You want to fall in love with a shoe, go ahead. A shoe can’t love you back, but, on the other hand, a shoe can’t hurt you too deeply either. And there are so many nice-looking shoes.
-Allan Sherman
*
“Ugh,” he says, frowning at his phone.
“What is it?” I ask.
He shakes his head. And the wordlessness is my cue.
“Back burnered again?” I say.
He nods. “That’s a good term for it.”
This is the third time she’s cancelled on him with no notice. At least. It’s possible that I’ve lost count. It feels like the hundredth.
“The cancellations are bad enough,” he says. “It sucks to waste my time.”
“But there’s something more?” I ask, well aware the answer is yes. His face keeps giving him away.
“It’s feeling like I don’t matter. That I’m someone who is easy to live without. And that everything else in her life matters more to her than I do,” he says.
“Nobody wants to feel that way,” I say.
“Especially not when I care about her. It’s like we’re in two completely different relationships.”
I nod.
“And… it just makes you feel foolish. Like you got the wrong idea. That you missed something that should have been obvious,” he says. “Do you know what I mean?”
Sadly enough, I do.
Shoes Don’t Walk Away From You #
The nice thing about shoes: You walk away from them, but they don’t walk away from you. They’re where you last put them.
Even if you switch to another pair. Or go barefoot for a while. Shoes are right where you left them.
Some people really want lovers who are like shoes.
And sure, people get to have their preferences. They can want what they want.