It all started when a friend of mine posted that she was preparing for a wedding. She'd bought some cute shoes and was breaking them in. Her Facebook status boasted, "I've been walking around in them in the house and just chillin in them so that when Saturday comes I can wear them without looking like I'm walking with a stick up my ass......its a pretty funny sight, me in lounge pants and slopp...y tshirts and black pumps.....but my feet will be used to them come saturday atleast ....hopefully!"
For whatever reason, I felt compelled to air my shoe jealousy--I was wistful, bemoaning my inability to wear high heels because of my already stilt-like stature. I'm already 6 feet tall, and I've always felt it I'd look a bit like a transvestite or drag queen if I wore them.
Before I knew it, my friend had posted what amounted to advice column encouragement: "Wendy, 6 ft. Or not, who cares as long as u feel beautiful in the get up.....u just have to find a 6'4" man....mine make me 6'2" and I think its a tragedy for tall girls not to wear them.....we deserve to look cute too!"
Yeah! Damn it! A tragedy! I deserve to look cute too!
Wait! I don't think my concern had ever been that I would be taller than my boyfriend. Actually, I knew what my boyfriend would think. From a testosterone perspective, he'd pronounce it hot. However, his analytical, physical therapy degree seeking self would balk at the footwear for reasons that they wreak havoc on the feet and the body in general.
I'm all for comfort and making sure my feet are happy, but to be pronounced hot...well, that trumps the aforementioned politically correct choice.
I've been wearing orthotically correct (i.e. ugly) tennis shoes and flats my whole life. And I can say that my shoes have never garnered a second look.
We've heard that the suit makes the man. Does the shoe make the woman?
It's not really that I envied those wearing high heels. In fact, I often felt sorry for them. I witnessed the colt-legged college girls teetering from one class to another, ankles doing their ankle version of whiplash. I'd seen my fair share of small-town girls aiming for adult and high class, only to achieve For Adults Only and working girl/high-class hooker.
Yet there's a certain allure, even if the high heel has sometimes negative connotations.
Maybe the negative connotations were a little bit appealing as well. I'm always the good girl. Might high heels make me bad (in the best sense), if even temporarily?
Via boyfriends, I've seen my share of adult entertainment in which the only piece of clothing left on in an intimate encounter is hooker boots or stilettos. They are props, to be sure, and relatively unimportant to the action on the screen or in the pages of a smutty magazine, but still having come from a one-play high school drama background, I can see the importance of props.
I went prop shopping.
Lest you think that I morphed into a sex kitten, I must admit that, the higher the heel measured, the more comical and unsexy I became. I tried on 2", 3", 4", 5" heels, mentally thinking, "Yes, I am the sexy librarian type" and "He'll retire that well-worn copy of Specs Appeal." But then I looked into the mirror and saw all 6 feet of me. Less than ideal. Shopping-worn. Disheveled. Imposing. Out of control. Attack of the 50 Foot Woman. King Kong. I tottered over to the little stool/mirror thinking my gait was some cross between baby taking first steps and the scarecrow in Wizard of Oz.
Maybe if I don't have to walk anywhere in them, I reasoned.
Maybe if I can just strike a sexy pose in them and then sexily take them off.
Then I reasoned that high heels have nothing to do with reason, and so I bought the more modest pair that I'd tried on: strappy, shiny patent leather, open-toed, a solid rather than dagger-like heel.
Like my friend, I'm breaking them in by wearing them around the house. I've spooked the animals more than once with my instability. But instability is sexy, right?
A fun look at something I know nothing about - high heels - but I have learned something.
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