I will never forget back in high school when I came to the cafeteria to see Leah, a tall girl on whom my friend Clint had a crush, lining Clint and another guy back to back. She wanted to see who was taller. These two guys had asked her to the dance and whichever one was taller got to be her date. Clint won.
CBS News has a video on the plight of the tall woman. As many of you know, I am not a particularly short fellow. Neither is Clancy particularly short as far as women go. It used to be rather common for my not-short wife and her not-short mother to lament whenever they saw a tall man and a short woman. “What a waste if height!”
When I was younger, I had an attraction to shorter girls. I have no idea why, really. It was just kind of… there. It wasn’t until some time in college that I realized I was totally wasting my height. There were, I determined, lots of tall women out there who lacked the ability to find men taller than them. Some portion of women were hung up on this issue. Enter… me! I was able to exploit this loophole a couple of times. Arguably, it snagged me a doctor-wife. Clancy actually never had any objection to dating anyone shorter than her. But my height was definitely seen as an advantage.
Meanwhile, The Atlantic has a breakdown on the worst cities for women with college degrees on finding men with college degrees. I found the results surprising. I figured, with the singles disparities in the east, that most of the worst places would be out there. Instead there is Houston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and a host of other towns. I guess a woman in Dallas is “water, water, everywhere, but not a drop to drink” for those who have a college degree and are looking for the same in a man.
Of course, all of these statistics are influenced by race and culture. I haven’t seen a breakdown by race, but I am certainly under the impression that the disparity is greater in some communities than others. A large number of the cities listed are heavy on African-Americans and latinos. The inclusion of Seattle, though, is just baffling.
That list isn’t the worst fifteen cities. It’s the largest 15 metropolitan areas. Of the fifteen largest metropolitan areas, Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue is the best for single women.
Okay, now that makes sense.
On the page over at Hit Coffee, none of the browsers on my Mac show the map. Link?
The link has been swapped.
the picture above needs a caption: “f’in’ hipsters”
women of all heights can be real hard on short dudes. i feel for them too.
Guys get a complex about how short they are.
It plays into other things, not just “finding a date”.
Personally, if you’re hot, you’re hot.
I’m glad you feel that way. But there is a heterogeny of opinions on this subject out there amongst the ladyfolk. I’ve met a substantial number of women who have been of the opinion that in order to be hot, a man must be at least “X” inches taller than his mate, and thus categorically excluded men their height or shorter from the available dating pool. Younger women, and more superficial women, to be sure.
Is encountering that phenomenon a cause of men having a complex about their height? No, the origins of that complex are within the man. But it can be an aggravating factor.
In my twenties and early thirties, I dated some women moderately taller than I. Looking back, I notice no significant pattern in the durability or enjoyability of those dates and sometimes resulting relationships as compared to the less-tall women.
Well, some folks like different types of people. I’m not going to condemn someone for liking tall guys, just like I won’t condemn a guy for liking women with … large tracts of land.
I’m getting the impression gals like that like a “Manly” type of man. And that hugs/other sorts of physical affection feel differently when coming from someone shorter than you.
Somewhere in the annals of Hit Coffee, I have a post that addresses whether the issue of tall women not dating short men is a product of male behavior of female behavior. I think it was a response to an article on The Frisky by a tall woman complaining about the insecurity of shorter men. I wondered to what extent it was that (and I think there may be something to that, for some guys) and to what extent it was the self-consciousness of women.
Somewhere else in the annals of Hit Coffee, there was a study suggesting it was the latter.
Some short guys do have issues. Has anyone else noticed the sheer number of short-ish, beefy cops out there? Does anyone else think that happens for a reason? But when we talk about such things, we are unfairly targeting short men more generally, when it’s really only a subset.
Short guys have trouble being in leadership slots, basically anywhere.
This is in some sense genetic/cultural — we do assess fitness of other folks based on looks.
They do have to work harder (see Michael J. Anderson.)
My old boss was considerably shorter than me, and I’m 5’4″.
I’m on the above average side of height (6’1″). If you look back on my dating history, you might think I’m attracted to short women as they’ve all been at the low average height except one who was about 5’9″.
