>there aren't really downsides to short stature in modern life
It even have several health benefits. Except that in dating, women overwhelmingly prefer men over 6', and very small differences like 5'7 vs 5'9 double or triple the matches in online dating sites. If we are talking about 5'6 vs 6'0 the difference is ridiculous, like over 200X more matches. Women even divorce short men at double the rate of tall men. Those sites have years of very precise statistics that support this fact.
Basically this means that in modern dating, if you are short, you are very likely to die alone and this trend will only get worse in the future.
> Basically this means that in modern dating, if you are short, you are very likely to die alone and this trend will only get worse in the future.
I'm 5'6, and after almost 15 years of dating sites to modern dating apps, I have indeed accepted that yes, I will very likely die alone. My therapist has even half-seriously suggested I try lying about my height, and qualms aside, from the studies I've read, any plausible-in-person exaggeration would gain me a couple of percentile points at most.
Trying to play a broken game honestly, is a losing proposition.
Social taboos get established to keep the winners winning. Go find yourself a gold digger. It is fine. Maybe go date women in cultures where 5.6 is not too short. Hell, I'd say that a mail order bride (more likely an economic refugee who appreciates your wealth) is still better than dying alone. It is a brutally objectifying system and you have to play to your strengths.
Sure, there are social taboos around this. But when the system fails you, you have to look at alternatives outside. If you are too insecure about being THAT guy, then lie about till you start believing the lie.
Every non-abusive individual deserves an honest chance at pursuing a relationship. If the thought of dying alone is painful, then cheat the system.
All is fair in love and war. Haters be damned.
P.S: get out of the bay area / seattle. These places are dating deserts.
P.P.S: it is obviously advice for the the edge case. Only refer use it within the context of traditional options having died out.
I'm a short guy (5'6") married for nearly 2 decades to an even shorter woman (4'11"). Perhaps its easy for me to say it because I've beaten the odds, but it seems to me it would be better to die alone than to be in a shitty relationship or to be in a relationship with someone that thinks they are making a concession by dating a shorter person. People cannot help what they are/are not attracted to so I have no animosity towards women that like tall guys, but even if that shrinks the dating pool 200x that's a better situation than wasting time with a person that isn't really into you.
Also, gold diggers are shitty people. You can't have a real relationship with one.
I can't blame the desperate people that volunteer to become mail order brides for thinking that screwing over some poor sap from a 1st world country is a lesser evil than them having to remain in poverty, but you'd have to be insane to marry one.
There's no way to cheat the system, if a person isn't genuinely attracted to you, whether its physically or otherwise, you have no chance of building a life with them that's going to make the two of you happy.
It’s not beating the odds though. There’s countless millions of women around the world who would be thrilled to be dating a 5’6” American/imperial unit user. The problem only exists if you limit yourself arbitrarily to a very small pool of women having a particular nationality and skin color.
95% of women are not American. And only a very small percentage of those are gold diggers or mail order brides. The vast majority are just normal people with normal dreams of having a modest family.
If someone is 5’6 and having trouble meeting someone, they should consider if their own criteria are irrational.
>And only a very small percentage of those are gold diggers or mail order brides. The vast majority are just normal people with normal dreams of having a modest family.
I wasn't saying that all women are gold diggers or mail order brides. I was responding to a person saying that a short man struggling to find a long term relationship should look into those two options.
>It’s not beating the odds though.
I was mostly joking by this, although I have beaten the odds in other ways by being married to the same person for almost 20 years (at least by US standards).
>If someone is 5’6 and having trouble meeting someone, they should consider if their own criteria are irrational.
Human trafficking doesn't become acceptable because somehow you believe the person is getting enough out of the deal. If you have to rebrand a trafficked individual an "economic refugee" you are working on a marketing degree not a conscience.
There are billions of women out there and they can't all marry the 6'6" quarterback because there are only so many of them in the universe. I find that people who claim that the mating game is irretrievably broken often have the idea that they are of a certain caliber and wont consider anyone beneath them.
This attitude is usually combined with a complete failure to understand their actual grade in the opposite sex' eyes, a negative attitude, and or inability to function in this arena.
Basically usually 5s and 6s who are convinced they are 8s and 9s who disdain women who are also 5s and 6s while projecting a negative dejected attitude. This might not be you but its like 90% of the people who project the same attitude.
Most of those are in other countries though, so you'd have to be willing to date internationally ("mail order brides"?) to meet them. And if you're American, a large number of foreigners may pretend to love you only to divorce you the moment they get a green card out of you.
I have never heard of anyone who got scammed for a green card not least of which because to get a green card good for 10 years you have to actually stay married at least 2 years. Seems like a very long con.
There are in your own locality as a young person just as many eligible females as their are males. Odds for the woman actually get progressively worse every year as the population of eligible males decreases faster because young men die more frequently and exit the effective marriage pool from her perspective in other ways whether it is because they have non intention of looking for permanent attachment or because they prefer young women regardless of their age.
Why would they date people who they don't want?
The lower your expectations into the gutter advice is blindly parroted but is idiotic.
Being alone is a lot better than finding someone who sucks.
the "system" isn't failing you, because there is no such thing as a system, and even if there is, this system isn't there to benefit you or ensure you don't remain maidenless.
> Every non-abusive individual deserves an honest chance at pursuing a relationship.
Yes, but it's only the chance is given to you, not the result. It's not like there are regulations preventing you from seeking a fruitful relationship.
> Every non-abusive individual deserves an honest chance at pursuing a relationship.
Darwinian evolutionary theory dont's say 'Survival of non-abusive individuals', it says 'Survival of the fittest'. Not having a relationship is evolution's way to kill your genes because they are not fit for reproduction, and that's why its so painful, because you instinctively know you are dying. That's why people do crazy painful dangerous things as enlarging their legs bones.
Someone is going to have to define, a little more explicitly, what a mail-order bride is, since the actual catalogues which inspired this term haven't existed in 2 decades.
Meeting any partner who isn't currently a US Citizen if you are is abusive? Meeting any partner who was born of lower economic status than you is abusive?
