Emily Chan
If your significant other’s love language is gift-giving, showering them with a bunch of presents will only cause your relationship to flourish.
However, there’s one item you should never give your partner on any occasion if you want to stay together. And that item would be a pair of shoes.
According to TikTok, gifting your S.O. a pair of shoes will lead to your relationship’s demise. This philosophy has been dubbed the “shoe theory.”
The theory states that if you gift your S.O. footwear, you will eventually break up. And the receiver of the present will be the one to initiate the split, using the new shoes to essentially walk out of your life.
As the idea circulated the app, many TikTok users shared their own stories about their partners breaking up with them shortly after they had given them shoes, confirming the validity of the theory.
One user named Kinsey (@kksparkleprincess) even linked the phenomenon to a line from a Taylor Swift song.
“Taylor Swift confirmed that the shoe theory is real with this line,” she wrote in the text overlay of the video.
In the song featured in the clip, “Bejeweled,” the singer croons: “Didn’t notice you were walking all over my piece of mind in shoes I gave you as a present.”
The theory isn’t anything new. It’s actually a superstition based on Chinese culture that has been passed down for many generations.
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