November 12, 2021

Ode to Short Men

tall.jpg
So, after talking to all my single friends about why we might want to start dating shorter men, a series of articles have been published on the subject. Okay, maybe not a series, but at least one, although I'm sure if I did a search, I'd find more than just this one article on 'the short man'. I've really been doing a lot of thinking on short v. tall, and have decided that short men are often stigmatized in society when, guess what, SHORT MEN got it goin' on.

I don't think I've ever been attracted to a man because of his height, well, okay, that's a lie, there was a phase back in '99 where I said I would only date tall men, but once I had my first tall man, I realized that this was a silly stipulation. So, even if for five minutes, I had to date tall men, that thing ended, and I never really had an another obsession with the height of my man. But, I do realize that the last two men that I have fallen head over heels for, have both been at least 6 feet tall, and they were both really attractive and really committed to love and passion.

But it wasn't just love and passion with me, and that's where the problem lay. So...they were tall and handsome, but otherwise wrong...and short men..short men may be more loyal and loving...and otherwise right?!

On another note on the same subject: I did a study of the men who came into the sex shop where I work. I think more short men come in to the store WITH their girlfriends than taller men do. Maybe that's just my way of projecting my like for the idea of short men these days. Like short men. Like short men. Even though that's just as dumb as trying to date tall men. And I realize I'm too short to call most people short, so even now, as I say I'll date short men, I realize that short still probably means taller than me.

The boys in my family are ALL short, with the exception of one cousin who happens to have a really tall dad. I think none of them go above 5'6". I, on the other hand, like the tall goy. I mean used to like them. I'm going for the short goys, er, I mean boys, now.

Oh shut up and read this. I edited out the parts that might make your eyes tired cause I know you stare at that damn computer too darn long....

Short and sweet
You can look him straight in the eye and even borrow his clothes:Some reasons why smaller men rock.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Curtis Sittenfeld

Nov. 8, 2004 | For a person scrolling through any of the major
online dating Web sites, it would not be altogether unreasonable to come to
the conclusion that the short man is, due to lack of breeding opportunities,
in imminent danger of extinction.

A bias against short men has spanned the ages: Our ancient ancestors associated greater height with a stronger ability to protect and provide. More recently, multiple studies reveal that short men make less money and are less likely to marry or have children than their taller counterparts, that they're deemed less "confident" and "masculine," and that in the United States, this election
notwithstanding, they're less likely to become president. (George Bush is 5-foot-11 and John Kerry 6-foot-4). What is new, thanks to the explosion of online dating, is the extent to which technology allows the single woman or man to exercise personal biases, including those surrounding height. Just as you can eliminate a guy who lives too many miles away, or isn't the religion of your choosing, your preference settings can ensure that a guy below your height minimum never even shows up in your searches.

And yet there's an enthusiastic subculture of both straight women and gay men who don't merely tolerate short men, they prefer them. Their message? When you overlook the short man, you don't know what you're missing.

To what degree a man's height affects his personality is a much-debated topic. Invoking the Napoleon complex is, say those who have dated short men, facile. A guy who's 5-foot-2 isn't any more likely to be overly aggressive or determined to prove himself than a guy who's 6-foot-2 it's just that there's no name for the 6-foot-2 guy's behavior, except obnoxious. And indeed, because short men can't always win romantic attention based on their looks alone, some people argue that they actually have better personalities.

"Short men are an underserved market. Most women, both short and tall, prefer tall guys and so a comparable short guy with the same qualities as a tall guy -- he's handsome, he's successful, he's funny -- is often more available. A chick can get more value in a short guy because the tall-guy market is overserved. All the tall guys are taken whether or not they're good."

The desire for a big, strong boyfriend or husband who will in turn make a woman feel feminine and dainty permeates our culture so thoroughly that it's rarely called into question -- but, as Skurnick the Baltimore editor points out, it's a little absurd.

"It's a lot to expect men to be huge and manly just to make us feel better," she says. "It's depending on men too much, and I don't even mean that in a self-righteous way. It just feels ridiculous to hang the whole idea of your attractiveness on someone being bigger than you." Besides, Skurnick adds, "A man could never be big enough to take away my insecurities. What am I supposed to do, have some 9-foot boyfriend?"

For Bill in Miami, it boils down to this: "Everyone is the same height in bed. There's no practical reason not to like short men. There are no wooly mammoths to fight these days."

And while it's true that humans, like other species, are biologically programmed to seek out large counterparts -- male gorillas stand on two hind legs rather than their usual four when wooing mates, and some fish bulge out their eyes and cheeks -- love can, in the end, overcome biology. Liking a short man "is not the natural pattern," says Helen Fisher (5-foot-5), an evolutionary anthropologist and the author of "Why We Love." "But romantic love evolved to be a mechanism so powerful that it can
enable you to overlook basic prejudices."

By romantic love, Fisher is referring less to fuzzy feelings than to quantifiable chemicals in the brain, including dopamine. "You can set out looking for someone that's between 5-foot-11 and 6-foot-4 and someone that's 5-foot-8 walks in, cracks a joke at just the right moment, says something very tender to you, and boom, you fall madly in love with him," Fisher says. And if you can't convince yourself logically to overcome your biases and give short guys a chance, then dispense with logic altogether, and forget about slow, earnest
getting-to-know-you coffee dates -- just hop in bed. "I'm not in the business of telling people when to copulate," Fisher says, "but very definitely, it can stimulate the chemistry for romantic love and the chemistry for attachment."

Even the good doctor herself has come under the spell of the short man. "Once, a very short man was walking toward me in the park. He was just beginning to court me and I thought to myself, how could I go out with this guy? He's overweight, he's short, he's bald -- I mean, why? And three weeks later, I thought he was the sexiest creature on earth because I had fallen in love with him."

Posted by jamye at November 12, 2021 10:00 PM