I'm an American man engaged to a foreign woman and am familiar with all of this - including negative stereotypes of cross-border relationships that in any other area (race, gender, orientation) would long since be considered deeply bigoted and unacceptable.
I'm a tad over 6' but girls are so used to guys lying about their hight that they usually say I'm 6'2". On multiple occasions I've had my date insist over my objection that I must be taller than that.
It's not a stretch for me to imagine that widespread lying by men about their hight has actually collectively made the problem worse for men, e.g. women insisting on 6 feet because they've dating 5'10" guys claiming to be 6" and decided that was the minimum.
So awkward. I'm just over 6'2" -- and at a recent family reunion had to deal with everyone saying I must be at _least_ 6'4". Because I was much taller than the other 6' guys there... and if I dispute it too vociferously, it's almost an attack on all the guys around me who are lying about their height. It seems there's a 2 or 3 inch bump across the board.
Ya, that happened to me once (Im almost 6’2’’). A guy who couldn't have been 5 10 was insisting he was 6 and that I was taller than stated. What was weird was that we were alone. He was only lying to himself.
And you know what, he was a bit weird looking. He had bad posture. But he was a good guy. A smart, hard working guy with a big heart.
This height thing is annoying. Id gladly trade inches of height in exchange for other inner character traits (courage, perseverance, conscientiousness). Intelligence I have to spare, but what good is it without character?
Sometime in the middle of last year I was seated outside a coffee shop and a guy comes up and he's like "how tall are you?" So I say I'm 6'2", which I am, approximately (age shrinking does not seem to have set in last I checked) - and he goes "oh cool I'm 6'8"." and then just turns around and leaves. Though I wasn't checking, I don't think his height was actually much different from my own. Apparently he needed to feel ultra tall or something.
When I consider all the cheaters in online video games who do it solely to "subtly" pad their stats, it's not really that astonishing that widespread height cheating would be a thing too.
one thing that people don't realize is that they shrink as they age past a certain point (common to lose an inch), and I believe that bad posture can increase this. When I was 18 I was 6'4 but I'm pretty sure I must be around 6'2 - 6'3 by now. So maybe he got measured one time, without taking shoes off, and stood up really straight and he got told 6 when he was 5'11.6, and it's been like that in his head ever since.
While this does happen, and someday it will happen to me if I survive long enough, I gained close to two centimeters in height within six months of starting a regular weightlifting program which is heavy on squats. Apparently there are enough small support muscles along the spine that bulking all of them up buffed my height stat.
This is distinct from the practice teaching me a more upright posture, which it also did, this isn't subjective height, it's the kind you can measure at some gyms on the weight station in bare feet.
Edit: occurs to me this raises... certain questions! Nothing more biochemically interesting than creatine.
to clarify, because that is what I was last measured at, don't know if I shrank, and anyway don't want conversations, oh people shrink with age about 1 inch so I am probably 6'3 seems too much for someone who asks what height you are which is just filler conversation.
Im a quarter inch shy of 6’2’’. So, indeed, 6’1’’.
My old man is 6’4’’ and when I was young he’d rib on me that I never got past 190 (we’re metric background). Now I don’t care much about height. At 70, he’s shrunk to my eye level and of all his traits height is the one Id rather not have inherited and gotten his monastic character instead.
I've had almost this exact thing happen to me a couple times. 5'11,'' so it is impossible for me to state my height without calling out 6' guys who are shorter than me.
It's definitely gotten silly. I'm 6'3" and I have repeatedly had men tell me they were the same height. While in front of me. Looking up at me. I can't do anything but wear a bemused smile and change subjects.
That doesn't make sense, surely these women know their own height and can estimate from there. 2" is about 5cm, that's a substantial error when it amounts to "how much taller are they than me" and that gap on average is <15cm in USA.
I used to be 6'1" but have reached the age where you shrink. I am now also a tad over 6' and always answer the height question as 6'. My experience is similar to yours. Some women insist I must be 6'2". A couple of times I have just said that maybe I'm closer to 6'1" because it was close to becoming a full blown argument. Needless to say there were not 2nd dates with those women.
Being at the age where you shrink is also the age where many of the women you meet were formerly married. It is amazing how many of them have said that their former spouses were shorter to just taller than them and it bothered them the entire marriage. They say they will never make that compromise again.
> They say they will never make that compromise again
Not surprising to see this sentiment from a group whose marriages all failed. I expect the biggest prediction of long term marriage success is the willingness to compromise on much bigger things than this.
I'm 6'2" (happily married). Yes, I've been confused at other 6'1" and 6'2" guys out there - there IS definitely a fair bit of fibbing going on I think.
That said it doesn't come up that often in my circle.
Just stop using apps like Tinder, they attract the worst of the worst, by what I see, especially in the US. Even if you were above 6', you wouldn't want to date a woman obsessed with height.
In my group of friends, the shorter ones (around 1,73m) are the most successful ones.
Come on, women aren't a monolith. We're talking about one factor (height). It might be important to some women, it might not be as important to other women.
Obviously those percentages can't be accurate. Just look around. The average person at age 35 is in a long-term heterosexual relationship. That's still the default. Not everyone, but way more than 20%.
These kinds of power law statistics describe sexual attraction and activity, but that selects for different characteristics than long-term relationships - where things like intelligence, honesty, reliability, etc., come to the fore.
It shouldn't need to be said, but Tinder is not representative of all human relationships.
How are all the women settling down with 20% of the men again precisely? A women would rather have all of your attention, time, and resources than 2% of a slightly taller dudes.
so you're saying you've never had a date. I'm like 5'8 maybe 5'9 depending on when you measure me. it's not that hard to get a date. I even have computer nerd chub.
I'm an old man with children. Fortunately when I was dating, internet almost didn't exist. Women barely had any choice except the guys they saw everyday. Now is a total different world.
This is like the single lump of labor fallacy except its the single lump of mammaries fallacy. There are still roughly the same number of women chasing the same number of men in a larger more connected graph as there are in many smaller disconnected ones.
