How I learnt to walk tall at 5ft 5in
By John Bamber

Like Tom Cruise (5ft 7in), our correspondent (5ft 5in) spent years looking up to women. Then he discovered status shoes

For the past year or so I have been living a secret life. There is something that only I know as I flirt at parties, look my bank manager in the eye or effortlessly catch the attention of the barman at my local pub. If you and I were to meet, you wouldn’t be able to tell what it is. You’d register a fairly average-looking thirtysomething male, certainly not bad-looking. But not, I confess, particularly remarkable.

Were I to slip off my shoes, however, you might well look again — suddenly I would appear four inches shorter than before. This is because I wear what are rather coyly called “status shoes”. Less euphemistically, they could be described as hidden high heels for the shorter man.

It took me a long time to discover status shoes. It took me nearly as long to work out that being a little shorter than most — around 5ft 5in (1.65m) — has affected my personality.

I began to suspect that I was destined to look up to my peers when I was still in my adolescence. Some of my classmates, seemingly overnight, towered over our teachers, and I never caught up with them. Whether this is why I became increasingly shy, nervous and withdrawn I’m not sure, but perhaps introversion is inevitable when most people can’t hear a word you say.

It was not until I reached my thirties that I consciously identified the link between height and attraction. I had often wondered why women rarely gave me the eye or approached me at parties, but blamed it on a lack of social skill or charisma.

My eureka moment came when I read a book called Irresistible Attraction: Secrets of Personal Magnetism by Kevin Hogan and Mary Lee Labay. It says that while most women claim that personality is far more important when assessing a potential partner, evolutionary psychology suggests that the human brain is hardwired to find certain physical traits — including height — attractive.

A new study from the University of Essex analysed speed-dating sessions, and found that every extra inch of height a man has over his fellow Romeos correlates to an increase in the number of women who want to be introduced to him of 5 per cent.

Furthermore, statistics show that tall men earn far more than their shorter comrades and are more likely to be offered promotion. I was, I realised, being discriminated against because of my height.

Whenever a female scanned the room for potential boyfriend material, I would be filtered out, or dumped in the friends-only (maybe) category, along with the fat bloke who eats with his mouth open.

I had to take action, I had to rise above this prejudice. I had to grow. Apart from restyling myself as a goth, a cowboy or a glam-rocker — and embracing the high-heeled footwear they can get away with — at first there seemed no obvious way of discreetly gaining those few vital inches of height. Thank God for the internet. A cursory search led me to products I had never heard of. Easiest to use, and cheapest, are the “height-increase insoles” or “lifts” that you insert into your existing shoes. More expensive are the ready-made or bespoke “status shoes” which have their lifts built in.

More at: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-16149-2462353-18369,00.html