Like Jodi, we are a shoe indifferent household. With two kids and now a dog, the carpets look like hell regardless. (Minnesota, btw, where we have sloppy winters)
Our guests are invited to take shoes off or leave them on - whatever makes them comfortable.
And I admit feeling “put out” when asked to take shoes off at a party. I don’t when I go somewhere to hang out, but at a party, I like to wear shoes. Yes, they make the outfit. No, I don’t want to see my shoes crushed in a pile of other people’s boots. (has happened) No I don’t care to find at the end of the evening that my shoes are missing (has also happened). If the party is going to be shoeless, the invitation needs to indicate shoeless so I don’t wear delicate little Italian flats that end up in the shoe pile and hose that won’t last four minutes without having shoes on.
(And yes, when the weather is bad, you bring your shoes and wear your boots).
At this point in my life, I’d just assume they were American.
Serious question - I have assured people repeatedly here (and had it backed up by all of the Canadians that have posted here) that this is cultural for us; we don’t worry about this, or plan it, or agonize about our carpets or anything, we just do it without a first or second thought. Everyone seems to be perfectly fine with taking off shoes in Asian households, but seem to get kind of bent out of shape at the idea of doing it in Canadian households. What’s the difference?
We can spot the Asians, but you Canadians can just sneak past our poorly developed “furriner” detectors. We must protect ourselves from the Canadian Threat.
I’m in the hot south (Florida) the only folks I’ve ever known that had shoes off policies were usually higher-income, higher maintenance, My Precious White Carpet folks.
While I am always shoeless at home, I’d feel weird taking off my shoes and putting on some random slippers at someones house. If I’m wearing slide-on shoes, they’d probably sneak off my feet at some point if I was there for a while. I also like sitting on my feet or with at least one leg up and that can be uncomfortable with shoes.
My dog is not allowed on my bed. I’d never seen her on my bed, except I would come home and ONE shoe was always in the middle of the bed.
Our houses down here don’t typically have formal foyers or mud rooms, there really isn’t a good place to ditch a pile of shoes and I can’t think of any nastier way to have someone enter my house than to have a rack full of my husbands stinky shoes smacking them in their limbic system right as they walk in.
I could imagine keeping my tootsies all bundled up all the time. I walk in, kick off my shoes, take off my bra and RELAX!
It would appear so. Or, to broaden it a bit, a ‘big-city-with-nasty-sidewalks’ or a ‘Frozen-north-with-lots-of-slushy-yuck’ thing. After reading thru the whole thread, a notion came to me about the ‘clean floor’ thing. Either we keep our floors clean by the custom of taking off shoes at the door, or we allow shoes and sweep etc. It occurs to me that places on this planet, as far as outside environment, kind of force it one way or the other.
I have found this whole thread fascinating, BTW. It’s been very enlightening to read posts such as Shamozzle’s. I had no idea such a cultural divide existed over shoes. One could take his posts and invert them, and that would be our opinon here in Mississippi. Put yer shoes on boy ! Was you raised in a barn ??
Ding! Ding! I think we have a winner. I think a guest’s comfort is foremost in any entertaining environment, aside from behavior that would destroy the host’s stuff. My best friend just takes her shoes off, but she never asks me to take mine off when I’m there. I’m against a hard rule on this. When referring to friends as opposed to say, going to your boss’s for dinner, I opt for the personal comfort of everyone.
Pro-Shoeless We think that by wearing your shoes you are insulting both our sense of cleanliness and our hospitality.
Point one: By keeping your shoes on it seems to us like you feel that my house is just as dirty as the outside and necessitates shoes.
Point two: Related to what emilyforce said about being uncomfortable; it seems to us that you, much like the police in the previous post, need to be ready to go at a moment’s notice. Rude.
Exceptions: Medical reasons, formal parties, and strangely enough, flip flops. Though I still expect you to remove THOSE when you decide to use my carpeted common areas.
Exceptions: Some people (myself included) are more comfortable leaving their shoes on. Why is that so hard to understand? It’s sunday, I have yet to take a shower. I am wearing an old sweatshirt, sweat pants and my Merrell clogs.
Unless I am completely sedentary, I prefer having shoes on. They are made to support the foot. Carpet is made to walk on. With shoes on or off.
Would those that prefer to have their shoes off be uncomfortable if the host had a ‘shoes on’ policy?
Yet you don’t think making your guests uncomfortable by requiring them to take off their shoes as rude?
Huh?
From what I can see in this thread, about half the people here would rather not take their shoes off and see it as a bit ridiculous. So yes, those people are going to be uncomfortable if asked to take off their shoes.
Carpet is made to be walked on. Even while wearing shoes. I can see not wearing them for yourselves. But dictating this rule for the occasioinal party and making your guests uncomfortable just seems way, way over the top.