Even if you assume temporal polygamy (serial marriages), I would consider an individual with one woman for 20 years to be more successful than one with 5 women 10 years each.
1.7m vs 1.8m is a difference of 10cm. That's WAY too large of a difference to not settle on using cm. Adding an additional decimal point would be oddly specific.
Ah, so it is. The converter I used gave 5 feet 8.11 inches, and that last number tripped up my mental rule for rounding measurements in 12-inch feet such that I came out incorrectly with 5'9".
Lying about your height is actually an acceptable thing to do if it is to get over people's prejudices. In all honesty a good chunk of the people you encountered probably wrote you off prematurely anyways. But online dating and Tinder isn't great when you're trying to look past superficial qualities (your face, your height, your basic physical characteristics) so it's setting you up for failure, not to mention the way these apps are setup makes it really low effort for men to and woman to each have unrealistic expectations, and setup the vast majority for failure.
But if you're still looking for things to try, I would recommend you get some activities (sports, hobbies) and meet people outside of a purely dating context. People's guards will be down and they'll be evaluating you on your other qualities rather than height in these contexts, and the extra time you spend with them is exactly what you need for them to overcome their prejudices.
Thought experiment: Can you apply the same process to other characteristics? For example, is it ok to lie about your race to improve your chances with racists? Even if that works, should you?
Yea, if you think they'll forgive you for lying. If you're asking if it's worthwhile to court a racist then that depends on the other person. Obviously if you can turn them from a racist to not a racist then it's a worthwhile endeavor.
Well since race is an arbitrary social construct with no consistent, objective definition then anyone can choose any racial identity they like without it being a lie.
But when I was in the dating market I wouldn't have been willing to date a racist anyway, so the question is moot.
No only is that first sentence logically groundless, in that the consequent doesn't follow from the proposition, it is also dangerously untrue, please don't go around pretending to be of a racial identity you are in fact not a member of people really don't like it.
I'm 5'5, pretty average (ie. not rich or particularly physically attractive), and I've consistently had attractive romantic partners my entire life. US-based, metropolitan area if that matters.
I don't really have any advice, but I really don't think your height is limiting you. Don't get me wrong, it's definitely harder than if you were six inches taller, but it's not that bad.
It's one factor of many that affects your overall attractiveness and many people don't care about it at all.
I’m also 5’5 and don’t really have this problem. I was upfront about my height on dating sites back when I used them and a few women mentioned it was a dealbreaker but that also never stopped me from getting plenty of matches and going on a lot of dates.
These anecdote-based "it's not that bad" comments are very misguided. Even the OP article clearly points out statistically even small differences like 5'7 vs 5'8 make huge differences and something like 5'6 to 6'0 can have 200x difference.
This is by no means "fine" seeing (1) finding a romantic partner is one of the most important determiners of mental health (2) youth today is going through a huge social isolation crisis. If you're short you're seen (not explicitly, but through statistical regression to the mean) as a lesser person.
I think it's absolutely crucial to understand this is not "fine" and compansate accordingly. This seems like the responsible truth to me.
Yes at the very least it’s important not to hide it because it acts as a great filter for those who do care about it (which I’ve never been bitter about either—we all have preferences in attractiveness)
IME Dating apps are a terrible way to meet women. All they have to go off are a few pictures and some numerical stats - and it's a sausage fest, the odds are stacked way against you.
I was never as appalled as I was when watching very successful, intelligent female friends of mine use Tinder. The shallowness of it is unparalleled. The quickness with which they'd reject perfectly good looking people was hard to believe.
There's a lot to say about how the structure and dynamics. of a tool guide how we use it, and that's very much at play here.
These same people acted FAR different in the outside world. I think the notion of a complete lack of scarcity leads our brains in this unachievable quest for perfection (based on nothing but a picture).
I'd say get off the platform, but you also have to go where the people are! I'm just glad I'm not dating anymore.
I'm not denying there's a preference. I'm saying dating apps amplify them by putting them front in centre. Where as you meet and have a good rapport with someone IRL you're not probably not sitting there thinking "Wait is he an inch shorter than my minimum height on tinder?"
Dating apps are a way to gain insight into how UX manipulates desire + how applications produce behavioral statistics which we then clumsily project into iron laws of psychology.
Move to India! You’ll be average height and being white will be a big plus.
Also, I'll observe that the median Hispanic man in America is a hair under 5' 7" (66.7"), yet Hispanic couples account for almost a quarter of births in America. Just a data point!
When lacking height, you need to compensate by boosting other markers, that women latch on.
Things like managerial position, luxurious housing, car, dressing etc.
They don't, and after nearly 14 years of relationship & marriage & kids, I don't think women really care. But it gives confidence, and confidence makes you attractive.
Stop thinking about it and grow a pair. It pays off. I had a lot of anxiety too when I started dating. Just act like its not a issue and the right girl will too.
My theory is that if you stay in a city, you are very likely correct. In a city you have to compete with men much taller and attractive. And women have access to hundreds of those men 24/7 through their cell phones constantly hitting on them. You won't win, but in a smaller city/rural town, you have much more chances.
I am a 5'6 man. I still think a city is much better as I assume the 5'6 man has standards, too. It's not like finding a partner who is willing to settle with you is difficult at all - it is finding one that you feel meets your level of fitness, intelligence, and social status which is considered high (other than your height). In a rural setting you are going to be very limited but a city definitely has options.
I would say be patient. I think as you grow older it becomes less important. And even if 80% of women have fairly strong height preferences I think a solid 20% have close to no preference or would care but are very short themselves.
If your goal is to settle down—as seems to be a commonly expressed desire in this thread—you might find that conservative women are more like minded, for obvious reasons.
Conservative women are more likely to value traditional family structures and gender roles, and thus place a higher priority on getting married and having kids. Even controlling for age, etc., conservatives are 25% more likely to be married than liberals.
