new member, would like to introduce myself

Hello all.

I hope it's ok to do my intro here instead of the main intro forum. This barefoot forum is why I'm here so I feel more comfortable here.

I'm a married guy, 40 years old, in North Carolina, USA.

As a kid I was barefoot pretty much all the time in warm weather when I was around home, playing outside, in the woods, riding my bike, playing in the creek or whatever I was doing. I prided myself on being able to walk on pretty much any surface with no pain or even the slightest discomfort. Around the age of 12, I suffered a fairly severe cut on the bottom of my right big toe. The cut was to the bone and took 5 or 6 stiches to close. From then on I wore shoes all the time when outside.

As I grew older I would rarely go barefoot outside, though I would drive barefoot fairly often since I loved the feeling and felt I had more control of the car.
Fast forward to about two months ago. I usually spend several hours online every night and even though I would wear socks my feet were always cold, it seemed. Then a funny thing happened. I went barefoot a time or two, mostly out of laziness in not putting on socks. I noticed that it seemed like my feet didn't get as cold or even cold at all. So I tried going barefoot more and noticed that in fact my feet didn't get cold and I began always going barefoot while sitting here at the computer.

Then about a month ago I was searching the internet for information on whether driving barefoot was illegal in any states, due to the question coming up on another forum that I frequent. In my search I ran across a site dedicated to barefootin' that had tons of information and I was intrigued by what I read. At the time I was only barefootin' while inside the house but decided that I would try it outside while at home.

I had always loved the feeling of going barefoot in the grass and loved having that feeling once again. At the time it was still pretty cold here and I found that when I went outside at night to do something, letting the dogs out, etc. that instead of my feet feeling cold, that it felt great. It was especially exhilirating once I came back inside and felt the sensation of my feet warming back up. I was surprised at how fast my feet started toughening up. After about two weeks I could easily walk around without feeling any tenderness at all and only once in a while would anything hurt, like when sometimes stepping on a rock while walking on the concrete driveway. I began driving barefoot most of the time, even on very cold mornings on the way to work and it would be almost euphoric for my feet to be free ... but then I had to come down and put on those confining socks and shoes to hit the office.

I've had a few more barefoot experiences to share since I rediscovered barefootin' but this intro has already ran way too long so I'll shut up now.

If you made it this far, thanks for reading my ramblings and I look forward to hanging out here.

Take care.

 

Welcome to the forum!

Just wondering, how did you sustain such a deep cut under your big toe when you were twelve? Also how does your wife feel about your barefooting? Does she support you in it?

 

I'll add my two barefeet worth. welcome to the forum, this is a really friendly place.

again welcome

 

Welcome to the forum. My posts usually run long, too! You'll see. You describe very well what happens to me, and how it feels, and I live a long way north of you. It's amazing what we can adapt to. Not only adapt to, but to have it actually feel great. Not counting the serious cold we get, which is not to be messed with. But that's a whole 'nother subject.

 

Thanks for the welcome!

When I cut my toe, a friend and I were running around in the woods. We ran across the lower end of a gulley that emptied onto a small flood plain near the creek. Years before, the gulley had been used as a dump and some of the stuff had washed down onto the plain which had a fairly thick layer of sand over it. Unknown to us was that there was the frame of an old gas powered push mower laying upside down in the sand with the rusty edge all the way around only sticking up about a half inch out of the sand so that it was pretty much invisible amongst the leaves and other debris.

I stepped on the rusty edge of the frame just as I was making a quick change of direction with all my weight on my right foot and it cut into the underside of my toe right at the knuckle. My foot slid across the edge for 12-14 inches. Ouch!! Needless to say, I left a long trail of blood through the woods getting back to the house.

Enough of that!
I find myself wishing that the winter cold would stick around for a while. I've found that the colder it is outside, the more I like barefootin and the better it feels.

As for my wife, she's commented that she thinks it is a little strange that I want to go barefoot outside these days but she hasn't said too much. But that will most likely change when I try to expand my barefooting beyond the house, yard and driving.

 

It was a crisp 42 degrees F this morning and it felt so good to be barefoot on my drive in to work.
If only I could go barefoot at work but, even though I'm in my office most of the time, it's an industrial/shop setting and I do have to go out in those areas from time to time so I think management would frown on it.

 

footinbare, welcome to hip forums. you will meet some wonderful people on the various forums. have fun posting.

 

Wow! I hadn't even seen this post when I made this one! Great to see other barefooters making their introduction on this forum as well; now I don't feel quite so out-of-place not using the intro forum.

Great to hear that you're getting back into it, FootinBare! As you've discovered, there's alot of great information out there debunking the rumors and outright lies about our lifestyle. I'm looking forward to the opportunity to continue to promote barefooting and help recidivists such as yourself to re-discover the joy!

 

Thanks for the welcome seohsreven and welcome to you also.

I'm loving it and it probably sounds strange but the colder and wetter it is the better I like barefootin'. It's just such a great sensory experience that you miss out on if wearing shoes.

 

So very true. I often make the anology of wearing shoes all day = wearing boxing gloves all day. Man, I feel sorry for the shoddies...