Coming out of the barefoot closet

Tyler J L

Barefooters
Jun 27, 2016
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Des Moines, Iowa
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I never told a lot of my friends or family about my love for barefoot walking and I feel like if I told them they might think I'm weird or risking getting hurt or something. So what I want to know is were you nervous about telling people you know that you're a barefooter? If so, how did you get the courage to tell them?
 
My girlfriend knows I like to hike barefoot (and be barefoot in general), but no other family or friends do.
Just don't feel the need to tell them and have to answer the resulting questions and concerns.
 
I started out by sitting around at church (at events I had to bring the kids to during the week I still wear shoes for the Sunday AM service) with my shoes off but next to me. Then I just started arriving barefoot. Then they saw a picture of me barefoot on top of a mountain summit and the friends I went with kind of spread the word that I went barefoot. So I don't tell most of my friends, they just sort of find out. I do tell some of my closer friends and they all shrug and probably think "Yup, I always knew he was a little weird and this just proves it." But they are my friends so they accept me as I am.

I don't discuss my barefoot passion with the people at work, though I have mentioned I prefer to be barefoot at home and I surprised that many others do as well.

Don't worry about it, just be yourself.
 
That's a good thread title, Tyler. I'm sure many people can relate. I never cared about what others thought of my running barefoot. I even lost a "friend" over it. I will always stay true to myself first. If I am not true to me first, I cannot be true to others.
 
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Do you feel more balanced and grounded when you're barefoot? If so, then tell them that. How can they possibly find fault with that? Tell them not to worry, that you will wear appropriate, healthy footwear when needed. That will make them feel less "concerned" for your safety.
 
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Do you feel more balanced and grounded when you're barefoot? If so, then tell them that. How can they possibly find fault with that? Tell them not to worry, that you will wear appropriate, healthy footwear when needed. That will make them feel less "concerned" for your safety.
The only other thing is I don't want my family to discourage me to be a barefooter as well. Any ideas on that?
 
I don't think they can discourage you if you encourage them...using the right logic.
 
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I think mom is the hardest one to deal with. My mom doesn't let me go into her living room barefoot, she says it marks up the finish on her floor.

I don't think my mom likes me going barefoot in public. She tells her friends that I walk everywhere barefoot, I think it is to feel them out and do damage control if they have a negative reaction. I think sometimes they are not as worried about you, as they are what others will think and how that may reflect badly on her, the mom, in how she raised you. But as the reactions of her friends are not negative, or at least over the top negative, I think she is coming around. She may also think this is just a fad, which I'm glad to encourage and telling her I'm trying it out for a while, and I might mention at least a year.

Since it helps you relieve stress, I would focus on that issue along with other positive aspects that you find going barefoot does for you, like Barefoot TJ suggests. Acknowledge all her concerns about your safety. Yes, you can get cut, but . . . . Lastly, promise her you'll be careful and don't argue, you'll never win an argument with your mom.
 
So Tyler, working from the other side of the service provider coin (I am a fully certified DSP and currently work in that capacity) I feel it's my duty to inform you, though I suspect you already know, that as you are an adult, you have the right to wear or not wear whatever footwear you want to, and neither your parents or your service providers have the power to ask you not to go about your day barefoot unless a doctor that you see specifically perscribes that you wear shoes. Private businesses on the other hand may require this and there isn't really anything to be done.
 
So Tyler, working from the other side of the service provider coin (I am a fully certified DSP and currently work in that capacity) I feel it's my duty to inform you, though I suspect you already know, that as you are an adult, you have the right to wear or not wear whatever footwear you want to, and neither your parents or your service providers have the power to ask you not to go about your day barefoot unless a doctor that you see specifically perscribes that you wear shoes. Private businesses on the other hand may require this and there isn't really anything to be done.
And my service providers don't have trouble with me being barefoot. In fact some of them walked barefoot with me before
 
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It's more something I'd be worried about newer service providers having a problem with because they might see it as a liability and they may still be coming to terms with the limotations of what they don't have the rights to control about the time they spend with you. Just something to file away.
 
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It's more something I'd be worried about newer service providers having a problem with because they might see it as a liability and they may still be coming to terms with the limotations of what they don't have the rights to control about the time they spend with you. Just something to file away.
I get that. Though they never seemed to have trouble with walking barefoot with me.
 
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I am getting used to being the neighborhood oddity. An acquaintance at the gym told me that someone asked if he saw the Asian guy running around the lake barefoot. He responded that he worked out at the same gym with the guy (me!). I work out at my gym barefoot too! Though I do confess, after over a year and a half of barefoot running, barefoot working out at the gym, and general traipsing around the neighborhood barefoot, I do still have occasional anxieties with being different.