I think lots of “liberal” guys would be happier in a conservative environment,[1] with the greater social structure and narrower horizons of conservative society. If what you really want is to settle down, have kids, and live a normal life, you might be making yourself unhappy trying to hack it in the NYC or SF's dating market--which is full of ambitious, individualistic people who aren't placing a high priority on those things. Consider that you might be happier moving to a red county and finding a conservative woman whose life priorities may be more aligned with your's--even if you may have abstract disagreements on immigration policy or the long-term effect of the welfare state.
[1] Of course the opposite is true--but liberally minded people who can't wait to leave Iowa is a well-known trope. We don't talk so much about the folks who went to the big city for education or career opportunities, but would actually be happier in Iowa.
Lol at the emergence of all these archetypes about the dating market etc. you’re not out buying consumable goods; you’re looking for people to spend time with and enjoy each other’s presence. Everytime I hear people complaining about this it is always transparently clear from their own words that they are the problem. Conservative environments are not a plus, but instead a reservoir of retrograde perspectives and unimaginative implementations of false concepts of historical precedent. The lamest approach.
you wouldn't believe how hard they have it when trying to find men who know things about things. It's not very difficult if you actually treat folks with respect except in perhaps the most conservative of places.
Rural America is probably a few inches taller on average than the cities. Also the gender ratios there for young singles tend to be as bad as Silicon Valley.
I am the same height as you and now married. 10-15 years ago I came to the conclusion that dating sites and apps are the last places I should try. They encourage people to pre-judge you based on superficial characteristics that you can never win. It's simply not a fair fight. I've found that I stood a better chance in face to face situation: at least then I can display unique characteristics rather than just be a sheet of specs.
My wife also happens to be shorter than me and she has never been on any dating site.
How about trying a different city/country? In Warsaw, Poland, the gender inbalance is like 2 to 1 single women to men around the age of 35. This makes women drop certain criteria, and height may be one of the first to go.
Tall women are easy to get dates with, well unless they are the fashion model types who are hot enough to get the in-demand tall guys. There are lots of cute tall women who are unfairly neglected.
I'm average height and was married to a 5' 11" woman for a while. It always felt weird. It's much more comfortable for me to be with a woman who is a similar height, or a touch smaller, just for ergonomic reasons like how it feels when you hold hands or put your arms around each other.
I don't understand hot short women demanding tall guys as a kind of trophy. I know they can get them, because they are hot, but they'd be more comfortable with someone closer to their height.
My girlfriend is 5'11" (and taller than me, and a model, dancer, etc etc) and yes it is a bit hard to reach standing, but I figure that's a common human experience. Sitting down and such you don't even notice.
I haven't asked if the concept of needing an even taller guy has ever occurred to her, but the even stranger one of either of us caring if she's wearing heels sure hasn't come up.
I know many people shorter than you and are quite popular with girls. Look outside your own countries , for example , someone average could become very popular in some Asian counties if you are white. ( not that I agree with it but it is the reality) .
I have a friend who is not more than 5’4” and is incredibly popular with women. He works out a lot and has studied the art and science of getting women interested in having sex with him the way I studied electrical engineering.
move to an east coast city, wait a few years (older women care less about this stuff), get in good shape, start drinking and going to bars/meetups/events, especially related to your hobbies
Brother do what I did move to south America, the dollar goes a long way and the ladies love their short kings. I'm amazed walking around here in Argentina how many couples where the woman is a head taller than the guy. Spoiled american women won't go for a guy a head taller than her.
I don't understand how some men will adopt the belief that they're doomed to die alone and would rather accept this fate than simply move to a better dating scene, or just get a mail order marriage.
They adopt this belief based on repeated experience. You're going to take their entire life of observations and tell them to just try harder? What do you think they're doing?
I've seen lots of people (in other contexts) keep failing and give up simply because they are too rigid in their thinking and refuse to try other ways.
No, I'm telling them to do something drastically different, like leveraging that western citizenship / green card or that sweet tech salary into finding a wife. It's unromantic but better than dying alone.
It really makes a lot of sense, especially for tech cities where there's literally too few women, and the men have good jobs and incomes, why not match them with some of all the women around the world who would love to have the opportunity to start a family there.
But that means the local western women would get increased competition, so that will of course needs to be shamed and frowned upon, I don't understand how it's any less romantic than the shallow greedy american women and their 6 foot 6 figures standard.
Its not the height, its the strut. Online women cant see you strut so heights the proxy.
My wife's cousin’s 5’6’’ but Ive seen women go up to him and strike a conversation by the way he walks. Ive been in parties where he’s nailed every girl (including sisters and wives) in the room. Me? Nothing much, and Im 6’2’’
Jokes aside, percieved attractiveness privilege is by far the most prominent form of discrimination in society today. (After wealth) Watching good.looking people coast through hard things purely because doors mysteriously open for them, is one of those things that you'd never believe it unless you see it.
Height is obviously the most prominent of those features among men. Sadly, it is tied to the most fundamental of social phenomenon (mating), and no amount of moralizing around it is going to change anything unless women change change their dating preferences. (Goes both ways, but women are generally the ones with hangups over height)
This problem in online dating doesn't just apply to the single physical characteristic of height. It's a clusterfuck of ticking boxes and underdeveloped expectations. A 5 year old boy might tick "no girls", while a 14 year old boy might tick "big boobs", and a 30 year old man might tick "good education and stable job."
It's as if we all go into it like ordering at a Burger King, except Have it your way (tm) comes out tasting like crap because we realize we aren't chefs. Online dating is how a bureaucrat decides to choose their life partner. The boxes you tick in online dating aren't important and are there just to pander to users.
I've experienced the "filter" issue with online dating, but my conclusions are entirely different.
I really don't mind it, in fact I appreciate it.
Anyone who would filter me out over something as shallow as height would undoubtedly be an extraordinarily poor match for me.
I prefer quality over quantity.
As to the "die alone" thing - that seems a bit grim.
I'm 46, since age 14 when I actively started dating the longest I've been single was for about 3 months after a bad break-up, and that was by choice.
