I have what I think is a brilliant idea for an innovative web-based business. Notwithstanding my extreme angst over the risk of having the concept stolen by one unscrupulous jerk or another—or maybe both of them simultaneously—I want to put the notion out there for a crowd-sourced evaluation. Here it is: an online dating service for socks. Or, rather, an online sock matchmaking service. I plan to brand it “Sole Mate.”
I don’t know about you, but I have a lot of single socks in my sock drawer that have been waiting years for a match. Their reprobate spouses—what heels—snuck out by still undetermined means before, after or during the laundering process. They left their pairs for parts unknown. Those unknown parts are possibly feet, but who knows what parts on which those wastrels might be found? If they return, before giving them pride of place on my feet, I’ll certainly send them out to be checked for DNA residue. You have to careful about these things.
Socks Must Go On
I don’t have the heart to put my abandoned socks out of their misery by throwing them in the garbage. You just never know if their long-lost mates—or, in the case of over-the-calf socks, lost long mates—will realize the error of their ways and return to their better halves. (Clearly better as they aren’t the ones who deserted their partners.)
Forsaken and forlorn, my unmatched socks sit at home. They are afraid to go out due to the embarrassment of being seen as an unloved, unwanted single sock. I don’t know why they feel that way. I’m a sexagenarian and have always been single, yet I still go out on my own. But that’s me. Society isn’t as accepting of single socks, despite them being able to live very fulfilling lives serving people who have lost a foot due to a horrible accident or disease.
I’ve come to feel sorry for my forsaken socks. Hence, my proposed new web venture.
Sole Mate Matching
The idea is that you sign your sock up on the Sole Mate website. You enter its dominant colour, style, size, length (size does matter), patterned vs. solid and assigned gender. Or if you tucked the sock away in a damp and moldy spot until an intelligent life form evolved in or on it, your sock can sign itself up.
I don’t want to encourage bigotry. I will accept and even encourage inter-colour hosiery hookups on the site. But I think we have to tolerate some people’s hang-ups in that area. (See below.)
I’m not quite sure how to handle the gender question. Same-sex sock matings are generally the order of the day. And mixed gender sock couplings are often frowned upon. I wouldn’t want to encourage such intolerance. (See below.)
After entering that basic information, the real magic begins. You, or your now sentient sock, enter psychological information that allows the service to find your sock’s true sole mate.
Does it like to throw convention to the wind by, for example, being worn under sandals? Or maybe your sock is more staid and insists on mating only with another of its own colour. Or is it more tolerant?
Does it insist on a relationship with a sock of the same assigned gender or is it more open-minded or, possibly, more open-toed? For that matter, does it want to stick with its assigned gender or does it feel trapped on the foot of the wrong sex? Is it looking for a fleeting pairing or does it want to mate with a sock until holiness (i.e., the state of having holes) or moldiness do them part in the garbage dump? And so on.
A Match Made in a Sock Drawer
Upon finding a match—when, not if, for I truly believe there is a sole mate for every sock—the socks match up. They go on a date on appropriate feet, possibly dinner and movie. (I neither condone nor condemn balling together in a sock drawer on a first date. That’s a matter for mature, consenting socks to decide between themselves.)
If they are compatible, they then might move on to something more romantic, such as slipping into comfortable shoes for a long walk in a lovely forest glade beside one of those oft-cited babbling brooks. Hey, comfortable shoes are romantic for socks.
Then, who knows? Maybe they’ll experience eternal bliss as they remain lovingly together up to and through retirement in a forgotten corner of a darling little sock drawer.
A single sock is a sole-destroying sight, unless, of course, it’s an introverted sock. Introverted socks enjoy being alone and, in their more altruistic moments, providing comfort and warmth to amputees. In that case, never mind. Not all single socks will be prospective customers for this venture.
So, what do you think? Will the idea fly, or perhaps walk? I’m looking to put my heart and soul—or, more likely, my heart and sole—into this venture,
