#shoes?

The first I already had a pretty good sense of--popular in Germany, absolutely lambasted in North America, unclear about everywhere else in the world. What I have learned is that sandals + socks is a Look in Hungary, so Achilles, have at it.

The Birkenstocks is such a funnier one to me. Their reputation across the globe first and foremost is expensive, which is earned. I was told earlier today that they are the shoe of lesbians in the 90s. "Does she wear comfortable shoes" was once a sort of code for asking if a woman was gay, so yeah. Birkenstocks originally had a hard time getting a footing in the US market because they were so ugly, no shoe store would sell them. Thus, they were first sold in health food stores.

In the 2010s, I was wearing ten year old hand-me-down birkenstocks while doing some shopping in my college town when a local high school girl decided on the spot to make up a bullying song about me and my jesus shoes, which she reprised every time I walked past. It was mildly hurtful.

In choosing Birkenstocks for our dear Pat, I was thinking mainly how they have gone from a reputation of geeky to trendy and back again, how they are vaguely hipsterish (and he's the right age group to be one), how they are associated with city-dwelling, tree-hugging liberals, and how they last forever, so that if he did buy them in his peak hipster days, he still has them in his closet.

I was absolutely thrilled today to learn that some gay men in Europe have a Thing for guys in birkenstocks, finding them particularly hot, a notion that does not exist in the US whatsoever. Sorry, wearing Birkenstocks here will not pull anyone, socks or no.

@enokvirkow I TRIED AND THATS ALL IM GONNA SAY