Tall Tales

My daughter met a boy online.

As she was studying his pictures on Instagram and Facebook, I saw her zoom in and out, tilt the screen this way and that.

“I’m trying to figure out how tall he is,” she explained. “What if he’s shorter than me?”

 I’ve never taught her that – because I know it makes no sense and is unfair.

However, as my husband, who is 6’1”, likes to remind me, on our first date, I told him that he was “a nice height.”

Was I actually concerned about how we might look while dancing? How stupid. I can’t even remember the last time we danced.

Evolutionary theories abound about how a man being tall signals health and genetic fitness and has, therefore, come to be seen as attractive.

It doesn’t just affect men romantically. Studies have shown that tall men, on average, make more money than shorter men. And there’s an interesting study that showed that it wasn’t just how tall the men ended up being as adults. Men who are tall, but were short in high school, earned less money than men who are their same height but were already tall at 16. Something about the experience of being short affected the men’s confidence, for the long term, the researchers speculated.

I suspect, in romance, the man’s actual height doesn’t matter, as long as he is taller than the woman. (Concerns that a man be tall are intertwined with concerns that a woman be small.)

If I could go back in time, boy, would I have a lot to say to my younger self. Including – though, let me stress, I am perfectly happy with the guy I got – don’t worry about superficial things like height.