Alright, so I'm 28, work as a secondary school teacher in Bristol, and I'm 5'5". There it is. The thing I've danced around my entire adult life without ever actually saying out loud.

You know what's weird? Teaching teenagers who are taller than you. Not all of them, obviously, but enough. Especially the Year 11 lads who've hit their growth spurts and suddenly you're eye-level with them, trying to maintain authority while they're literally looking down at you. I've watched other male teachers command a room just by standing at the front, and I'm there cracking jokes and doing voices and being "the cool teacher" because I figured out early that I couldn't do it the other way.

My girlfriend is 5'7". We met at uni and she's brilliant - proper out of my league in about fifteen different ways. She wears trainers most of the time and I've never said anything but I know she does it for me. I've never asked her to. She's never made it a thing. But I know. And that knowledge sits there like a weight I can't put down. This person I love has made herself smaller to make me feel less small, and I hate that. I hate that she's even had to think about it.

Last summer, her sister got married. Beautiful wedding, nice venue, all that. They wanted a bunch of formal photos and everyone's getting arranged for the family shots, and the photographer - lovely woman, just doing her job - looks at me and goes, "Could you maybe stand on that step there?" Not malicious. Not even thinking about it. Just logistics. But I felt about six inches tall in that moment, which is ironic.

My girlfriend squeezed my hand and we laughed it off but I saw her face. She was embarrassed for me. Not of me - for me. Which somehow felt worse.

That night at the hotel I just sat there thinking: how much of my life have I spent managing this? How many photos have I positioned myself carefully in? How many times have I made a joke about my height before someone else could? How much energy have I burned just trying to not be the short guy in the room?

Came across Inchmaxxers a few weeks later. Can't even remember how - probably an ad that the algorithm knew I'd been thinking about this stuff. Read through the website at 2am like I was looking at something dodgy. Felt stupid. Felt vain. Felt like I was admitting defeat by even considering it.

But also thought: what am I actually defending here? My right to be insecure? My commitment to struggling?

Bought the Summit ones. Took about a week before I actually wore them. Just sat in the box by my bed, this decision I hadn't quite made yet. Finally put them in my Vans one morning before work and I remember standing in front of the mirror thinking they'd be obvious. That I'd walk different. That everyone would immediately know.

Got to school. Taught five classes. Had a meeting with the head of department. Went to Tesco on the way home. Not one person said anything. Not one person looked at me weird. The Year 11s who usually took the piss didn't suddenly get respectful or anything - they were still fifteen-year-old idiots - but I wasn't spending half my energy managing how I felt about standing in front of them.

That's the thing nobody tells you. It's not that you suddenly become tall or confident or whatever. It's that you stop haemorrhaging energy on this one thing. You stop having that constant background calculation of who's taller than you in any given room. You stop positioning yourself in photos. You just... exist. And you can use that brain space for literally anything else.

Told my girlfriend about a month in. Just came out one evening when we were watching telly. She looked at me for a second and then said, "Good. I'm glad you did something that makes you feel better." Didn't make a big thing of it. Next time we went out she wore heels and I didn't spend the whole night being aware of the height difference. I just spent the night with my girlfriend, who looked fit in heels.

Got observed by Ofsted last month - for non-teachers, that's basically the most stressful thing that can happen in your job. Inspector sat at the back of my Year 10 class watching me teach poetry. Normally I'd have been a mess, but I just taught the lesson. Didn't try to be bigger or louder or funnier than I needed to be. Just did my job. Got rated Good. Probably would've anyway, but I wasn't fighting myself the whole time.

Here's what I wish someone had told me earlier: you're allowed to do something about the thing that's bothering you. You don't have to carry it around like some sort of character-building exercise. You don't get extra points for suffering through something when there's a solution sitting right there.

I still think about my height sometimes. Probably always will. But it's not the first thing anymore. It's not the thing I'm managing in every interaction. It's just a fact, like having brown hair or needing glasses. And I've got better things to think about now.

Like how to get thirty teenagers to care about metaphors. Or what to cook for dinner. Or planning a weekend away where my girlfriend can wear whatever shoes she wants and I can just enjoy being there with her.

Nobody's going to tell you it's okay to want this. You've got to tell yourself that. And if sorting this out means you've got more energy for the things that actually matter - your job, your relationships, your life - then that's not vanity. That's just being sensible.

I'm not saying buy anything. I'm saying if there's something taking up space in your head that doesn't need to be there, maybe it's worth doing something about it. Maybe you deserve that.