This is not the meeting of equals on neutral ground though.

One party is entering another party's home. If you're not comfortable with rules inside that home, then don't enter that home.

100% agree that whether your own home is shoeless or not is a personal and cultural preference and decision. More power to you. But if I am entering your home, then your rules prevail.

Agreed. This is so obvious that I don’t know why it even makes sense to discuss, unless the person entering has some health issue. Even in that case, they have to ask the house owner or renter whether they can keep their shoes on inside.

Since it is their house, they, and only they, get to decide the rules about shoes allowed inside or not.

The crux of my argument is:

Why is that guest assuming that their opinions are more important than the overwhelmingly accepted idea that people get to set their own home's rules?

> Maybe slippers are the answer?

The author explains in no ambiguous terms that they won't settle for slippers.

> Why are you assuming that your guests’ shoes are dirtier than your floors?

Are my guests regularly cleaning the bottoms of their shoe the way I regularly clean my floors? (Almost certainly not, because why would you?)