oh my god I am so using this in the future.
I am about as shoe-ambivalent as one gets.
I would offer one bit of warning to the obligate barefoot types, though. A few months ago I was cooking, and I managed to knock my chef’s knife off the counter. The tip jabbed about a half-inch into the hardwood, and the knife stood straight up about three inches from my besocked foot. Since then I always wear my Birkenstock clogs when I’m cooking–they won’t stop the blade, but they might mean the difference between gouged and impaled.
Yeah that’s common sense. Which I clearly don’t have, as demonstrated by throwing three very large and heavy knives around while barefoot. Oh, and they do stick into the ground when dropped, so I know they’d cut my foot. I figure, though, that 35 years of not stabbing my feet and being comfortable means the odds are pretty good that if I’m careful I won’t stab my foot. I’m a risk taker, what can I say. I live life on the edge. Yeah.
I just got back from my mom’s, where we all wore shoes in the house. I told her and my sister about this thread and said, “Yeah, I guess we’re hillbillies because we wear shoes in the house, haha.” And she said, “No, people who run around barefoot all the time are hillbillies!” She thought it was pretty funny that people are so divided about the issue.
The assumption bus goes both ways.
Don’t assume that your guests are more comfortable with out their shoes on.
I live in an area that gets so much snow and bad weather that it may even stun you featherlou. It’s snowing as I write.
Understand that for some folks that it is a very odd request to take your shoes off. And for some of us we are much more comfortable leaving them on.
As a good host, I understand that.
I assume that your carpet can take the small abuse that my shoes may impart. And I’m sure that you would be a gracious enough host to allow those that prefer to remain shod to do so.
And I hope that you care more about your guests than you do about your carpet.
I think the real reason behind the extreme responses is the fear of, hey, what if I accidentally go somewhere where they don’t wear shoes in the house, like Exotic Asia or, uh, Foreign Canada? and I wear shoes in somebody’s house and I don’t know not to? And nobody tells me? And I commit a huge social gaffe and don’t realize it!
We won’t tell you (much too polite, you know). We’ll just laugh behind your back.
(Should there be a smiley here? Maaaaaybe…)
Can’t this be turned around to say, “I hope you care more about being considerate of your host than you do about your shoes”?
I mean, I’ve already said that I don’t care either way. I don’t even have a consistent policy in my own house - sometimes I’ll prance around barefoot, other times I’ll be wearing my shoes. Guests are welcome to do as they please, and my friends basically have the same policy as well. The fact that people feel so strongly one way or the other is what fascinates me. 
Sure, that’s fine. And that’s the way I am. You want to take off your shoes? Fine with me. But I know of two households where that IS the policy. Shoes off.
If a family wants a ‘shoes’ policy for themselves, that’s fine. And I can understand that over the long term it would benifit the carpet. But If I’m just dropping by for a few minutes, I don’t see how my shoes are going to wreck your carpet.
Seems silly.
I live in the rural mountains. I wonder, are most of the shoes off people city folks?
This past weekend, I was at the Teddy Bear B&B in the hamlet of L’Amable (one of two L’Amables in that part of Ontario, but I digress), which is pretty rural. They are majorly shoes-off. Of course, they also have the shiniest floors and cleanest house of just about anywhere I go these days.
Ever been invited to a hottub party? I think the shoes issue is sort of like the hottub party issue.
There are suit hottub parties.
There are nude hottub parties
And there are clothing optional hottub parties.
When invited to a hottub party, it is important that the guest understands what sort of hottub party it is - no one wants to be unpleasantly surprised to find naked people walking around - nor do you want to be out of place by being the only person who didn’t bring a suit (“you guys wear suits!”)
i.e. when you have a PARTY (as opposed to old friends coming over who know your house and your house rules) you need to let your guests know what the dress code is. Its silly to say “cocktail dresses” and expect people to stand around in barefeet. So don’t have that sort of party if you don’t want shoes in your house. (Dinner parties are, I believe, similar in the expectation of dress - I expect to wear shoes at a dinner party. I might not expect to have to wear them if its “hey, want to come over and order a pizza.”) On the other hand, having a Superbowl party it may be equally rude to expect your guests to keep their shoes on while watching the whole game in couch potato mode.
By letting your guests know, your guests can then decide if they feel comfortable with your rules and politely decline if they don’t - probably without mentioning the real reason.
(Our rule in our house for parties is “whatever makes you comfortable”)
I know! That’s the problem! I could go the rest of my life making a dumb social error and you wouldn’t tell me! I hope to hell somebody would at some point pull me aside and say, hey, you know here in Canada people take their shoes off, right? But they probably wouldn’t because they don’t realize that down here you don’t and they think I have a gross nasty foot disease!
Holy Over-Thinking, Batman! The flipside on the cultural issue is: that it is rude to partially disrobe in someone else’s home; that it indicates too high a degree of informality and “I’ll just make myself at home here (even though it’s not my home);” and that some people simply feel more comfortable (physically or culturally) with shoes on than with shoes off.
None of these have anything to to do with the cleanliness of your home or my desire/readiness to leave.
I can’t imagine working so hard to impute rudeness to someone else who might be acting with perfect innocence and (so far as they are aware) perfect propriety.
