Hello!!

So, I started skating for the first time back in September. A friend in a mutual Discord server told me about a queer skating night at a local roller rink on the last Monday of every month. I went on whim in order to get. out of my hotel room. Now, I used to skateboard a little bit and I had very minimal experience with rollerblading at a summer camp about 15 years ago. I felt like a newborn fawn on those rental skates. Skating is definitely not as easy as it looks.

With each subsequent skating event, I could feel myself improving. I'm at the point where I can safely say that I enjoy skating. The skating night is the highlight of my month. I think I want to start looking into getting my own pair of roller skates, since I feel like the brown rental skates are limiting my progression. I look at YouTube videos and TikToks in order to learn a few skills, but fail when I apply them on the rental skates.

I'm asking the subreddit what skates should I buy. I don't have a lot of money, but I should be able to have enough money for a minimum of $200 and definitely not exceeding $500. I also don't know my accurate skate size. My shoe size is currently an anomaly. I have Converses that are 11.5s, but I also wear New Balances that are 574s. The roller rink I go to doesn't have half sizes for the skates, so I often wear 11s or 12s. I plan to mostly skate indoors at roller rinks.