If The Shoe Doesn’t Fit…

The Cinderella “Foot Fiasco” and Why It’s Time We Learned from it

He’s handsome, intelligent, and you’ve had enough conversations with him to see potential for something bigger on the horizon. Better yet, he’s already friends with all of your friends—including you. The fact that you don’t have that excited rush when you see him doesn’t faze you, at least, not on a conscious level. You want this—at least, something—so badly that you’ve resigned yourself to waiting a few more weeks to see if anything develops.

Your friends tell you that they don’t really envision you with this type of guy, that he’s too awkward for you, that there’s no real connection, and that they just don’t “see it,” but that doesn’t seem to be reason to stop considering him as a possibility. It doesn’t help that all of these friends who give you advice are seeing someone themselves, making you feel like the last single gal in Manhattan when you’re out at night or the seventh wheel in a group of six.

Manhattan is literally teeming with handsome single men, so when is it time to realize that Mr. Perfectly Convenient needs to be a) renamed and b) forgotten?

Fortunately—or not—romantic comedies and “Disney-fied” versions of traditional fairy tales have given women a countless number of ways to envision the way their perfect love will come to fruition. Will he be that tall guy with the brown leather briefcase and large black coffee that I see on the subway platform on my morning commute? (I think a few smiles have been exchanged, either that, or he had a funky lip twitch.) Will it be raining when we confess our feelings to one another, forcing us to take cover into a dark but quaint alley where we’ll make love until dawn, at which point we’ll run carelessly to his place to make chocolate chip pancakes, smear one another with batter, and eat our breakfasts contentedly in front of the fire? Will it involve a glass slipper? A magic carpet? A poisonous apple? An evil sea witch?

In the Grimm Brothers’ version of Cinderella, the evil stepsisters, desperate for their feet to fit into the shoe that the Prince brings their way, turn to self-mutilation in order to make it happen. When the eldest sister places her foot into the slipper and her big toe is making it impossible to fit her foot into the shoe, her mother instructs her to “Cut the toe off, when you are queen you will have no more need to go on foot.” Unfortunately for this stepsister, when she is riding off into the sunset with the Prince, he notices the blood that is trickling from her foot and, realizing that he has taken the wrong bride, brings her back home. The second stepsister doesn’t have much better luck. When her heel is too big for the shoe, she too heeds the advice of her mother: “Cut a bit off your heel, when you are queen you will have no more need to go on foot.” When the Prince is riding away with her, believing he has found his true queen, he notices the blood that is trickling from her shoe and has stained her white stockings. Understanding that he has been duped for a second time, he brings her home. We all know how the story ends, Cinderella’s foot fits perfectly into the slipper and she rides off into the sunset, living, of course, happily ever after. The fact is, if the shoe doesn’t fit, then why, like the stepsisters, are we forcing it? The whole ordeal will only end in pain and frustration, and leave us wondering why we went to such lengths in the first place.

So next time, when you think you’ve met Prince Charming, go ahead and see if the shoe fits. If it doesn’t, don’t be upset when he takes it elsewhere. It just wasn’t meant for your foot, but the next shoe may fit just fine.

Besides, let’s be honest, how practical are glass slippers anyway?