What I find striking about this thread is that the “shoes on” people are actually more “don’t care people; do whatever makes you comfortable,” whereas the “shoes off” people seem to be pretty tight-assed about it – you’re sure to ruin my carpets, you must track dog shit through your own home, you must be being intentionally rude and denigrating my hospitality.
Reason enough to maintain my position in the “do whatever the hell you want” camp. :dubious:
I think there’s a cultural divide on what kind of clothing category shoes go in between the two parties. As a “shoeless in the house” person, I think of shoes in the same way that I think of a jacket or a hat; it’s something that I put on when I go to leave the house and take off when I’m inside because it becomes a bit superfluous once I’ve entered the house. However, a lot of the “shoes in the house” people seem to think that it’s as mandatory as pants or a shirt, which baffles me. I’m not suddenly going to feel like someone has overshared their informalities with me if I see their socks, but I would feel a bit weirded out if they disrobed so that I could see their bra or underwear.
I’m not as rigid about the rule as Acid Lamp, but I don’t remember too many people insisting on keeping their shoes on as a rule when visiting either of our parents’ houses.
Shoes off person. My personal rules
a) Never never never ask someone who has an obvious physical disability or handicap. Krishna doesn’t give that much of a sh*t.
b) Don’t make a big deal of it when people refuse to take them off. Not worth fighting over and making someone feel humiliated or riled up over. It’s just something I remember.
I have a lot of Asian friends and any party of mine is usually mixed. So there are going to be any number of individuals with their shoes off, who take them off the minute they get in the house, and the majority of people I know who are not Asian usually ask me…as they see people hanging around in socks. When asked, I usually relent and say “if you like, it’s just because we’re not supposed to have them on in front of the idols.” 99% of people have taken them off.
Ultimately, like I said, I don’t think I’m being smote to hell, nor am I super obsessive about religious ritualism since I think a B+/try-your-best attitude suffices. I care more when guys leave them on as women usually have “dress shoes” that they were once in a blue moon that have nothing on them and usually seem to “go with their outfits” or something (I can understand that). Guys on the other hand, I feel have more dirt on the bottom of their shoes as they only have a few pairs.
I don’t know-maybe I just have friends who try to be culturally sensitive? I’d probably only get riled up if someone came at me with a “well you people and your shoes-off ways!” type deal and I’ve never experienced that.
c) Other people’s homes: I always ask. Whenever people say “whatever you like” I’m guessing they mean “keep them on, I don’t want to see your feet” so I leave them on.
OOOH: I just read featherlou’s posts-yeah. I grew up in N. Quebec, I mean super-north where the snow in winter piled up so high our front door was blocked till it melted in May. You do NOT wear shoes in the house-at least, not the ones you trudge around in during winter because those are snowboots. Not white pretty pretty now-but “this snow has been on the ground since October 11 and won’t melt till May 15” snow. Women carry their nice outfit shoes in bags to bring to parties. Men seemed just to prefer to hang around in socks.
I think this also has to take into account what type of clothing different people view shoes as being. For some people shoes are very much part of the outfit, like a belt, shirt, pants/skirt would be. For others, they are more like a jacket or gloves, that are intended to be taken off–or even like an accessory such as a purse, that you set down. How people view shoes in that way will affect how much they consider shoe-removal to be “partially disrobing”. For me, I don’t think of it as disrobing any more than I would think of removing and hanging up a winter coat as disrobing. For others, they feel they aren’t completely dressed without their shoes.
Edit: and I see that someone beat me to making the exact same point. :smack: That’ll teach me to read all the replies first.
There certainly is. The difference is that Acid Lamp seems fully prepared to attribute to intentional rudeness what may just as easily be cultural conditioning.
I think that once you are requested to take your shoes off, you pretty much have to. Which, hey, no skin off my nose. But I do think the request is sort of odd. If the person doesn’t kick their shoes off, it’s probably safe to assume they either don’t know that the home is a “shoes off” one or they would prefer to keep their shoes on. Asking them to take them off IMO can only either alert them to a faux pas – crap, I should have taken my shoes off! – or make them uncomfortable. I would never ask a guest to remove any article of clothing for any reason other than their own comfort. (“Would you like to take your coat off?”)
I don’t automatically take my shoes off in other people’s homes, not because I’m making some pro-shoe, carpets-be-damned! statement, but because I don’t think to do it since it’s not required in my home and is not how I was raised. I only get concerned about the passion of the debate when I read that some people might assume I was intentionally being rude. Then I’m like – Wow! I had no idea people felt so strongly about this! I’m glad I don’t.
Well, this got oddly contentious in relatively short order. It’s kind of an ugly display of how hidebound some people can be in the face of cultural differences. It’s simple: when you’re in somebody else’s house, do what they do. You might think it’s odd. It may be inconvenient. You may not ever come back again. But just do it. It’s not going to hurt you.
And as a host, I’d have a difficult time getting upset with someone taking their shoes off. I’d definitely think it a little odd, but hey, mi casa es su casa. No biggie.
As already mentioned, this is untrue for some of us. Not being in pain ranks higher than visiting with someone–anyone.
But it’s fairly rare when I go hang out at other people’s houses. If someone wanted me to take off my shoes, I would simply find a plausible excuse to leave. It has never happened, since I live in a “shoes on” area and grew up in a “shoes on” family. I’m fortunate that my culture and my needs coincide.