This is one of the tiny details that causes me a bit of discomfort when traveling to my wife’s homeland, Brazil.
In warm weather, all Brazilians wear sandals.
The problem is twofold:
I have huge feet—size 14—and they quite often don’t make them that big (and no one should show up in gringo sandals!)
And my toenails fall off with great regularity due to my running.
I know nobody should be subjected to my ugly toes with missing or badly abused nails, but the alternative is to wear sneakers all the time.
When I used to run a lot my toenails would fall off with regularity. I would just paint the appropriate part of my toe with nail polish to disguise the issue which worked surprisingly well - you had to get quite up close to see that there was no actual nail there. Obviously this may not be an ideal solution for you.
I have solved the problem completely by being a lazy pudding and now my nails stay in place.
What’s a gringo sandal? Are those the closed-toe sport sandals that would be perfect for you? I could totally get behind a dude wearing these or even these. Especially if he’s got funky toes to hide. That’s too bad if those are uncool in Brazil. Is it a flip-flop kind of place, to go with the thong bikinis?
I suppose a dude could try clear polish on the nails, that’s acceptable, but might not fool anyone like colored would. Might be worth a try.
I don’t mind either of those flip flops. On occasion, I object to flip flops when they are loud and inappropriate. There’s nothing more annoying than listening to repetitive fwap-fwap-fwapping in a quiet place like a library or an office. It makes me stabby.
I also object to too long flip-flops where there is literally an inch or more of unused sandal behind the heel. It looks stupid when people wear shoes/sandals that don’t fit and, as a salesperson of shoes, it annoys me.
