I have always believed that women fall into two categories: those who can wear pointy shoes and those who cannot. I stand in the latter category. My feet are wide, flat and a bit boney. I have coarse heels and can crack eight of my toe knuckles when bored in meetings. They belong in Uggs or flip-flops, not Prada or Manolos. And did I mention the smell? Oh, the smell. Being a regular kimchi-eater certainly doesn’t help.

Pointy Shoe Girls (PSGs) are something foreign to me, a species known for carefully coiffed hair, impeccable liquid eyeliner without smudges and an “I can be b-tchier than thou” attitude. They are Charlie’s Angels, able to run down the street and stuff a stiletto in a bad guy’s ass, and then look completely bad-ass themselves while sipping cocktails and flirting with Italian men. They stand tall, with pert butts and slim waists, while swaggering sexily from one end of the bar to the dance floor, where they hold court. So long as they have on those pointy pointy shoes, they are magic. More obvious than anything to the non-PSG, they are the girls who know exactly what they want, and how to get it.

To say that PSGs are intimidating to a non-PSG is an understatement. I have been in awe and envy of the PSG. I’ve wanted to join their club, the secret cool-bad-ass-sexy-confident women club of dainty tootsies. If only my feet were different. If only they were slim and narrow instead of stubby and wide — I empathize with Cinderella’s stepsisters who tried to squeeze their feet into the shoes of a princess. My PSG friends sometimes compliment me on my footwear, but I always feel like they are being ironic. After all, my closet holds four varieties of bowling-style sneakers and is a burial ground for bridesmaid shoes and three different sets of flip-flops (and yes, one set of flip-flops I consider “formal”). Meanwhile, my PSG friends stroll around town in confections of leather and satin, velvet and sass, without teetering, wobbling or showing any nuance of discomfort. I am incredulous.

I have friends who have walked cobblestones in snow while in pumps, hailed cabs from a half-mile away with strappy heels and a wink, and toddled around nine months pregnant while still wearing elevated mules. They’ve given lectures on Russian-influenced Impressionism while in snakeskin pumps. My shoe-envy has been made no better by the fact that my 6-foot-2 drag queen friend Ivy Drip is a PSG. How is it possible that a man can dance all night and karaoke in 4-inch platform heels (in size 14!), and I can barely get out the driveway in Mary Janes?

It wasn’t for lack of trying. I have tried to be a PSG before, and it’s always ended in tears — and corns. PSGs would watch me grunting as I removed my paltry 1-inch sling backs and say ever so nonchalantly, “Oh, you just get used to it.”