Sure, when you don't have a height advantage you have to make it up in other ways - personality, fitness level, professional success, etc...
In general, I think my relatively modest stature has been a benefit to me. It forced me to be a better person, and to focus on qualities that matter, rather than superficial things.
I knew there would be answers of the style 'I'm short and Im great with girls' yes, but you are only a data point. I'm talking here of statistics, and in general short guys have it bad, according to online dating sites. You can easily do an experiment with a fake profile and see it yourself.
You're missing the point; not all of those guys are engaging in the kinds of self-improvement and development that could help them have experiences similar to the person to whom you are responding.
For an individual short guy, the quantitative info out there is only detrimental. At best, it's useless. They need a qualitative focus.
The problem with this mindset is that it sort of punishes woman for a perception thrust upon them since childhood. If you think its possible to meet some of these woman and convince them to say “I’m glad I took a chance despite your short stature because it turned out I don’t mind it at all” then I think it’s worthwhile to “help them see the light.” Plus, since this is a societal problem primarily it means you’d also be filtering out a lot of woman simply for the fault of having not enough experience in dating.
I honestly don't even know how to parse or think about that.
Are they entitled to date me, even though they've communicated a clear preference not to, and I'm somehow punishing them by not convincing them that, no I'm a really great guy, really...?
Or is it that I'm such a valuable gem that these helpless women who, through no fault of their own are deeply attracted to tall, dark and handsome, must be rescued from that to date me, short, old and bald - because ... ?
Honestly, I really don't get it.
Everything isn't a societal problem. Some people value certain physical characteristics. Those people tend to be a terrible match for me.
I'm happier with people who value my humor, personality and the way I treat them.
We are on a website filled to the brim of people using their abnormal intellects to excel beyond the vast majority of society and amass wealth. I'd go so far as to say that double digits of posters here are part of the 1%. Stop whining about a superficial perceived inferiority that has no real impact on your ability to survive and thrive, and use your galaxy brains to figure out how the mating game works. I'm relatively short and not that attractive but spent a bit of effort on understanding others are looking for in a man and it paid off. There are billions of people out there.
Could you please give more details so that frustrated youngsters like me can learn from your experience. What did you do to understand? And what are your conclusions?
First caveating with the statement: this is all generalization, and there are always exceptions. I'm speaking about stereotypical straight cis-gender relationships here.
* what you want and what women want out of a relationship are in many ways very different
* On a related note, what women find attractive is very different from what men find attractive.
* Do not project your ideas of what you are attracted to onto women's likes, especially when it comes to physical characteristics
* Confidence, presence, and humor will get you past 90% of the crowd
* Spend some effort on style and clothing. If you don't want to be stylish, then at least be unique.
* Recognize that women are also horny and want sex as much as men. The difference is the approach and the ritual around getting there. You'll need to understand what turns a women off during this "dance", e.g. being too explicit about it at the wrong time.
* Do not get so easily dejected by rejection. Build up a thick skin and laugh it off.
* Regularly inject yourself into conversations with women, and when you find a common interest, don't hesitate to take advantage of that and deepen the conversation and eventually schedule something with them.
* Understand what the signs are of someone who is attracted to you, e.g. playing with hair, teasing, other body language. Once these are noticable you can go in for a kiss or an invitation back home.
* Recognize that there are effectively infinite women out there, and each one is going to have different history that shaped their preferences, either an earlier boyfriend or crush or favored celebrity or whatever, and some percentage of them will have preferences that overlap with you and give you an advantage. Even if it's something you think is unattractive, not everyone agrees. So don't give up.
Thanks for sharing those reflections. Although I lack experience, I feel that all what you said is valuable and that reflecting/working on all those points would certainly improve building connections with women.
I am naturally a bit shy and reserved with women. I am also not very witty and humorous (except when drunk) and I have a historical record of nerdiness and introversion. Coupled with a short stature, it makes me lack in confidence (I got some rejections due to height in the past, but in no way I think height is a limiting factor. I believe being fit and confident can make wonders). I am in mid-twenties and I realised that I need to change this and I need to seriously work on it to live a normal life and find a partner.
Also recognize that "finding a partner" is overrated, and don't be in a rush. The consequences of a bad choice in partners can potentially last a lifetime, so be picky as well when it comes to commitments. It can take months or even years to really know someone. Be less picky when it comes to flings. Speaking of which, just because you had sex with someone doesn't mean you are under any obligation to maintain monogamy or a relationship with them. In fact, don't go in under the assumption that a relationship will happen. Let it develop naturally.
Men start off mostly worthless by default from a dating perspective, and gain attractiveness as they gain money and status. So, make money and gain prestige. Pretty-boys who peak in high school are the exception.
Women peak in physical attractiveness to men as soon as they mature. Emotional maturity plays a role in attractiveness, and that generally improves over time, so peak overall attractiveness for your average woman is probably in her 20s.
So, ignore women in your 20s and make lots of money, and then, when you're 30 and rich, marry a 20-year old.
This is one way, but I don't think it's the only way. I believe it is worth to explore other options and you get double benefits: the woman and any other attribute that helped you get the woman in the first place, being it confidence, humour, style, fitness, or any other thing. It's hard but I believe it's also good to give it a shot.
I don't disagree, money is just one dimension of the whole edifice. I guess I'd distinguish between depreciating and appreciating assets: youthful beauty is fleeting, so in terms of long-term payoff a man's better off cultivating the 'hot dad' look, so that their attractiveness peaks between 30-50. Confidence, humour, are good things to build up that stick around- I'd wrap that all up in 'your personality', which I agree is good to cultivate. I'd guess it's roughly equally important as your financial situation (and the two are intertwined/interdependent to some degree).
Lastly, fitness is a red queen's race, kind of like aging; time works against you, and the worse your body gets the harder it is to get fit (fitness protects against a lot of chronic problems that make exercise harder) so there's never a better time to get/stay fit than now.
TL:DR; I agree that everything you mentioned is inherently valuable and will also help you get women, so long as we don't forget money and competence!
