Barefoot Holiday Shopping

Anyone doing their gift or tree shopping barefoot? Any commercial horror stories to relate ("I'm sorry. Shoes are required in this store. It's for your own safety.")? Protracted stares also qualify.

 

This time of year I'd only think of the cold, pine needles, broken glass ornaments and everybody pushing a wheeled cart. And all of it aimed at my feet. No thanks.

Unless, there's some other point to this whole barefoot thing. Clearly I don't get it.

 

Shopping for shoes

 

i think the main point is so you can come on hipforums and say "people are mean to me because i'm barefoot."

 

Naaaa, they're mean to me because I'm a dick. That's good enough for me!

 

Now that we've heard from the kids, are there any grown-ups who'd like to respond?

 

Now that we've heard from the kids, are there any grown-ups who'd like to respond?

 

ok, grownup response: i was barefoot and someone looked down at my feet for a second. why are barefooters treated like second class citizens!?!?!?

 

Because people are intolerant of difference. Going around minus a routine part of clothing will draw attention. Like a guy without a shirt. Difference = worse.

 

People who take the time to contribute to this section of HipForums who are appreciative of shoes, and who wear them the vast majority of the time = different.

 

That is precisely what this forum is NOT about. That's why your comments are usually irrelevant. I rest my case; you really should rest yours.

 

Intolerant is an interesting perspective. Particularly when the "difference" seems entirely manufactured for the express purpose of generating the very intolerance being lamented. A kind of miniature manufactured crisis. Will there soon be protests? Looting (not the shoe stores of course)?

What are the hate crimes associated with this? Do people hold you down and wash your feet? Toss slippers at you? Hang you by your toes? Sorry, but not getting into a restaurant isn't a hate crime. Is there any sort of profit to be associated with this? Some sort of PUSH coalition maybe? A way to extort money from businesses who "discriminate" against feet?

Also, seems like "kids" would be more inclined to humor this sort of thing. I saw Hendrix on stage and I have no idea what you're on about. I remember being refused admission to a theater because I was wearing flip flops, in the 60s. So again, this seems like a manufactured gripe for no reason other than to serve itself.

 

First off, I don't think it's up to one member to obdurately state what a forum is or isn't for. One of the main functions of a forum is to act as a place within which debate can perpetually happen (the clue is in the name). If you don't want to define, discuss and debate, go and create a Facebook group or a blog or something, where narrow conditions can be applied, and responses circumscribed.

Secondly, without shoes and wearers, there IS no barefoot movement, as you seem to want to define it (framed as it is in terms of 'comparings' and 'contrastings' with the 'shod world'). And there is something weirdly, enervatingly circular about the way you and some others define your position (which I think is divisive and factionalising). It's hard to put a finger on, but as I've said before, for all of the direct talk and implied hopes about wanting to see the populace at large discard their shoes, I don't think that's what y'all ultimately want (supposing it was ever a realistic possibility). If it actually started to happen, that ego or fetish-feeding sense of individuality would be swallowed up, and you'd become one of the ordinary - shoeless! - millions. It seems to mean so much to you and others like you to go around without shoes within the midst of the many who expressly don't go around like that, how could it mean as much, if thousands were to follow suit?

And so it goes on: hinting at wishing to see a national/international 'barefoot movement,' while deriding shoe-wearers (as though they meaningfully constitute one unified group!) for their intolerance in the meantime ("He looked at me funny" - regular joe in split-second reflex reaction to unconventional appearance/apparel choice shock!), while all the time not really wanting, deep down, the big sea-change to happen.

 

Christ---this is all so roaringly off topic. Fuck it.

 

Christ---this is all so roaringly off topic. Fuck it.

 

Christ---this is all so roaringly off topic. Fuck it.

 

I think this place benefits from people singing from different hymn-sheets chipping in. We actually get threads with a bit of substance, that way (in terms of numbers of replies, or length of reply). Run the pro-shoe barefooters out of town, and you're likely back to a steady stream of gnomic little threads gurgling on about squelching through some leaves or a row of cow pats while wearing bare feet, which either drum up no response, or a desultory one, at most (and there were a LOT of those before the HipForums rejig). This place seems intermittently lively these days; the 'non-purists' are helping to make it lively. hillman and I get on fine, despite our differing approach to the question of leg-ends and the outdoors. Proves we can agree to disagree, and still exchange replies with each other!

 

I am perturbed by the tone of this thread. I rarely bother with Facebook any more because the groups I belong to on there (dealing with completely different unrelated subjects) have become abusive slanging matches and rounds of name-calling, instead of discussing the topic in hand in a friendly way. This thread is showing the first signs that this board could head the same way. Frankly I rather like people who "gurgle on about squelching through leaves or cow pats". If nothing else it reassures me that there are others who like to do this and that I am therefore not completely insane. If this board gets invaded by people who don't get this, and then show intolerance to those of us who do, I am no longer interested.

 

Anyway to answer the question I never get round to my shopping till the last minute. However I am still going barefoot, despite the cold, and yes, those protracted stares abound. But hey, fuck 'em!

 

Thank you, Charlie35! Of course there are those who think barefooters looney...that's all accepted...so such people are entitled to their opinion. But don't go ruining a BAREFOOT FORUM with contrary remarks about how unsafe, unappealing, or ethically questionable it is perceived to be. Don't like chocolate? Fine! But let us chocolate lovers have our little roundabout.