I just finished watching Park Chan-Wook’s No Other Choice, and I couldn’t help but notice all the shoe-related themes.

In the first few minutes, the main character buys his wife a pair of new shoes, to which the wife then says, “They say not to gift shoes to your lover…Cause they might run away in them.” What a line. Also, who is ‘they’? the haters? A conclave of women who have long since fled their clearly failing marriages?

In all honesty, this does ring true in my experience. I once bought someone a pair of Mid-West Kids x adidas Forums, a pair I also had in my collection. However, the plan didn’t completely revolve around the concept of ‘matchy matchy’, the act of matching one’s footwear to that of one’s partners. Not to be confused with the act of buying two matcha-flavoured drinks, to which the saying may have been reappropriated. If that’s the case, I am willing to get behind a boycott.

Anyway, in the film, the wife gets a hot pair of new heels, so perhaps my mistake was not purchasing a pair sexy enough? Did my shoe choice reveal the possibility of a stale and unexciting end to what was a very fleeting situationship? She did post them on the gram at the time, so my choice couldn’t have been all that bad…right?

In hindsight, I do somewhat agree with the statement. That new shoe feeling can get the better of some, a feeling I would liken to getting a fresh haircut. For a more lady-specific equivalent, I have heard something along the lines of, “tanned, moisturised, a Diet Coke and a plate of chips”, although the plate of chips may be getting confused for a bag of Walkers crisps.

Either way, I am trying to conflate the new-shoe feeling to that of being tanned and sipping a Diet Coke, both of which can sadly cause someone to engage in adultery. If true, I’m impressed Gary Lineker hasn’t got a worse reputation than that of his brother.

That said, when I tend to get new shoes, I either wear them at my desk and write about other shoes or throw them up in the air and take photos of them. I do realise both of those actions put me in a rather unique Ven diagram, and I wholeheartedly accept this.

I think I will be increasingly cautious about buying people shoes from now on. Before NOC I had never reflected on that one time I did, perhaps I was too young and naïve, then again, I was living in Manchester at the time. Don’t ask me to explain what that means.

Additionally, between Twin Peaks, Black Mirror – Demon 79, Marty Supreme and now No Other Choice, there seems to be a lot of movies that feature a shoe shop or a shoe shop employee. Either the producers, a high percentage of whom are white men in their mid-40s, have a fondness for feet (shoutout Tarantino), or the humble shoe shop serves as a great metaphor. Think this is a topic worth looking into.

I suppose the point of all this is that be careful about buying shoes for your lovers, partners, or spouse…you don’t know what chain reaction you could set off.