I went in this fully expecting you to be correct but drastically pessimistic in terms of hard numbers. Instead you were exactly wrong on the easiest point to check divorce rate. Short men tend to marry later on average but divorce at a substantially lower rate.
The part about 200x the matches is both obviously pulled out of the air and grossly exaggerated. It looks like on average women tend to prefer men who are taller but not hugely different in height from themselves.
If you are 5'6" you are most apt to be most attractive to women who are 5'4" or shorter which is helpfully 43% of women in the US.
You say you are very likely to die alone based entirely on a malarkey stat you pulled from thin air. You don't need hundreds of matches in a dating app to find one person you want to spend your life with. You need to instead cultivate qualities that would inspire ONE of many potentially worthwhile mates out there to make time with you and then work on enriching your life and relationship.
The problem with this fatalistic attitude is twofold. Firstly it spoils all hope of success to believe in yourself not one whit and second it holds that somehow MEN or at least yourself are rational whole mental and emotional creatures while somehow women are irrational animals who somehow cannot even see you. It's degrading to you and to hypothetical mates.
>If you are 5'6" you are most apt to be most attractive to women who are 5'4"
In which fantasy world that study was done? lets see.
mmm 2012, the year Tinder was created, so it was basically in a different era, but let's continue.
I see 'questionnaire based data' so it's self reported data! Of course you are going to report that you love 5'6' men. But you really don't. People say politically correct things, and then do a different thing, and this is specially true in dating. Look for studies based on Tinder or other recent online dating sites to have more accurate and real data.
I know multiple tall, classically good looking men who, while they can can get dates, can not maintain them because they have zero relationship skills, and I know just as many short men who have a relationship whenever they want.
While height might be an early filter, it is by no means the only source of attraction. Men would do well to build the rest of their personalities to stand themselves out rather than complain about something they have no control over.
This social disqualification is the reason the truth remains hidden. I'm only 5'9 and have a family, but this was way before social networks and online dating. The world is different now.
>I know
Yes I know many data points that fall outside the curve too. But I'm talking about the curve.
The other great factor for dating success for men is income. You can offset being short by earning a lot of money. Since you are here on HN I assume you earn way more than average Americans.
Each inch of height corresponds to about $25k of yearly income on the attractiveness scale. Do the math, are you still below average? Note that income isn't just what you earn, but what you can be expected to earn in the future, so even if you met a woman as a bright computer science student you would still expect to earn a lot of money.
Confidence gets you past any initial filter (not to be confused with arrogance or assertiveness — be respectful).
Once you get serious, it’s the bigger filters you need to worry about IME.
My then new girlfriend’s friend asked me out of nowhere: “what’s a derivative?” And my answer was “investing or calculus?” Apparently that was a filter for my wife when she dated. She wanted smart men who weren’t just faking it, wouldn’t just start talking about things because they knew something about it, etc. Her and her friend had that simple question. I was basically the first guy to pass it. Hell, I even had some basic filters, like going on a road trip together. Eventually, got married, made babies, and travel around the world. I got lucky — met her semi-randomly on the beach through mutual friends. Neither one of us were looking for a relationship at the time.
>Men would do well to build the rest of their personalities to stand themselves out rather than complain about something they have no control over.
Are you saying that he's missing out on lots of opportunities for self-improvement in the two minutes or less it took to write that comment? It's not wrong for people to complain about things that negatively affect them, and it's not mutually exclusive with trying to fix the problem. There is really no justification for the insistence that short men must not complain at all.
I’m a 5’1 guy and I ended up marrying someone who was 5’3, I never expected to get results on a dating site though, I knew my wife from a social setting for months before we started dating.
That's why it's important to lie about height & income (at least until you're looking to settle down with a permanent trusting relationship). If you're not cheating, you're not trying.
This is not true. Women prefer men who are relatively taller than them.
Obviously it’s better to be taller because that opens up more options. But the preference women have is for you to be taller than she is not that you have to hit some absolute value of 6’.
>Except that in dating, women overwhelmingly prefer men over 6', and very small differences like 5'7 vs 5'9 double or triple the matches in online dating sites.
This is why you shouldn't put height in your dating profile, so you filter out a bunch of superficial people.
There’s definitely a lot of stories were person A recounts their meeting person B by saying “I almost didn’t meet your [father|mother] if it hadn’t been for…” where the meeting was almost blocked by some arbitrary prejudicial filter due yo inexperience. I think it can work to your advantage as a filter but given how poorly online dating works for anything but matching on superficialities you might practically end up filtering out everyone.
Lucky for short people, height is a lot less of a factor in modern society. Wealth is a much bigger factor. And what's the best path to wealth? Software. Even more lucky for them, software and internet doesn't care about height.
There was a study on online dating habits that said that even someone who was 5'8 would need to earn ~138k more than the same 6'0 person to be considered equivalent, controlling for everything else [1]. Of course it is just one study and I havent looked into it fully but nonetheless.
I used to go out with a friend of mine, he's a multiple business owner, a miltimillionarie since he was 25, blonde, blue eyes, etc. Also he's very social, he was always the 'soul of the party' etc. Me, at that time I had a 10 years old car, but I'm 5'9 and he's 5'6.
I always was the one that got the phone numbers, always.
Well chroma is giving an anecdote not necessarily how about how women choose him despite being short, but about the women who did end up choosing him realizing that height ended up being an irrelevant factor given his other qualities.
What is not so lucky for short people is how our modern society rewards tall people with more wealth. S&P 500 CEO’s have an average height of 6ft, compared to the average height of 5ft10in in the US. Also, 30 percent of SP500 CEO’s are 6ft2in or taller, compared to only 3.9 percent of the rest of the US population.
These things matter across the board, not just in the top tier management positions. Each inch of height adds $789 of average yearly salary, which makes a huge difference between a 5ft5 in person compared to someone who is 6ft tall. https://www.premiumtimesng.com/entertainment/naija-fashion/2...
I am sure there are some women for which that's true, but do you really think it's that strong of a universal?
