I have an unrequited love affair with shoes. I love shoes. They just don’t love me back. The hurt and pain go a long way back. Like a one-sided relationship, I try them on and they feel so good. They make me happy. They come home with me and I wait for the right occasion to wear them out. Either immediately or gradually, I realise something is not right. A twitch, a burning sensation, a biting pain or red blotches. They turn on me.

Shoes draw me. I love them all – high heels (love the elevation but punishing on the feet), peep-toes (looks wonderful after a pedicure or licks of bright nail polish), lace-ups (nice to look at but after a while they start reminding me of my Bata school shoes that also had laces that needed doing up every time), flats (no elevation but usually comfortable if they are not pinching my little toes), sandals ( airy and easy to wear if the straps don’t rub the top of my feet or heels) and walking boots ( when they don’t disintegrate).

My past failures have made me only a little reticent with shoe purchases. I still love shoes. Buying them is fun. I get to try as many as I want especially the ones I know I am not going to buy – the towering stiletto or the delicate, lace patterned platforms or the outrageously coloured wedges. I can say with almost 75% certainty, my shoes and I are never a good fit once they are mine to wear (they behave themselves in the shop). By design or by nature, something not so-nice happens.

Not long ago, I saw a gold Clarks shoes at Isetan that I really wanted. The price was a bit prohibitive, and I wasn’t quite ready to part with so much money for it. So, I made an executive decision to wait for the sales, and happily managed to buy it at 30% off the price tag. The shoes fitted well and looked elegant. Or at least that’s what I thought until I wore them to meet a friend for dinner at Nu Sentral Shopping Mall. The left shoe scraped the sides of my heel until it was near impossible to even limp. I arrived at the mall and called my friend and told her I had a shoe emergency. We met up at H&M so I could get myself a new pair of shoes before proceeding to dinner.

The emergency shoe was a pretty pair of black sandals with knots and back straps. But, no kinder to me. The straps kept falling off my heels ( I have since cut them off) and the knots pressed down hard on the bridge of my feet leaving indentations. It was like I got out of the frying pan and dived right into the fire. My feet were black and blue from two deceptively beautiful looking but mean shoes.

Then, there was the time when I wore my spanking new black with gold buckles Esfolar shoes to a meeting. All went well until it was time to head home. As it had just begun to drizzle, I was offered a ride home in the company car. I declined because I wanted to walk over to Avenue K to buy my nephew a Pandan cake. From a drizzle it quickly turned into a major downpour. Water sloshed mercilessly inside my shoes. By the time I got home, both my shoes and I looked absolutely bedraggled. The upside was I managed to buy the Pandan cake that my nephew had for breakfast before he flew off to Sydney.

Next, my walking boots. They literally fell off my feet when my husband and I were walking on Bondi Beach. Seriously. Bits of the shoes came off. The soles, the sides and even the shoe strings crumbled. We had to find a shoe shop urgently, and we ended up at Himalaya. During a 3-day trek around Tongariro Northern Circuit in New Zealand, I had another feet sloshing experience in my Himalaya’s. I had to get a new pair of boots, a different brand of course, Zamberlan, while I waited for Himalaya to conduct a test. The test found that that particular pair of shoes sold to me was defective. My wet, wrinkled feet already knew they were faulty. I cannot quite remember but we received either a replacement or a refund.

I didn’t know this but it didn’t surprise me. A survey of 1,000 women in Malaysia and Singapore revealed that Malaysian women spend up to RM130, 000.00 on shoes over a lifetime. And, 81% of women spend an average of two weeks a year looking for the perfect heel[1]. Obviously, shoes are also a girl’s best friend (the ones that don’t bite). Another report said people are spending more money on expensive shoes than on handbags. The NPD Group, an American market research company, highlighted that footwear is now the most powerful category in the online luxury market[2].

Despite my blemished record with shoes, I am not giving up. I still love shoes. I shall endeavour to shop harder to find my perfect sole mate.