The other day, I’m in line to pick up my kid from school. I notice another dad, close by, who is wearing (what I, in my meager mind, consider to be) a sneakerheads sneaker. As I look up, we briefly make eye contact and I say ‘hey, love the shoes.’ And the dude just kinda nods. End of interaction.
A few days later, I go to meet a fellow parent at the playground (with her kids), and that other dad with his kids are there, too. She introduces us, but we’re both kind of distracted and are chasing our own kids in different directions. Eventually, we end up in the same area of the park, and I notice his shoes again. ‘Hey man, I like the shoes. You don’t see those too much around here.’ Dude just kinda nods, mumbles ‘yeah’ and starts walking off towards his kids. So I start walking back towards mine. This time, I’m thinking, ‘this dude is just a d*ck’. No mind.
A few minutes later, dude and I find ourselves in the same area again, both watching our kids (who are now playing together), when I ask him what he does for a living…he tells me and that’s what finally gets the conversation going…what he does is extremely interesting (to me), so I start asking a million questions and the conversation really starts to take off.
Finally, I ask him - ‘you heard me mention your shoes a couple of times, right? Why didn’t you say anything?’
And he answers - ‘yeah, I just hate talking to sneakerheads, though, they’re so presumptuous.’
And I gotta say, that was the first time I had ever heard that in my life.
But.
I suppose I know the feeling.
Before the pandemic, there was this running joke amongst people my age that ‘vegans’ and ‘crossfitters’ were the worst types of people to meet while out and as they’d talk about themselves FOREVER and they’d try to convince you of joining their club ALL THE TIME.
So it made me a bit self-conscious. And I’m still asking myself - Is that how people are starting to look at sneakerheads?
(Btw I talk with that dude all the time now, he’s gonna get a kick out of this post).