IDK, whenever men write stuff like that I always think to myself "you need to hang around better people". Like you can absolutely 100% find women that cold and calculating and dishonest. But acting like all women are that impulsive is really strange to me. That's like saying all men will beat you up and rob you because it makes sense in evolutionary terms.
We are talking about attractiveness here, you can't choose who you are attracted to. So in one case you have a wife who fucks the pool boy, in the other you have a wife that wants to fuck the pool boy but doesn't since she is a great person. But in both cases you have a wife who is more sexually attracted to others than to you, you can live with that but it is sad for those people. Just like how old men tend to be more attracted to young women than their old wives, and that makes those wives sad even if those men never leave their wife or cheats, reality has a lot of sad facts like that.
You'll never be the most attractive person in the world though. Even if your SO think you're attractive, there's a huge amount of people they'd be more attracted to, if they had the chance to meet them.
I think the stats you are referencing about humans getting taller are from improvements in childhood nutrition. I don't think genetically we've been selecting for taller people, as that is harder to conclude (plus, even if woman select for taller men, men do not necessarily select for taller woman, and woman are part of this too let's not forget).
> Women usually marry the millionaire, but have sex with the pool boy. This dual-mating strategy is instinctive.
Yea and the man has concubines, and the prenup? Pretty sure the woman usually doesn't have the pool boy's children in these stories.
EDIT: See here for a study showing after 1980 people have actually been getting shorter (at least in Japan, which can be considered almost a post-modern society when compared to the US) [1].
Height, weight, shape, pilosity, generic looks, intelligence, education, success, wealth, virility, etc. are all criteria that are used by people to judge other people and discriminate, whether they're purely esthetic or have functional impact. Society also prizes different things in men and women. These are all forms of discrimination but I think it should be clear that they're nothing like the discrimination of black people. Scale, intention, means, effect, all matter. A puddle isn't an ocean although both will get you wet if you step in them.
If your point is that we should eliminate any and all discrimination... sure. Although it's a far too lofty goal to happen as long as we're biological beings. But saying that "there's really no difference" between color and height discrimination is something you could and should really walk back from rather than attempt repeatedly to defend.
Every single decision you make is based on some criteria that you may not even be able to clearly define. But just because you can't verbalize why you like this person and not the next doesn't make it less of a discrimination process. Do you think that makes you the KKK?
I concede it's arguable which discrimination is of a bigger magnitude, but it doesn't matter. MLK's whole point was that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. That specifically means that no matter how small the injustice is, as long as it's the same class of injustice (prejudice), it's a threat to justice elsewhere.
> I concede it's arguable which discrimination is of a bigger magnitude
Unfortunately you conceded nothing and chose to maintain a position which you not only failed to support no matter how many times you tried, it's also either insulting, dismissive, or absurdly ignorant. If you have to wonder which discrimination is of higher magnitude, against black people or short people you clearly don't grasp the full extent of what discrimination can be. You fail to understand how magnitude makes these 2 cases far more different than the fact that they are "discrimination" makes them similar.
Quoting MLK after wondering which discrimination is bigger (against black people or against people who are 5'9") just adds insult to injury.
You seem convinced that having a hairy mole on your face is exactly like being black or jew as far as discrimination goes. That being rejected by a woman for the mole is the same as being rejected and punished by society for your skin color. Who's to know who suffered more? It's "arguable" because they are "the same class" after all, right? So I concede that you're far more willing to dig yourself in the deepest hole trying to defend an indefensible argument than to actually concede anything.
I'll tell you one thing, no matter how you look like, if people hate your character they might use whatever insult cuts you deeper rather than something they have a personal issue with. So if you do go around telling people being short is like being black and they pick on your height it could be that they have a problem with what you chose to be rather than what you are by nature.
Really it's a made up story from "data" that hasn't been shared from someone who is apparently happily married and learned about online dating at least second hand but seemingly just from tropes they've heard in online forums, so I'm not too worked up about the situation.
> plus, even if woman select for taller men, men do not necessarily select for taller woman, and woman are part of this too let's not forget
Men's preferences only matter in a monogamous society, where less attractive women are expected to settle down with less attractive men who will financially support their kids.
But in modern welfare states, less attractive women can still sleep with very attractive men (whom they could never marry), have their children, and rely on the state to financially support their kids.
Which means the rich but unattractive men are, through taxes, paying for the children of the attractive men.
>Which means the rich but unattractive men are, through taxes, paying for the children of the attractive men
I con't understand how so few people realize this. The modern 'incel crisis' is fueled by online dating and government subsidies. It's the perfect combination to ensure reproduction of only the top few percent of men.
i would claim that incels have existed in the past, but there wasn't a convenient way to gather and confide. With the advent of the internet and anonymity, it's easy to gather and confide.
I dont know if you would consider this self-reinforcing though. Saying that this group is self-reinforcing would imply that homosexuals gathering online to talk and confide are similarly self-reinforcing.
I absolutely disagree. How do you support that conclusion?
What I’ve heard from incels makes it easy to understand why women would be uninterested. That worldview and subsequent outcome would seem to be reinforced by spending lots of time with people who reinforce the negativity.
He's not disagreeing with that. . After pregnancy there are about 18 years of raising a kid too-- so ability to provide is a part of selection. In the past women would have to take it into account, but now it's much less necessary because they will be provided for either way
Is that really why humans are getting taller? Most increase in height has happened in the last 70 years and linked to increases in nutrition. Selective pressure seems implausible as an explanation for any measurable increases in height in historical time.
Yep, and studies show after 1980 people have actually been getting shorter (at least in Japan, which can be considered almost a post-modern society when compared to the US) [1].
"taller soldiers are more likely to survive battle and that taller parents are more likely to have sons". This was based on his research of British Army records from the First World War, which showed that "surviving soldiers were on average more than one inch (3.33 cm) taller than fallen soldiers"
I was thinking that the taller men were recruited to the army first, while the rest didn't leave home at all. But eventually everyone would've joined I suppose.
