I mentioned my unreasonable relationship with the Male Loafer to someone on Saturday. They disagreed. ‘Never trust a man in deck shoes, with no socks’ was their reply, well…. yes, I can see where that comes from too, but I still have to say  that my instinct to walk the other way when I see a  man in a loafer and my instant mistrust of their politics and ethics,  could be considered a cause for concern.

We better define loafer here. My definition – it has no laces, so is what they call in the trade a “slip on” and very often it might have some sort of metal bar across the top, purely for no other than decorative affectation.  Often it has a very flexible sole, sometimes with tractor marks. Loafers and jeans ….ugh. White loafers, in my opinion, the devil’s work. I may need some help to get over this suspicion of the wearer’s character, and wondered if I ever had an incident in my life that I have wiped from my conscious mind that involved a man wearing a pair of loafers.

I have to say, I don’t really hang out with a lot of people who wear this particular type of footwear, no idea why. Is it restricted to a different strand of society that I am not hanging out with? Who wears loafers? I see them on the tube, and sort of know instinctively that the wearer and I will not have anything in common. Do they cross many strands of our metropolitan society? I don’t really know.  I did once have a driving instructor who wore white loafers, and I am, curiously, still a non-driver. I also was, well there is no easy way to say this, ‘kidnapped’ by a man I hardly knew  who wore  loafers. Well those two incidents alone could be the root of the problem. Much to my dismay, I caught Mr P. browsing the loafer section of a reputable internet shoe store. I was so relieved when he uttered his disgust of  ‘le loafeur’ – close shave there though.

I dwell on things like this a lot…..Yes it is sad. Is it just a very minor type of prejudice? I am not homophobic, but I am loafaphobic? Could it be just a liberal way of being ‘phobic’, and that phobia is a completely natural thing, that we all have.  Imagine all the love and good  banter I might have missed  out on by giving men with loafers  a wide berth, (ha ha deck shoes, wide berth ha ha ha, good joke me hearties!). Ah Soh!

SONG OF THE DAY

apt, methinks……Walk On By -Dionne Warwick

written by the marvellous Burt Bacharach….ahhhh