I have never, ever understood the height thing as a thing (admittedly, as being taller than average, I have a chunk of confirmation bias around here about the size of the Titanic). I’ve always managed to engage quite well with members of the opposite sex regardless of their head altitude. It’s only about once every nine months or so that it strikes me that Kitty’s a lot shorter than I am.
When I was single, I used to explain to women that men under 5’10” were far, far too short to date, and that those over were way too tall and should be shunned.
“But my boyfriend is six foot,” they might say.
“Exactly,” I’d reply. “That’s freakishly tall. You want to shoot for 5’10”.”
Thanks for that.
LOL. My husband advertised himself as being 5’10” before we met in person. I think he really believed that he was. Turns out he’s more like 5’8″ to my 5’7″.
Back before my last growth spurt, when I was 6’3″, I used to be told all the time that I couldn’t be 6’3″? Why? Because they were 6’2″ and I obviously had more than an extra inch on them. Or they were 6’4″ and I was somehow taller than they were.
I have a friend that’s 6’2″ whom I don’t think of as tall, and another that’s 6’1″ whom I do. They’re both built similarly, so I have no real idea why.
Perhaps one is short for his height?
Mike,
Does one hunch?
My husband wishes I were taller.
(No, i am not a dwarf. I’m a gnome).
I don’t have any evidence to this, but often think men and women develop traits they find appealing in a specific set of years during development. I call it the “needy years”.
In those needy years the culture/surroundings will display a set of traits that appeal to developing youngsters. The Twilight saga will probably create sets of youth most suseptable to traits of that time.
For myself I have found women of a particular age find my traits most appealing. Muscle mass, height, and voice characteristics tend to only be additional to the those traits.
As weird as it sounds I have a psychological hicup for women who are really tall, as in well over 6 feet. But also I was a runt, smallest in the class for a fair portion of my youth. My wife is only a couple inches shorter than my 6′-2″, but her other traits make her height a non-issue.
There is probably some relation to tastes in music developed over the “needy years”, but thats a different story.
My brother is a few inches shorter than my sister-in-law.
I am short for a guy at 5’6″. This is not super-short but it is lower than the American Average by a few inches. It is not short for Jews because we are largely a vertically-challenged people.
However like Burt, I have seen and heard a lot of women state that they would not date a guy below a certain height. I knew a lot of really short women (around 5’2″) who claimed I was too short to date. The reasoning I often hear about wanting to date tall men can be about liking to wear high heels and some stuff about “feeling protected”.
This is not to say I hear it from a lot of women but no short men seems to be a common-enough deal breaker.
Meh. if a woman can wear high heels, a guy can wear lifts. They do it all the time in showbiz.
Wouldn’t you have a problem when the women is around the man when he takes his shoes off and is reavealed to be significantly shorter?
If they’re talking about wearing high heels, that’s an “I want to look good in public” sort of thing.
And wearing lifts is like stuffing your bra (wearing ones that are padded counts here, girls!)… there’s considerable that’s fair game, without it being “blatant and total dishonesty” (even then…? Most people aren’t complete and total fetishists, unable to have sex without certain “turn-ons.”)
I’m 6’3″ & thus this isn’t my issue. If a woman is eye level with me then 99.999999% of the time that will mean she is wearing high heels. Which I would not mind. At all.
However, I’m also 280. Not sloppy, just…big. That’s another subject though, carry on.
I’m 5’9″ and was my full height in 6th grade.
I have no prejudice against short guys, but I found that (at least in jr high and high school) they had a real problem with tall girls. I’m not gorgeous, but not plain either and was never overweight. Yet I never had a date until I was 16. Some of that may have been because I was an A+ student who ran track rather than a cheerleader, but pre-college the only guys who ever asked me out were at least as tall as I was.
If some tall women avoid short men, it may have been because, like me, they recall being treated like freaks by the short-to-average guys who wouldn’t be caught dead dancing with a girl who was a couple inches taller than they were.
Of course, I’m pushing 50. Maybe all that has changed today?
I do recall asking someone who was a foot shorter than me to dance. He recoiled in horror.
I dunno, that might have been me. But I noticed he was only dancing with girls shorter than him.