What if better nutrition has allowed for better selection of taller genes? Back when everyone was more nutrient deficient and had stunted growth, I imagine it would be much harder to select for a suppressed trait.
I think you’ve nailed the central point here: men get stuck in the friend zone where they can’t have sex with a woman. However, women have the opposite problem where they get stuck in the fuck zone where the man only wants casual sex and doesn’t care about a romantic, emotional, or cohabitative relationship.
Just because you’re getting Tinder matches doesn’t mean you’re finding the type of relationship you want. I see a lot of men on /pol/ unable to see that things can be equally difficult in different ways on the female side.
I'm not convinced the friend zone is real, I think some women are just fine being friends with people they don't want to have sex with. I've gotten out of the "friend zone" with multiple women I know.
> Basically this means that in modern dating, if you are short, you are very likely to die alone and this trend will only get worse in the future.
Maybe in America. Plenty of countries where the average height is lower than what the article mentions. Not to mention that most European countries are "ahead" regarding respect than America.
I don't know where you are getting your information from. I've talked to plenty of women. Heck, I am on of those. And I've talked to folks that aren't women, too.
It isn't obvious. I've personally never considered height as a qualifier. I've known folks that prefer someone taller than themselves but they wouldn't turn down a shorter man. The preference isn't going to make someone pass, but more akin to preferring dark hair over light hair. You see, preferences don't always add up to action and most folks I've known wouldn't pass on someone because of height.
But if you are only using information from dating apps, your information is going to be seriously skewed for everyone. I might not always care about height, but if you are giving me a list of attributes and I'm looking for casual sex - I'm probably going to choose depending on my whims at the time. Height can make some positions better or worse, after all.
It is also possible that men think height is more important because they think height is important, much like overly muscled comic characters are overly muscled to appeal to men.
I think you forgot to link the data that makes this obvious?
And remember the point I think is nonsense is specifically, “women overwhelmingly prefer men over 6’”, not that height is the biggest determining factor for attractiveness in men.
Being tall had several competitive advantages in the past. Basically before guns were invented the bigger guy usually could kill smaller guys, and get more food for the family. Quite obvious that women would prefer the big guy, and instincts don't change that quickly.
I perfectly agree it make sense evolutionarily speaking, I just wonder how that subjectively manifest in a woman mind. I don't think it's the same perceived stimulus vs the consensual sexy perception of a hypertrophied 6 pack.
I think they actually change faster than most would think. While that specific reason for preferring big guys is out-dated, more recently malnutrition and destitution have been a black mark on short people.
The reason I think societal trends move faster than we think is that I think it was only in the middle of the last century that we still preferred fatter bodies.
Pep talk: Everybody dies alone. Sorry, not very "peppy" perhaps. All right, how about this: Quantity of women (i.e. numbers who prefer tall guys on some app) is not the same as quality of women. It's kind of the opposite in fact, if humanity is anything like a bell curve. The mainstream, with its sheer numbers, is full of dullards. The most blindingly, boringly average people, from essentially the center of the gene pool in every way, are the ones we tend to find most attractive. Which is great for selecting for reproductive fitness for the species overall. Evolution will trick you into doing its bidding. But thanks to modernity, reproduction itself is really only relevant if you choose to make it so, and even then, only for like the first third or half of your life. Which is a time horizon that's hard to see when you're in it, but clear as day by the time you hit 40 or 50 and your kids are starting to be independent.
So try to play the long game. You might meet your special someone later in life, who knows. Meanwhile in the short term, whoever doesn't appreciate you for what you are, look at it kind of like "well fuck 'em anyway," like they just self-selected out of your filter. Regardless, I'm 100% certain you won't be helping anything by trying to trick people into liking you. And I'm about 80% sure you won't even get anywhere by trying earnestly to be whatever stupid thing they want or think they want, or that some cost-free process of entering profile info on an app encourages them to blithely and carelessly say they want (because why not?). This goes not just for being short but for any human trait you do or don't possess. (And the only reason I allow 20% of hope there is because there's a possibility that through concerted effort you might actually manage to improve yourself in some way. But it should be something that came from you, something you yourself want to strive for, not something to please some fickle asshole and make them like and approve of you.)
It's not about what they want. It's about who you are, and whoever is the "audience" for that, is who you should be focusing on. What does Slayer care about Ariana Grande fans? Maybe on some level they wish they had as many fans as she does, but I'm pretty sure they aren't out there trying to impress them or win them over by being more Ariana-Grande-like. (I don't even know if Slayer is still a band; I might be dating myself.)
Editing to further bloviate:
Who is going to mate with all the short women of the world? Tall guys? No, they're mostly looking for tall girlfriends. But short women need love too, and the ones who aren't so shallow and lacking in logistical foresight as to demand someone two full feet taller than themselves, are out there. Just a thought.
One detail stuck out to me in this piece: The fact that this guy continues to read anti-short-people hate online, and still reflexively feels slighted, but then "remembers" that he got this surgery, kind of speaks to the fact that a big part of this is in his own head. Hear me out. I'm not suggesting people aren't being total douches about those of diminutive stature, because I've witnessed it and I'm quite sure they are. If someone is saying a sentence where if you put "black" let's say, in place of "short," there would be hell to pay, well then... there should be hell to pay. It's not right. At the same time, there is always evil shit out there being hurled at someone. Even tall white rich males. (Maybe especially them, lately.) Do you let that inside your head and make it your own thought that follows you around, day and night, far outside the reach of the douche who said it? It's difficult to practice the level of mental & emotional discipline it takes to cast such thoughts out, but it is an area where you have some degree of control over the situation.
It even have several health benefits. Except that in dating, women overwhelmingly prefer men over 6', and very small differences like 5'7 vs 5'9 double or triple the matches in online dating sites. If we are talking about 5'6 vs 6'0 the difference is ridiculous, like over 200X more matches. Women even divorce short men at double the rate of tall men. Those sites have years of very precise statistics that support this fact.
Basically this means that in modern dating, if you are short, you are very likely to die alone and this trend will only get worse in the future.