I heard from someone a long time ago that you can tell a lot about a person from the shoes they wear. I wasn't until I started dating my boyfriend that I discovered the whole shoe game. He is the biggest "sneakerhead" I know. He owns more sneakers than I can count, and adding up the amount of money he’s spent on his shoes would total a large sum of cash. He’s introduced me to so many shoes and even bought me my very own pair of Huaraches. He never directly told me what it means to know a lot about a person from their shoes; I learned from observing his shoe craze. He isn’t obsessed, but I think he inches a little closer to obsessed with each pair of shoes he buys.

I was never really into shoes. I always looked down at my feet and was basically satisfied with the pair of shoes I was wearing. Whether it was an old pair of converse or glossy heels, I was fine with whatever fit the occasion. Shoes were just shoes to me. Whenever my boyfriend and I walk into Champs, Finish Line or Footlocker, however, the employees take a quick glance at our shoes before asking if we need any assistance. Now when I go out with him, especially to a shoe store, I feel just a tad bit insecure wearing my Chacos while he’s wearing his super cool new Ultra Boost.

I was shocked to find that people pay well over one or two hundred dollars for a pair of shoes. I found that a ridiculous amount of money, and I’m no cheapskate. Swindlers will buy a pair of shoes and sell them at an absurd retail price just to make a profit. Just this week, the Adidas released its Ultra Boost Multicolor: the shoes my boyfriend has been so excited to buy. I sat in front of the computer with my phone in my hand, trying over and over again to order the shoes for him while he was trying to order them at work. Within an hour, all the sizes had sold out and we never got his. I got to thinking; how many people must there be trying to get these overpriced sneakers for them to be sold out in an hour? I had sat there refreshing the page countless amount of times and we still didn’t get them. I know he was upset; he once told me it’s like gambling, because you get addicted and invest so much money into it, and that’s exactly what it’s like. The pressure and the excitement around shoes is so real. It baffles me to hear of a band selling out a concert in minutes, but shoes wiping out within an hour is equally crazy.

People will, in a way, give you respect for wearing a certain pair of shoes. You can walk down the street, and someone you don’t know will give you a head nod as if you know them because you’re wearing one of the latest sneakers. People might even compliment you. They look at you differently than other people — but this only goes for the people that actually pay attention to sneakers. Like I said, I never paid attention to a person’s shoes until my boyfriend got me into it. Now I find myself looking down at every person’s feet just to see if I can catch a pair of Yeezys or NMDs.

I love my boyfriend to death and I adore his interest in shoes; I really do. I think his collection of shoes is actually really nice, and I love his taste, but the times he gets down over losing his chance to buy a pair of shoes saddens me too. Both he and the rest of the world can get so attached to products. I can admit I'll get bummed over clothes or makeup I can’t get, but most of us have become too materialistic. I hope most of us at the end of the day can be thankful for what we have and pray for those who have less, because no pair of shoes is worth more than your loved ones.

All in all, you can’t really tell much about a person from their shoes besides their taste in shoes. Like the saying goes, though, before you criticize a man, walk a mile in their shoes. Most of us are too quick to judge when we take a look at a man’s shoes before we take a chance to walk in them.