Uh, I don’t even know what you are trying to get at. That I’m making my family sick with all the horrid germs from our shoes? Give me a break. My entire family wears shoes in the house, from my grandma all the way down to me. That is our way of doing things, and I don’t think anyone is going to be offended by it. Nor is anyone going to get kicked out of anyone else’s home for it.
I would. I’d do it, obviously, but yeah, I find shoes to be uncomfortable and that doesn’t change based on who’s house I’m at (unless I was at Mr. Pointy McNailsInTheCarpet’s house or something). It would be about as comfortable as if the host had a policy that I wear ski gloves the whole time I was there. Hot, confining, etc.
HI OPAL! [sub]sorry[/sub]
Thanks for that. Same for me, except I’m 180 degrees different. I prefer to wear shoes.
IMHO, unless your house is done in fine antique Persian rugs, or hardwood floors that can scratch very easily, a carpeted floor is made to walk on. Making your guests uncomfortable because there may be a bit of dust or water on their shoes is unreasonable.
I generaly wear running shoes or good quality Merrell or other type of clog or light weight hiking boot. Actually, my Merrell hikers are perhaps the most comfortable footware I have ever owned. To the point that I was walking down the hall at work the other day, and thought to myself “Damn, these are nice boots. They are just so damn comfortable”.
I guess I pretty lucky since I can wear this type of footware at work, or indead, anywear I frequent.
Makes life easy.
Do you have to wear dress shoes a lot? Or is it just something to do with your feet. If it’s the latter, I understand, because if I’m moving or walking at all, I am the oposite. I prefer to have shoes on.
I’m a student, and before that worked for a year in a very casual office, and before that I was a stay-at-home mom for 10 years, so I don’t “have to” wear any particular type of shoe. I just find it uncomfortable to have something on my feet. Even socks, unless it’s cold. I wear Birkenstocks most of the time, but even those come off whenever possible. Part of it is that my feet get very hot very easily. Part of it is that I like the freedom of my foot moving (toes wiggling, etc), and part of it is that about 90% of the time I’m sitting down, I’m sitting on one or both of my feet in one way or another. It’s just the only comfortable way for me to sit, even if it’s just tucking one foot up under the opposite knee. Know how uncomfortable it is to sit on shoes? I also often sit cross-legged with my feet tucked into the crook of my thigh and my calf, so that my toes are in the back of my knee–does that make sense? Totally doesn’t work with shoes. Sitting with my feet on the floor for extended periods of time is very uncomfortable for me, and often results in my feet or legs falling asleep.
Note, for those who think it’s gross that I sit on my feet because my feet are touching the chair/couch/whatever: first off, it’s the top of my foot that is touching that, which is as clean as my ankle or leg or arm. The sole of my foot would be touching my butt or leg or whatever. Also, as I’ve said before, I have the world’s least sweaty feet ever, and they don’t ever smell or anything. And when I sit in that cross-legged position described above, my feet aren’t even touching whatever I’m sitting on, they’re tucked into my legs, top and bottom.
This thread got me curious, so I looked in one of my photo albums that I knew had full-length pictures (it’s amazing how often photos do NOT show feet!) and sure enough… most of the time it was no shoes, like this, this, this, and this. It must have been cold this time: socks. I even went barefoot when most sane people would wear shoes for safety, like throwing around huge knives or things that are onfire. I do wear them sometimes, though, I swear. See? omg shoes!
(I want to add that when I go barefoot outside, I don’t put my feet on any furniture before washing them, which I do as soon as I get home. Just to head off any “eeew” comments)
Well considering that I hadn’t taken a shower, and was wearing a sweat shirt that my Wife told me that I should “really just through that out, really”. I would stay home.
Let’s back the assumption bus up a few stops here - guests at Canadian houseparties may be uncomfortable, but it’s not from being asked to take shoes off or actually taking their shoes off. I don’t recall the last time I heard someone asked to take their shoes off - it is done automatically when you walk in the door. The only discussion of shoes would be the host telling you that it’s okay to leave your shoes on.
I think people in this thread may be projecting a situation where they, shoes in house wearers, are at a shoes off party, and they aren’t used to taking their shoes off in the house. The actual situation is that the guests and the hosts are all familiar and comfortable with the shoes off culture, and there is no asking or resentment.
I went to my nephew’s birthday party last night - we walked in the door, we said hi, we took our shoes and coats off, then we went and sat down in the living room with all the other shoeless guests. When it was time to leave, couples left after each other so we wouldn’t all be putting our shoes on at the same time. There was absolutely no discussion of any of this - we just all did it, because we are all from the same culture and understand the etiquette.
You know what’s really considered rude in Canadian culture? Someone who doesn’t take their boots off at the door and leaves a big puddle somewhere outside of the front foyer area, and guests in socks get a soaker. That’s not cool.
(By the way, we don’t offer slippers to guests. You can bring your own with you if you like, but we mostly just hang around in socks.)
