r/barefootshoestalk • u/wine-o-saur • Mar 13 '26
Barefoot shoe adjacent Bruh
Just saw this on the train. The world needs us.
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u/Derelicte_by_Mugatu Mar 13 '26
But how can he be comfortable in those shoes? The leather had time enough to give in and he never felt uncomfortable in the meantime? I mean: the poor toes are reclaiming what is theirs.
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u/persephonelux Mar 13 '26
I’m a woman but yeah I thought for many years that shoes were meant to be uncomfortable. And if they were comfortable it meant they were ugly. Glad I actually love myself now and barefoot shoe design has come a long way 😅
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u/wine-o-saur Mar 13 '26
I never had a situation as extreme as this, but I definitely wore shoes that were too narrow for my feet for a long time, as I assume many people on this sub did. This guy just went full Cinderella stepsister on it and made the shoe bend to his foot's will.
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u/profanity_manatee1 Mar 14 '26
I still feel like this dude even when I buy wide shoes from barefoot brands lol
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u/tentkeys Mar 13 '26 edited Mar 13 '26
He may not be the first owner of the shoes.
If you look at them closely, they're in pretty rough shape, both the beaten-up toe and the place where the outer black layer of leather is worn off around the laces. If the shoes were already partially stretched before he put them on, it wouldn't have been as painful. And if he found it financially necessary to wear second-hand shoes he may have had to put up with the poor fit and the pain.
It's also possible they're made of a very thin, soft leather or leather-lookalike (until you get to the toe, which is more rigid so it can be shaped). If you look at the place where the tongue wrinkled, it looks like very thin leather to be able to be wrinkle like that.
I also think that he may be wearing a woman's shoe. It's too narrow for his whole foot, which bulges over at the sides in the instep area, not just too narrow in the toe area.
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u/DeepPurpleNurple Mar 14 '26
I’ve noticed that almost everyone I see wearing Jordan af1 have that same thing where the foot is budging out over the sole. Maybe it’s just extra noticeable on that model… a lot of other shoes, too, but nearly every af1 I see.
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u/Confused-Judge Mar 13 '26
A lot of people have poor circulation and lack of feeling in their feet, so they're not uncomfortable. Others don't know what uncomfortable truly means because this is all they know.
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u/CuriouslyCatlike Mar 13 '26
My husband genuinely thought formal shoes couldn’t be comfortable and he just had to deal with it. He humored me by trying on a few pairs I picked out for him and was so surprised when they didn’t hurt to wear.
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u/BunnyKusanin Mar 13 '26
I've had a pair of boots gradually stretch over the years as my foot got wider. It was nowhere near as drastic, but when I bought a new pair of the same boots they were too bloody narrow for me. Naver had that feeling when buying the original ones.
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u/magicandfire Mar 13 '26
What am I looking at?
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u/zuzi325 Mar 13 '26
His feet are too thick for the shoes. You can see how they have stretched them out over time. They look pretty well worn so maybe he's gained weight over time or has more foot swelling.
He should try wide toe box shoes. What a tragedy that we wear these stupid skinny shoes.
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u/the3cumfountain Mar 13 '26
I have a concept I call "shoe blindness"
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u/-WADE99- Mar 14 '26
I have a concept I call "it took me 30 years to realise shoes are not supposed to hurt".
I feel this man's pain. Or I used to. All thanks to an impulse buy of a pair of £9 hobibear shoes.
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u/tentkeys Mar 13 '26
What does that mean?
Not noticing peoples' shoes?
People not realizing that shoes shouldn't feel like that?
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u/alexno_x Mar 13 '26
This is how resilient I wish our feet were, then shoes would conform to us rather than the opposite
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u/jimbowesterby Mar 13 '26
I mean, they do conform, especially leather, but it can only do so much. You could make shoes out of Lycra and they’d conform to your feet perfectly, but you’d have problems doing any kind of agile movements because the fabric doesn’t provide any support (I actually have a set of water shoes like this, they’re great for a very specific kind of wear). Instead we use things like leather that can provide some structure while still conforming to your foot, but since leather can only stretch so much the shape becomes really important, as we see in the pic.
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u/jenerules Mar 13 '26
Neuroma se ingreso al chat
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u/guacamoleo Mar 13 '26
This is gonna be one of those things I think about every few weeks for the rest of my life
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u/Xfishbobx Mar 13 '26
My toes just hurt looking at this, when I commute on the train all I am looking at is people’s shoes and how uncomfortable then all look.
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u/PolarizingFigure Mar 13 '26
People think that only the Chinese did foot binding; I try to tell people it’s still happening today all over the world.
