, she instead wore the slippers getting to and from the car.
:shrug: My shoes go on as soon as I’m out of the shower, and that’s the way it stays all day. I don’t care what you do in your house, but I need the arch support.
Someone taking off their shoes in my house is very weird to me unless they are overnight guest of course.
I guess this stems from me being a person that might go in or outside at any time. And, having gravel drives for decades. You do no go barefoot on gravel drives. And when you have dogs that go in and out a dozen times a day. I’m sure it brings more dust and dirt in, but the entire world is dust and dirt.
If the person entertaining guests is barefoot, I would think it a bit odd, but wouldn’t really care.
Yes, but the yoga socks are reusable. We have yoga socks in the bunch we’ve had for years, which is many uses, and many washes, on hot, with bleach.
We tell people they can keep the hospital socks, but some people leave them. They stand up to about 5 washings.
Not for the first time I wish a thread had a “do not read while eating” warning.
Mind you, my spouse and I sat down to craft a “values statement” for our next 5 year “mission statement” and came up with 3 points:
- punctuality
- regular pooping
- no skanky feet
Upon reading the list the next morning we added
4. no alcohol while crafting values statements
This.
Like any other custom which varies among different groups (which is just about all of them), it’s a potential minefield for anyone who doesn’t recognize that customs vary. If there’s no other strong reason to think people are deliberately trying to be rude, they’re probably not trying to be rude. Things will go a lot smoother if everybody will put it down to varying expectations and move on.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who don’t recognize that customs vary; and also a lot of people who recognize that this happens but think that everyone on the planet should adhere to the same set (which is always their own, of course.)
My parents absolutely never went barefoot, at home or elsewhere. Maybe into the bathroom at three in the morning, but I suspect even then they put on slippers, which were left sitting on the floor right next to the bed when they got into bed. The conclusion I would come to is that this is how your in-laws behave.
It’s also possible that they have some issue with their feet which requires continuous protection.
I didn’t run into a take-off-your-shoes household until I was an adult; and they’re still far less common around here than ones where you leave your shoes on. This appears to be a very regional issue.
If you want to go barefoot or socks-only in my house that’s entirely up to you, whatever the event; but I have old wooden floors with occasional splinters, often added to by the dog who likes to chew firewood into bits (so there may be fresh ones even if I vacuumed right before you showed up); plus which I’m not going to get in and out of my shoes every time I go through the door, and I’ve often got bits of field on them when I come in which may have been left behind. People who often go barefoot, of course, often also have thick calluses to defend their feet against such things.
If somebody asks me to take off my shoes when entering their house, I’ll do so. I presume that if they’re asking for this they have splinter-free and debris-free floors.
She’s presumably not going barefoot out on the streets and public sidewalks.
Yes. And “outside” isn’t sidewalks. The town did recently pave the road (somewhat to my dismay), but most of where I’m walking is either a grass/weeds mix of variable length or bare soil in varying degrees of dust or mud. Or, if I’ve been running irrigation, probably some of both in different places.
You and I had better not ever try to live in the same house!
(How on earth is “regular pooping” a value? I mean, it’s nice if you can; but a lot of people can’t. Did you mean only that you find it desirable for yourselves, and not that you look down on people who can’t?)
For 33 years our outside has been either grass, snow or gravel. It’s bad to track any of that in I suppose. Well, the snow doesn’t matter, it’s not dirty city snow. Gravel and grass very rarely sticks to our shoes. And again, when you have two dogs that come in and out at their leisure, it hardly matters If I walk the 30 feet to my car and come back in.
As a person who has stepped in stocking feet on a cold day on a clump of snow that hadn’t thawed yet: IMO even clean country snow is a reason to wear shoes in the house.