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It's nice to visit people in their homes occasionally. You do it often as a child, but as an adult you shouldn't stop doing it completely just because it's easier to meet in a bar or café. Having guests at home or being a guest creates a sense of friendship before you've even experienced anything else. There are certain etiquettes for such a home visit that are dictated by common sense. For example, you don't storm straight into the bedroom and sit on the bed whistling, or look in the fridge without asking. Such things are reserved for visiting parents; only they are allowed to do them.
A complicated hurdle, however, awaits everyone at the doorstep. As soon as you cross it, most people immediately feel a sense of self-consciousness about their own footwear. Closely followed by the question: "Oh, should I take my shoes off?" This is usually accompanied by a hand gesture that is meant to indicate that you are really able to do so immediately. The answer is often also a hand gesture, namely a waving dismissive gesture that is meant to say something like: Do we seem like people who have stuffy household rules? Spoken, it sounds like: "Oh, whatever you want, you can leave it on!" So the hosts talk bravely, thinking only a little about their whitewashed oak parquet and the light-colored carpets.
As often as this dialogue plays out the same way, it rarely brings about a genuine solution to the shoe question. This is the unresolved conflict at German doorsteps; there is simply a lack of a stable social attitude towards street shoes in homes. In other cultures the rules are clear: if you want in, you have to take your shoes off. In Muslim households, in Japan or Russia, the rule is: outside is dirty and hard, but inside is soft, clean and a living space in which heavy soles and the dust of the world have no place. It is also a symbolic disarmament that you practice as a guest there - by taking off your shoes you signal peaceful accommodation and leave behind the bandages with which you fight outside. As we all know, people in stockings pose little danger.
We don't have such a clear stance; there are just different factions. That makes it complicated. In Germany, a country with a stunted carpet culture, many apartments look as if they could be easily pressure-cleaned – tiles, natural stone, and washable paint on the floors and walls, plus furniture made of concrete or piano lacquer. But that doesn't necessarily mean they're allowed to get dirty. On the contrary, experience shows: the more Teflon-like people's furnishings are, the worse they are at dealing with spontaneous soiling, and the less credible their assurances that you can leave your shoes on are. As a guest, you have to sense how serious they are about this; often it's just rhetorical permission. Microbiology, by the way, backs up these strict removers – numerous studies have shown that the underside of even seemingly clean outdoor shoes is a bacterial amusement park.
And of course, very few Germans walk around their homes in outdoor shoes, but rather wear socks, bare feet, or certified slippers. But we are hesitant to demand this of guests. Taking off one's shoes in front of another is an act of a certain intimacy. The more formal the relationship with the person visiting, the more difficult it is to ask for it. You would never ask a priest, nor tradesmen or chimney sweeps, although it might be worthwhile in their case. You'd rather not ask a newly rich neighbor who's coming by for the first time, because the socks requirement seems homespun or even bourgeois. In any case, men are embarrassed to let other men take off their shoes and to see them in socks. Women also squirm before asking other women to do so. Because they are presumably part of an overall ensemble that needs to be protected, and you quickly become suspected of considering floor care more important than fashion. Not very flattering either.
A resounding "Take off your shoes!" feels intrusive, especially if you've invited people: Guests should feel comfortable and not be immediately harassed. A shifted mindset: In other cultures, taking off your shoes is a gesture of goodwill. Here, we want to do something nice for our guests by making things as easy as possible. For some, it's an honor to be invited. For Germans, it's an honor to be visited.
Parties or larger invitations represent an escalation of the problem. Here, it is even more important to assume that the guests have made themselves look beautiful from the inside out. If you then ask them to take off their shoes, you rob the evening attire of its foundation. And has a party in socks ever gotten going? Can people flirt with each other if they have to look awkwardly at each other's toes during breaks in speeches? No! On the other hand, especially during gravel season or when there are a lot of guests, it would be even more appropriate not to spend hours carrying everything back and forth in someone else's house that was just lying between the curb and the dog strip.
As a party guest, taking up the offer to leave your shoes on at the door usually feels perfectly right. But only until you realize that you are the only one in the group who has decided to do so. Then you have no choice but to quickly remove your boots on the way there, even at the risk of your socks not being prepared for this appearance. A little rule of thumb could perhaps be established here: If you are invited to a household with small children, taking off your street shoes is practically mandatory. After all, children move close to the ground and put a lot of things in their mouths. And in any case, your socks should always be in good enough condition that you could safely perform a handstand in front of a large group. Festivities in private homes sometimes take the funniest turns.
Eager hosts try to minimize the dilemma by offering guests slippers. In country houses, a separate basket of slippers of unclear provenance is often set aside for this purpose. "The floor is quite cold!" is something you have to say apologetically and gently push the basket towards the arriving guests. However, their enthusiasm for this change of footwear is usually limited. No one likes to put on slippers that look as if they were felted from mole fur and then worn in for forty years. For a time, it was considered brutally funny to offer guests funny slippers, so people in evening dress had to sit around the dining table in flamingo and tiger slippers. It's a not-so-subtle way of showing the intruders what you think of them.
No, having to take off shoes is humiliating enough; if you're offering slippers, they should be of exquisite taste. For this explosive moment, sophisticated female guests carry ballet flats in their handbags or similar solutions that allow for a certain residual dignity. Such gifts aren't common among men, and carrying around your own size 14 slippers simply has zero flair. It's certainly out of the question for a woman to bring shoes for her partner as a precaution: "Stefan, I've brought your brown slippers for you!" After a sentence like that, you might as well get yourself stuffed as an exhibit for the Federal Republic of Germany Museum. But men, if they anticipate the problem, at least have the option of choosing (or bringing) stockings that can withstand a certain degree of publicity—more vibrantly colored, coarser fabric, and patterned than perhaps usual.
The situation at German doors remains complicated. Diplomacy and sensitivity will continue to be required to behave appropriately. The only thing that's certain is that the less you have to discuss shoes and feet, the more naturally you take them off or put them on, the less stressful the rest of the visit will be.
süeddeutsche
