My Life As One Of The Most Hated Men In America

A friend of mine recently sent me this blog entry titled, The Short End Of The Stick: Women, Height Preferences, and Hypocrisy.  When I originally saw the title, I was definitely suspicious for two reasons.  One, the friend who sent it has playfully chided me about my height along with her love of Vince Vaughn's height.  She's also thrown around the term, Napoleon complex, once or twice.  Secondly, considering the subject I assumed that me along with my vertically challenged brethren would be the butt of yet another joke at the expense of women and taller men.  I must say that I was pleasantly surprised.  Not only did the blog not ridicule, but it actually read like a blog entry that I have kicked around in my head many times.

Perpetually and hopelessly single Girl sends an email to her homegirls, asking them to please be extra vigilant in their on-going search for Girl’s potential future beau. Girl’s homegirls — tired of Girl ruining brunches with her increasingly melancholy laments about her (lack of) dating success and also annoyed with smell of staleness emitting from Girl’s vagina — agree to help Girl with her search, even though they know that Girl’s standards means that there’s a better chance of seeing Muammar Gaddafi on Dancing With The Stars than finding her a match.

But, as luck would have it, one of Girl’s homegirls does happen to meet a Boy who should be a perfect fit. Successful (he’s a lawyer), handsome (he’s a lip model for Chapstick), funny (he was a finalist on the 1st season of Last Comic Standing), adventurous (he owns a full-grown liger), athletic (he plays semi-pro rugby), hood-enough (he goes to a Black barbershop and his name is “Malik”), and well-endowed (in college, a group of very impressed women nicknamed him “baby-arm”), Boy is a close to a perfect man as you can get. Girl’s homegirl tells Girl about Boy, and Girl is extremely excited (and extremely wet).

But, Girl also realizes that her homegirl is leaving out one very important piece of information. You see, although Girl is 5’0” in heels, she refuses to date anyone under 6’2”, and when Girl finds out that Boy is “only” 5’10”, Girl’s no longer interested and her panties immediately dry back up. Girl’s homegirl realizes that this is the last straw, and, realizing that Girl will continue to make everyone’s life a living hell, hires and sends a team of ninjas (not “n*ggas,” but actual ninjas) to Girl’s apartment to murder her. They succeed.

Although this tale was a bit hyperbolic, it’s not really that far from the cold hard reality of women and their completely illogical height preferences; a dastardly phenomenon with far reaching effects. Men who reach the average height for an American male — 5’9” — are routinely dismissed by women as “short,” and legitimately short men — men who fall under the average — remain the only demographic on Earth who it’s still socially acceptable to ridicule and/or discriminate against.

Outside of in the 8th or 9th grade when my friend shot up to 6'2" or 6'3" overnight while I basically remained 5' & some change, and had to come to grips with the sad reality that the NBA isn't in my future, I have never had a problem with my height. Don't get me wrong, I would love to be taller. But I never cared that I was short. It only bothered me when others cared that I was short, and when I say others I mean women.

I have never quite understood why the derision or marginalization of short men has been such an accepted part of mainstream society.

This state of mind also affects how we categorize behavior. An asshole who happens to be 6’3”? Just an asshole. A 5’3” asshole? An example of Napoleon syndrome. An 6’1” man whipping a F-150? Cool. A 5’5” man whipping a F-150? Overcompensating.

Even (the few) women who are completely self-aware still take part in this foolishness, saying things like “I know it’s wrong to say this, but how’s it going to look when I bring my midget man to the family reunion and he gets picked last for volleyball?”

Yeah, I know that was funny, but imagine if this was said about, I don’t know, “big” women.

“I know it’s wrong to say this, but how’s it going to look when I bring my whale woman to the family reunion and she eats all the damn catfish?” (Ok, this was still kind of funny, but you get my point)

I've never had a ton of success with the women of Pittsburgh for various reasons, some of which are my own issues.  So about five plus years ago I got desperate enough to try Match, Yahoo Personals & Eharmony.  All I can say is that there is nothing more deflating in the dating world than being rejected the moment you click on a persons profile, time after time.  Not to mention the times you go out on a limb and make contact anyway on the off chance that maybe she's a little more flexible on that height thing than the cold cruel text of her profile suggests only to be met with electronic silence.


Thanks for stopping by,

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