As usual, I should be reading.
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, Asian or not, no questions asked. It's not even an issue I'd give a second thought to - I take off my shoes at the entrance of a residence so that I don't dirty their floors with my traipsing around and whatnot; it'd be really weird for me not to take off my shoes at someone else's house unless I'm just waiting near their door or something. To flop on your bed with your shoes on was something that I'd thought was mythical, but apparently it really happens ._.? Idk, that seems rather unsanitary and uncomfortable to me :/.
But maybe it's a regional thing? I hear it's more common in the US/? than it is here, and apparently there's some kind of etiquette thing going on that I'm not entirely sure I get. Something about feeling too informal being seen without your shoes? And then there was something about it being too much of a hassle to get in and out of your shoes all the time. Personally, I've never found getting my shoes off that much of a hassle to just walk around someone's house with them on :/. Hm, idk. What about you guys?
We wipe our shoes before entering our home so that any muck on them comes off.
Your profile says you live in Australia. I lived there for a year and the household norms are a little different than Canada:
- Australia doesn't have insulated or heated homes. Generally keeping cool is the problem so on the few times it gets cold the house is the same temperature as the outdoors, i.e. COLD. So keeping your shoes on seems pretty logical. Canadians have heating and insulation and even if your boots were pristine your feet would really get too hot walking around the house in the winter.
- Australians get rain sure but winter is something else altogether. Snow isn't just snow - it's snow and mud and sand and salt from the roads. If you see an uncleaned bootmat at the end of the winter it's coated in a thick crust of dirty salt. No way would you want that in your house.
- Many Australian homes (not all) have tile floors as these are easy to keep clean if you're wearing your shoes around but they're cold and hard to stand on in stocking feet. So it's more appealing to wear shoes.
- Canadian houses usually have a dedicated spot to put shoes by the front door. If you're not used to taking your shoes off, you don't have anywhere to put them by the door, ergo it seems awkward to take them off by the door. By the same token, no one in Canada keeps their day to day shoes in their closet so it would seem odd to wear them into the bedroom as you'd have nowhere to put them. This is sort of a self-fulfilling situation.
- In Canada and much of the northern parts of the US people wear boots in the winter which aren't exactly as comfortable as a pair of casual shoes for hanging around the house. And people tend to keep the same shoe-doffing habits year-round.
Er, yeah. Perhaps there'd be a difference if it wasn't common for your shoes to be wet/gross from the weather conditions outside when you come in?
I HAVE NO IDEA, I've just always wondered...!
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, Asian or not, no questions asked. It's not even an issue I'd give a second thought to - I take off my shoes at the entrance of a residence so that I don't dirty their floors with my traipsing around and whatnot; it'd be really weird for me not to take off my shoes at someone else's house unless I'm just waiting near their door or something. To flop on your bed with your shoes on was something that I'd thought was mythical, but apparently it really happens ._.? Idk, that seems rather unsanitary and uncomfortable to me :/.
But maybe it's a regional thing? I hear it's more common in the US/? than it is here, and apparently there's some kind of etiquette thing going on that I'm not entirely sure I get. Something about feeling too informal being seen without your shoes? And then there was something about it being too much of a hassle to get in and out of your shoes all the time. Personally, I've never found getting my shoes off that much of a hassle to just walk around someone's house with them on :/. Hm, idk. What about you guys?
We wipe our shoes before entering our home so that any muck on them comes off.
Your profile says you live in Australia. I lived there for a year and the household norms are a little different than Canada:
- Australia doesn't have insulated or heated homes. Generally keeping cool is the problem so on the few times it gets cold the house is the same temperature as the outdoors, i.e. COLD. So keeping your shoes on seems pretty logical. Canadians have heating and insulation and even if your boots were pristine your feet would really get too hot walking around the house in the winter.
- Australians get rain sure but winter is something else altogether. Snow isn't just snow - it's snow and mud and sand and salt from the roads. If you see an uncleaned bootmat at the end of the winter it's coated in a thick crust of dirty salt. No way would you want that in your house.
- Many Australian homes (not all) have tile floors as these are easy to keep clean if you're wearing your shoes around but they're cold and hard to stand on in stocking feet. So it's more appealing to wear shoes.
- Canadian houses usually have a dedicated spot to put shoes by the front door. If you're not used to taking your shoes off, you don't have anywhere to put them by the door, ergo it seems awkward to take them off by the door. By the same token, no one in Canada keeps their day to day shoes in their closet so it would seem odd to wear them into the bedroom as you'd have nowhere to put them. This is sort of a self-fulfilling situation.
- In Canada and much of the northern parts of the US people wear boots in the winter which aren't exactly as comfortable as a pair of casual shoes for hanging around the house. And people tend to keep the same shoe-doffing habits year-round.
Er, yeah. Perhaps there'd be a difference if it wasn't common for your shoes to be wet/gross from the weather conditions outside when you come in?
I HAVE NO IDEA, I've just always wondered...!