Shoe Shopping

This post was originally drafted on 8 June 2007. At the time I was a perpetual grad student, living with some fantastic roommates in Utah, and had just given up on being interested in a guy who was very much not interested in me. (Fie!)

Once a roommate expressed "I'll be married in a few years." Another replied, "I'd really like to be married on 31 Dec 2009." Is marriage like a goal? You set a day and find the first fodder appropriate to making the goal? Deadlines and goals are certainly not my forte, yet seems like putting the minivan before the baby. . . or something. Yet, so often in Utah, LDS culture it seems to work exactly that way.

I'll spend years looking for a new pair of shoes - the right size, the right style, the right price. In late 2005, I accidentally ruined a pair of black flats. I looked for months and never found a pair - of black flats - deemed worthy of my feet. A year later I was needed business-casual attire for a national conference and thus had to set a deadline. The night before my flight I went to Walmart and spent $6 on the only pair of black flats they sold in a size 10./p>

The thing with a shoe deadline was effective. I ended up with a pair of black flats that served in the capacity I needed: black, flat, unremarkable, and not entirely ugly. They also were at a price I was willing to pay. Unfortunately, they were entirely ill-fitting and created several, painful blisters on my feet. The only comfort was the fact I could throw the things away and make more room in my luggage for free swag. (Though I didn't do that. Ill-fitting shoes are better then no shoes at all.)

The lessons in my shoe shopping economics are simple. I am both stingy and particular when setting my criteria for an acceptable pair of shoes. An urgent situation decreases my expected quality of the shoes, but does not effect the price I am willing to pay for the shoes. (That is to say I'll take a $6 pair of ill-fitting, plastic, Wal-mart shoes before shelling out $150 for an adorable, perfect pair of Nordstrom shoes.)

Now, if shopping for men were like shopping for shoes, the applied lesson would likewise be simple. First, I need to feel like I'm in an urgent situation to acquire a man. Second, grab the first guy in my size at Walmart. What. Isn't Walmart known for the quality of its customers? Plenty of people sure make the store a happening place for group dates. (Seriously. I don't even consider Utah so boring a place that it merits dressing up and have my car oil changed while my date and I window shop in the snack goods and jewelry aisles.)

I suppose the real lesson would be I need to stop trying to find the perfect pair of shoes for under $20 and just admit that they're all over $70. In regards to men, maybe I do need to stop trying to find the sort of guy I think is worth being eternally hitched to and just admit that my available selection make take a breaking in period.

I just really can't say that I'm being all that unreasonable in my expectations of either.

Now I'm at 2 August 2010. I'm now graduated, living with an incredible husband in Texas, and, well, married to aforementioned incredible husband. (Who, incidentally, is well acquainted with the roommate of prior mention not-into-me-guy. It's a small world.)

The trouble with that comparison is that my former ideal qualities of a shoe were low cost and low expectations of appearance whereas I was often told that I expected too much of a potential beau. With shoes, my standards were so low that nothing existed. With men, my standards were allegedly so high that no one existed. It was a clunky simile trying to express that my frustration in shopping for shoes was very much like my frustration in 'shopping' for a guy.

Fortunately, in the past 3 years I managed to find the perfect pair of black shoes for business casual wear and find a perfect-ish man to marry. (I will never consider him "perfect" because he's not, but he is perfect for me. Awwww, all sappy and true.)

It turns out the perfect pair of "black flats" were not flat. They're a 1.5", sturdy heel with a bit of pretty hardware on the front. Mama-hona purchased them for me later in 2007 for somewhere between $40 and $80. I've literally walked miles in them to and from campus, and they've never given me a single blister that I can recall. They have since been re-heeled twice and are expected to go in for another new set of heels and new soles in a few months. I'm always surprised when I'm still getting compliments on what cute shoes they are.

The lesson there is that great shoes are worth searching for, but you've got to be willing to pay the price for them. I also learned that great shoes will earn their keep in price if they're designed to be repaired. (Unlike Walmart shoes which are practically designed to be disposable.)

It also turns out that the perfect-ish man exceeds all my expectations. He's much better match for me than I every would have dared hope for. I have no single, valid complaint about him. (An example of an "invalid" complaint is that he doesn't separate the light laundry from the dark laundry. He puts the clothes in a laundry basket and he frequently starts the washing machine! How can I complain about the separation of clothes when he often does the laundry on his own initiative?) There has been a bit of an adjustment period - we're both accustomed to having things "our way." However, we really haven't experienced the level of adjustment friction often associated with newlyweds.

The lesson there is that a great guy is worth setting a deadline for - he's was definitely worth waiting on. (Though he'd argue that he was the one waiting for me since it took three too many years for my to finish grad school and move close enough to him to meet him.) I also like to think that getting a husband that I mesh so well with is a good investment.

Actually, now that I think about it, there is more to the shoes shopping and men comparison than I even thought a few paragraphs ago. With the black shoes, I was looking for a certain level of quality but expecting the purchase to fit the constraints of my set budget. With the man, I was looking for a certain level of quality but expecting the acquisition of such to fit in the constraints of my calendar. Three years ago, I complained that I didn't want to set a deadline and take the first reasonable suitable man to the temple, yet I really was complaining that I'd invested years into the social scene shopping without any matrimonial results.

Let's say the final result is that high quality shoes and high quality men are out there for the finding, but you've got to be willing to pay the price (be it dollars or time) to obtain.

Still, what remains of the single-girl logic in the back of my brain says that every year a new batch of shoes will always arrive in the stores whereas the only "new batch" of men arriving on the scene are younger, and younger, and therefore more likely unsuitable. I guess the lesson I learned does have the rosy glow marriage applied to it. Oh well. I'm just super-pleased that I'm now blessed with great black shoes and a dear husband.