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Sunday, January 31, 2010

Heightist women?

A year ago, this would have depressed me (HT Instapundit):
But the fact of the matter is that, for the most part, I go out with guys my height or taller. The shortest guy I ever went out with? 5’10”. The tallest? 6’6”. Lately, I’ve been wondering, does that make me a heightist?

If I am, I’m not alone. A while back, I conducted a poll: “Would you go out with a guy who’s shorter than you?” Around 40 percent of the women who responded said: “Hell-to-the-no.” Another 32 percent or so indicated they’d date a guy the same height or a “teeny bit” shorter. How many women would go out with a significantly shorter man? Around 25 percent. In other words, most women are heightists.
As if that wasn't depressing enough, read the comments, and all the women who say that they won't date anyone less than 6 feet (and especially the short women who won't date short men). I hate to disappoint those women who say that they'll only date 6' guys, but according to this chart, only about 25% of men are taller than 6 feet.

I'm a 5'4" guy. I'm well below the 5th percentile--assuming a Gaussian distribution, I'm well below the 1st percentile. I'm also a reformed heightist. At one point, I preferred women who were shorter than I was. Unfortunately, most of those women were only interested in men taller than I. Eventually I realized that I was being silly--considering my height's the same as the average female height, I wasn't being fair to 50% of the female population. Granted, this wasn't a sudden change of heart--I just gradually expanded my ideal dating pool, to my height, and then to a little taller, etc. Fortunately, it was sometime after this that I met my 5'6" girlfriend, and height wasn't a deciding factor for her either.

One thing a lot of women in the comments to that article talk about is that being taller than the man is an issue for him. I can see that being the case when a guy's 5'9" and dating a 5'10" woman. Not that many women are taller than he is, and the few who are might seem intimidating. The thing is, that's a luxury a 5'4" guy doesn't have. If I were intimidated by taller women, I'd be intimidated by half of them.

So it doesn't depress me anymore--I just find it immature. I'm not about to say that there's something wrong with having a preference for taller men. But a preference and an absolute refusal to consider anyone the wrong height (and neither I nor my girlfriend ever stuck to absolutes in height considerations) is a recipe for heartache.

2 comments:

  1. Women who care for height are like men who care for breast/butt size. It's stupid, but it's hard to find attractive and intelligent women who transcend these ridiculous social "needs".

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  2. This blog made me think of my early 20’s, as I was rejected by the foxes who chased after the Alfa males and showed no more interest in me than glancing at a blade of grass next to the highway traveling at 75 MPH. And this made me think about my own personal experiences with tall women, a slightly different story from this blog, but same result due to being a Beta male. One 6’ tall girl, in a gym, talked to me with such a look of disinterested she couldn’t have looked or acted more uninterested if she had wanted to. I approached another, who I estimated being 5 foot 9 or 10 inches. She got angry with me for even asking her out and stuck her finger in my face informing me she didn’t date shorter men. On line, I met a girl 5’11”, and we worked out together once in my apartment complex gym, after that she did not return my two phone calls, there could be others, too, I just don’t remember them all. Now, you may say the rejections were because of my looks, that could be true, but as I approached girls closer to my height, my success rate went way up.
    This blog also made me think about the rejections by tall girls, and it angered me, but not at the time the rejection. Only years later, when I actually tallied them up, did I get angry. I was rejected not because I was fat, bald, ugly, deformed or had a rotten personality. No. The reason I was rejected by all of these women was my height. Not a one even bothered to put forth the effort to get to know me much less date me.
    I did date three women who were significantly taller than me, two at 5’11” and one at 5’10”. (I am 5’8”) And all three happened to be 32 years of age, which is more than a coincidence and a tie in with this blog. No doubt all three wanted a tall Alfa male, and lost, so a safe stable Beta male was the next best thing in their 30’s, for I certainly didn’t grow any taller and I doubt I got better looking. These women were past their prime and worried. I was in my late 30’s, at this time of my life, after being married for 10 years. It was also at this time, I could easily date younger women, and I did. When I was 38, my first girlfriend was 27, the next was 27 and the next was 24 who became my second wife. I never dated with any intent of marrying a woman my age. Younger women had no issue with me dating them, and I certainly had no issue dating them. I remember going to singles events and seeing very pretty women, who were my age, who I know 15 years earlier would not have given me the time of day. And even now, they may have looked better than myself, but now it was me who had no interest in approaching them. I did not want to take time and money away from pursuing younger women. Why go old, when I could go young? I was amazed how the dating game changed in my favor. And I used it to my advantage, just as women had done years earlier.
    I am now married and have 4 sons. I have 3 degrees, and I have co-authored 2 US patents. I could have provided a good life to any girl. I wanted a taller girl because of the physical turn on and to for fill one of my desires, yet not one single tall girl (in her 20’s) gave me a chance. I was turned down consistently and without a second thought. (Maybe due to the Alfa male fascination) So, if you find yourself in your late 20’s or early 30’s with no prospect of a husband or children in the immediate future, you have no one to blame but yourself. There were men like me, who wanted a leggy female, but they, like me, were never accorded the opportunity. (This also applies to average height women, too) And the reality is that the vast majority of tall women will not even consider a shorter man (and Beta males) until it is too late. You would think it would be obvious that if you included shorter males (and Beta males) in your suitor selection, your odds would increase of finding a mate. There are a lot more short and medium height males than there are taller ones. So my advice would be to accept the advances of all men and get to know them.

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