I went with the significant other last weekend while she bought shoes. And realized that the way girls buy shoes is completely different from boys’ decision process. Yeah, I know you’ll be thinking I’m just stating the obvious, and I might be doing that. And again, this post is based on two data points – myself and the significant other. I conveniently extrapolate.
Fundamental theorem of shoes: The number of pairs of shoes a boy owns is small compared to the number of pairs of shoes a girl of the similar age/socio-economic stratum owns.
I don’t think I need to give any explanation for that. The rest of this post is a corollary.
Corollary 1: The amount of time a boy spends in buying one pair of shoes is significantly larger than the corresponding amount of time a girl spends.
Yeah, this might sound counterintuitive, which is why I’m writing this post. So I think there are several reasons for this, but they all follow from the fundamental theorem of shoes
1. If you have one pair of shoes of a certain kind, you can’t afford to make a mistake buying them. You need to go through a careful decision process, evaluating various pros and cons, before deciding on your perfect shoe.
2. Boys’ shoes need to multitask. For example, you will wear the same pair of black leather shoes to office, and to that random wedding reception. The same sneakers you wear to play football might be worn for a casual evening out. So each pair of shoes needs to serve several different purposes, so the search space comes down accordingly
3. The cost of going wrong is too high – if you have a policy to own a limited number of shoes, and you buy an ill-fitting shoe, you have to live with that (or throw with extreme guilt) for a very long time. This happened with my earlier pair of sneakers, with the unintended consequence that I went to the gym much less often than I’d planned to
4. The amount of time a boy spends in a particular shoe is much more than the amount of time a girl spends in a particular shoe. So it is important for boys that each and every shoe is absolutely comfortable and fits perfectly. Again increases search time.
Recently when I had to buy a pair of formal shoes for my engagement I drove Priyanka mad with the amount of time I took to decide. I visited several shops, tried out lots of shoes, walked around, walked out, visited more shops and so forth. And all this after I had decided I wanted a pair of brown shoes without laces.
Corollary 2: The average cost of a boy’s shoe “wardrobe” is comparable to the average cost of a girl’s shoe “wardrobe”
Yeah, unintuitive again I guess. But backed up by data. My shoes, on average, cost well over a thousand rupees. Priyanka’s shoes, on average, cost well under that. It’s a vicious cycle, and I don’t know where it starts. I want my shoes to last longer, so I want to buy shoes of better quality, so I end up spending more on them. Or it could be like I wanted my shoes to last longer precisely because they are expensive. But I’ll stick my neck out and say that all this stems from the fundamental decision of not wanting to wear too many pairs of shoes.
For a girl, the cost of going wrong with a shoe purchase is low, given the frequency with which she wears a particular shoe. Also her shoes don’t multitask, so she can afford to have a few pairs which are not exactly perfect fits, as long as they serve the purpose. She has this urge to shop for shoes, and with her monthly budget in mind she is naturally conditioned to not splurge on them.
So I was kinda horrified (not exactly, since this had happened a couple of times before) last weekend when Priyanka walked into a shop, picked up a pair of chappals from the shelf, dropped them to the floor, stepped into them for a few seconds and decided to buy them. They didn’t cost too much, so I guess the cost of going wrong was small, but I would’ve never done something like that.