I confess: I’ve always wanted to be taller.
Oh great, now Skee-Lo is playing in my head. I’ll be back in about 4 minutes to finish this essay after I listen to that magnificent earworm. I wish. I wish.
Okay, I’m back.
It’s not that I’m short, you see. I’m not. The average height for a woman in the United States is 5’4.” I’m 5’5″ so I’m on the tall side of average.
But I’m the shortest person in my family of origin and always have been. (One of my sisters, for example, is 5’10.”)
Anyway, I didn’t wear high heels (or any heels at all) until fairly late in life — when I was pushing 30 — but when I did, it was amazing. All of a sudden, I was routinely TALL. Typically somewhere between 5’8″ and 5’11” depending on the shoes.
I remember a friend confessing later surprise at my actual height.
“Well you know I wear high heels,” I said.
“Yeah,” she replied, “But you have such a TALL personality, so it’s easy to forget.”
A tall personality… huh. Not sure what that means.
But it would seem that I’m not the only one who likes being taller (even if my increased height is merely a temporary phenomenon). Apparently height and life satisfaction do correlate. Multiple previous research studies have demonstrated a link between height and life satisfaction. Sometimes people think this is limited to men, with taller height being a well known desirable trait men re: physical attractiveness (whether it’s fair or not).
*
This post is part of an ongoing Poly Land feature called Psyched for the Weekend, in which I geek out with brief takes about some of my favorite psychological studies and concepts. For the entire series, please see this link.