Just Being Comfortable

Yesterday I wore shoes for the longest time in I don’t know when: 6 hours or so. I was at my nephew’s wedding, first at the church and then at the reception.

I supposed I could have flouted convention and done it barefoot, but on the other hand, it wasn’t my day, it was the bride’s (and groom’s). Also, bare feet just don’t quite go along with a full suit, in my opinion (even though bare hands seem to work just fine).

One thing that felt really odd was driving with shoes on from the church to the reception.

I haven’t worn shoes for driving in about forever. In fact, usually when I have had to wear them, I took them off for any driving. This time I just didn’t, and it felt really weird. And, frankly, rather unsafe. I just couldn’t feel what I was doing with the pedals. But we got there safely, anyways.

If you’ve been to any weddings you have no doubt noticed that the women are usually the ones to remove their shoes. They’ve got new, fancy, mega-heeled shoes just for the wedding, and of course the shoes kill their feet. Thus, when it comes time for dancing and the like, off come the shoes. Somehow that’s not much of an option for men (though, of course, like so much of this, that is a self-imposed restriction). But it seems that for some reason, formality requires discomfort.

I kept mine on for quite a while, but then at one point, pretty late in the festivities, I had to head out to me car to get something, and I took advantage of that to shed my shoes.

Not too many people noticed, I think. It was later and the room I returned to was rather dark. The groom’s father, my brother-in-law, did notice, and he remarked that he was just about ready to take his off, too. (He was wearing the rentals to go with the tuxedo.) But he didn’t. The only other guy I saw shoeless was my 9-year old nephew, who also had been wearing barely-used shoes that were killing him.

Regarding the women who took off their shoes, I noticed a new trend. A lot of them then put on flip-flops. Obviously, they had thought things through ahead of time and made the conscious decision that they would be taking off the uncomfortable shoes at some point. But they also were uncomfortable with the idea of going barefoot. It’s not as if the place was the least be unsafe. It almost is as if the greater acceptability of flip-flops in public means that they have become the choice instead of just getting fully comfortable and going barefoot.