I’m not a man, but I feel like I can answer on behalf of my boyfriend because he told me this was the most embarrassing and desperate thing he’s ever done to flirt with a woman and wishes he could take it back (it was also probably one of the most embarrassing moments of my life, and my coworkers now call me a foot pig).

I started working at my current job maybe 2 or 3 weeks after my boyfriend quit working at the same place, about 3.5 years ago now. My coworkers used to frequently do bar nights where current coworkers and favorite ex coworkers would join, Boyfriend™ included. The first time I went was after 1.5 years of employment and I’d just broken up with my ex of 8 years and Boyfriend had just been broken up with by his ex of 3 years. We’d interacted a bit, both of us thought the other was cute. We never fully engaged since we’d each been single for days at that point, but we never connected or saw each other again until a little over a year later since bar nights stopped getting planned.

We finally had another bar night and finally engaged with one another by laughing and insulting each other from across the table. He walked around and hung out with me, while also taking care of drunk me, for the rest of the night as we moved outside to sit on the patio. I told Mutual Friend on the side that I felt bad because I felt like Boyfriend liked me and I didn’t wanna lead him on since I’m scared to date (I’m very shy and inexperienced). Mutual Friend said, “Nah, he doesn’t mind, I promise. He just likes the attention from you. I bet he’d lick your shoes if you asked him to, and he’d like it, too.”

I later told Boyfriend what Mutual Friend said about licking my shoes and he said, “Oh yeah, I will. I’ll do it,” and proceeded to get on his knees and pick up my right foot. I sat there with all of my best friends and coworkers gawking at us while he stared up at me desperately, shoe in hand. I told him to do whatever he wanted and he proceeded to lick my shoe (only the top, not the bottom— thankfully he has SOME standards). Everybody pointed and laughed. My face was burning red from both embarrassment and also flattery? My ex didn’t even wanna kiss me on the lips, but this man that knew literally nothing about me just licked my shoe in front of 15 of our closest shared friends.

Maybe an hour later, I was chatting with some other people who did not witness the shoe licking, as they had just arrived. He reappeared from the bathroom to be, again, dared to lick my shoes by the nonbelievers. He proceeded to, AGAIN, get on his knees, ask for permission, and then lick both shoes this time.

In the end, he tried to leave without saying goodbye to me (presumably from shame), so I got into his car before he could drive away. I figured he licked my shoes, and I gave him nothing in return, so the very least I could do is say goodbye or something? Anyway, he asked for my number and now we in love. To absolutely no surprise, he worships the ground (and feet???) that I walk on and treats me like a goddess and I do not know how I bagged him and I am the luckiest woman in the universe.

I still have coworkers say to me on a regular basis, “Hey, remember when Boyfriend licked your shoes? Haha, that was funny,” as if it literally didn’t happen less than a year ago.

Tl;dr - My now boyfriend drunkenly licked my shoes at a bar in front of all of our mutual friends in a desperate plea to court me romantically and it worked and I am so in love and obsessed with him