As usual, I should be reading.

[mintchoc]

Why do some people wear their shoes indoors?I can sort of understand the other side of the argument, but it still seems really weird to me. To be honest, I always thought that people wearing shoes indoors really only existed on TV, because everyone I know irl takes off their shoes inside their own house, and would do the same at a friend's place,

Comments

[say_o_kay]

LOL, I can't believe you wrote so much about wearing shoes indoors. xD Oh, you. ♥

I don't really have an opinion. I usually take my shoes off if people have carpets, but I hate wearing slippers that don't belong to me. I don't like the idea of wearing shoes other people have worn for ages.

[mintchoc]

The things that fascinate me! Lol, okay, I was just really surprised when I found out that this weird TV-people practice was, in fact, not just a TV thing xD.

Yeah, ack, not really a fan of slippers, but I'm more than happy to go padding around in my socks. Does that mean if people don't have carpets, there's a possibility you wouldn't take off your shoes? :o

[say_o_kay]

Yeah, I would consider leaving my shoes on. I don't like getting my socks dirty either though. D: It's either they let me keep by shoes on or I hope I was wearing socks that day so I won't have to wear someone else's slippers barefooted.

[mintchoc]

So like, walking around barefoot/in socks on uncarpeted floor = possibility of getting your feet/socks dirty? It's just presumed here that floors in households are okay/clean enough to walk on barefoot/with socks on, though the more Asian households would be more likely to offer you slippers, whether or not you're wearing socks to begin with.

Oh, and I meant to say in that first reply - I am as surprised as I was when I found out there was a RL version of Wooper!

[sura]

Man, I find stuff like this so fascinating. :D I love to see how different other people's habits are.

I live in the US and I never take my shoes off the moment I get inside. I either leave them outside if they're completely muddy/wet or I wear them until I get into my bedroom. Usually I take them off there, but sometimes I'm just so tired that I'll leave them on until my feet start to feel uncomfortable...

But the formality thing is something I get. If I have guests over or I'm at someone else's place without the intention of staying over the night, I leave them on.

[mintchoc]

This is really proving to be interesting! I didn't expect to find that so many of you guys live in places where keeping your shoes on in the house is acceptable and normal :O.

Is it really what the commenter said, then? - As in, there's no shoe rack or any special area near the actual entrance of your house (or anyone's house, I guess) for putting shoes so everyone just wears their shoes to their bedrooms to put them away? Because if so, I can see why it'd be considered less weird to walk around in shoes, if you're going to be walking down at least the hallway to your room in them anyway.

Oh wow, that's intriguing. That sort of mindset about the formality thing doesn't really exist here; you'd just be the odd one out if you kept your shoes on unless it were a super fancy dress-to-impress kind of formal gathering.

[honeypuffed]

"Australia doesn't have insulated or heated homes."
lol, wtf is this. one of the jingles we used to sing all the time as kids was for an insulation company haha. i'm pretty sure we (my family) actually have insulation, and we pull out the heaters when we want. where i am, it doesn't necessarily cold enough for us to bother (or we just deal lol) but certainly further south it gets cold in winter. "keeping your shoes on seems pretty logical" <- and this? we do have socks here, and slippers. WE MAY BE GIANTLY ISOLATED FROM THE WORLD, BUT WE'RE NOT COMPLETELY BEHIND.

as for taking off shoes, lmao, it really just depends on the household. we have tiles for the most part downstairs, so taking off shoes for us isn't too much of a thing. you wipe your shoes at the mat at the door, and it's not so bad. we have nice carpet in the living room though and for that i refuse to go on it with shoes on, and i don't like to wear my shoes upstairs either. i think i'm maybe the only picky one, but idk, i don't like wearing shoes in the house in general

[mintchoc]

lolol, i guess the one year said commenter spent in australia just didn't involve insulation or turning on heaters and thus gave them the impression that such things just didn't exist! LOL, oh jess ♥. yeah, i'm not so sure it's really because of temperature, since socks and slippers should be pretty common worldwide and are generally more comfortable to lounge around in

[honeypuffed]

at other people's places i have no real problem taking my shoes off, i mean, i guess as long as it's someone i know. i suppose if say, idk, it's a friend of a friend/parent or something, and we're just stopping by, i can see where the formality thing could come into it, in which case i'd probably wait outside anyway lolol so that's slightly irrelevant. but if someone requests i take them off then i'll do it, no questions asked. for me i figure, you know, fair enough because it's the choice of the owners of the house, but when people are like ? about it, that doesn't make sense to me. on the other side, for our house my general response to people who ask if they should take shoes off is: if you want to, just don't wear them on the carpet /PROJECTING

[mintchoc]

so like, there're people who are kind of reluctant to take them off if the owner requests that they do so? i guess there's suddenly the question of individual preference if there's a choice between taking them off or leaving them on :o. if you tell others that it's their choice in your house, but you yourself take your shoes off, do they tend to follow suit, or is there no correlation between what they do and what you do?

[naruel]

I think it just depends on the family/person. I don't wear shoes in my apartment, since we have carpet. But when I was living with my parents, we wore our shoes inside the house, since we had hardwood floor. But I do think that wearing shoes inside your home is more common here in the States than it is in other countries.

[mintchoc]

Hrmm, it seems like there's a common thread of common sense going, where carpet = no shoes, for obvious cleanliness reasons. But does that not apply to hardwood floors? Please explain this "since we had hardwood floor" thing to me, lol. Are you saying that you'd naturally wear shoes on hardwood floor because it's dirtier than your carpet, on which you wouldn't walk with shoes, or something? Or because hardwood floor feels colder to unshod feet? Or because it's more comfortable to walk on uncarpeted floor with your shoes on? /CURIOUS

[icemint]

lol I think it's entirely based on preference. I know people who don't take off their shoes in the house and there isn't a specific reason for it. But, fun entry. :)

[mintchoc]

do you? people here? because i never have, lol, so i thought it was just universal. ;__; save me from my ignorance