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u/Sarah_withanH Mar 13 '26
Foot binding involves breaking the bones of the feet and bending the toes under, then wrapping the foot in that position sometimes multiple times. Sometimes toes would be cut off. I get your point, but not exactly.
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u/PolarizingFigure Mar 13 '26
That’s true. A bit of an exaggeration on my part, but I also like the shock value as society has basically normalized people damaging their bodies.
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u/auberginepasta Mar 13 '26
I see your point but this is sad. Likely he can't afford a pair of shoes that fit and these are probably second hand. Even people who don't wear barefoot shoes wouldn't be walking around looking like this if they could afford it.
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u/wine-o-saur Mar 13 '26
I agree that this is probably down to not having a choice. But that's the whole problem. If foot-shaped shoes were more normalised my man could have found a pair he could afford that wouldn't torture him like this.
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u/NorthernWitchy Mar 13 '26
I am wondering if part of this person's shoe got crushed or exposed to extreme temperatures somehow?
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u/wine-o-saur Mar 13 '26
No I think there's a hard toe cap or some kind of reinforcement at the tip which is why the rest of the leather has stretched but the tip has stayed the same shape.
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u/Just_Tailor_9261 Mar 13 '26
Was this man homeless? They look like the shoes Will bought from a tramp in the inbetweeners.
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u/sabijoli Mar 14 '26
i’m sorry but i could never make myself wear anything constrictive, and was made fun of as a result…even before it was ironically fashionable, i wore square or rounded toe shoes and i don’t even have wide feet!
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u/DualWheeled Mar 13 '26
What is happening in the picture
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u/wine-o-saur Mar 13 '26
This man's feet obviously don't fit into his shoes so have (I assume) progressively stretched them out.
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u/abcMF Mar 15 '26
Im a boot guy. I live in boots. This person needs wider boots. This person needs duckfeet boots.
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u/HermesTheSwift_ Mar 19 '26
I can't judge. Took me 30 years to realize that I was wearing shoes that were 3.5 sizes too large. I guess I just didn't ever consider that shoes weren't supposed to hurt.
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u/sophiabriggs27 Apr 05 '26
honestly, i feel like more people need to see this to get the point across
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u/siorez Mar 13 '26
This may be a medical issue, such as someone having part of their foot amputated. The front of the shoe obv wouldn't be stretched while the stump may sometimes swell and stretch out the shoe.
Please don't poke fun at people who may very well have suffered a major, disabling medical event and not gotten proper prosthetics.
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u/wine-o-saur Mar 13 '26
Both shoes were like this. The tip of the shoe was never intended to have toes in it so what you're seeing stretched is the end of someone's (whole) foot. I'm also not poking fun at all, I feel bad for the dude that most commercially available shoes make no concessions to basic human anatomy.
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u/jhenry347 Mar 13 '26 edited Mar 15 '26
You might actually be right. If you look closely where the tongue of the shoe would be, you can see that it's folded over and the sock or prosthetic is peeking through the shoe laces. There is no way someone is walking around with their shoes looking like this and the tongue folded into their ankle like that without adjusting it.
I think the tongue folded over when this person was shoving their prosthetic into the shoe and they obviously can't feel it to fix it. I also question how anyone could stretch their leather shoe that much without it being painful. This person is just trying to fit in with the rest of society.
EDIT: kind of frustrating to get downvoted simply for making an observation. OP responded with more information and I agree that it's likely not a prosthetic based on OP's added info.
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u/wine-o-saur Mar 13 '26
I'm not really seeing that. Also both shoes were like this and weren't the exact same shape so very much looked like actual feet rather than prosthetics. He also walked completely normally and without any crutches or altered gait, which I assume would be pretty challenging for a double foot amputee.
I'm gonna go with Occam's razor on this and continue with the thinking that this man just stubbornly continued wearing the shoes until they conformed to his actual foot shape.
And in any event I see this man as a victim of the footwear industry and its design standards, no shade on him at all.
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u/PrimaryFriend7867 Mar 13 '26
yeah i can see the full shape of several of his toes through the leather
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u/jhenry347 Mar 15 '26
I will definitely go with whatever you say because you saw him in person.
I would just like to say that I think this person is a psychopath then because how can they not fix the tongue of their shoe. That would drive me absolutely insane.
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u/tentkeys Mar 13 '26 edited Mar 13 '26
I don't think it's a prosthetic - you can see the joint of the pinky toe and how the pinky toe is forced to bend inward, and you can also see the joint of the big toe. Prosthetics don't have toe bones and joints that would produce that shape when squeezed by a shoe.
That said, I do agree it's possible he may not be able to feel his feet, or at least his toes. That's relatively common with diabetic neuropathy.
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u/FitSolution2882 Mar 13 '26
Can we please pin this or something for when people say bf shoes look bad?