Few years ago I was hiking/swimming with friends along the northern part of the Arroyo Seco river in California. At one point there’s an outcropping of rock with a deep-enough point of the river about 30+ feet below, it’s a common spot for people to jump into the river with plenty of spots nearby to watch and hang out. Some crusty locals (large white dudes, lots of tats, headbands and so on) were jumping from the rock, when one of them paused briefly to literally beat his chest and scream at the top of his lungs to (or at) some women down below, “I’M A MAN, BAYBEEEEEEEE”…and then he lept, with no flourish whatsoever, anti-climatic, into the river.
So when I see that phrase (and it’s not often), that whole stupid scene plays out in my head (thanks for that).
Amsterdam was neat because it’s close to the only place people didn’t stare or double-take at me–it was absolutely lovely.
Which is shameful, North American dudes, but you keep that up since it widens my dating pool.
I actually am the tallest woman my brother’s Japanese mother-in-law had ever met.
The first eight words she said upon seeing me: “She’s tall! She’s very tall! She’s so tall!”
Several high school groups from Kyushu accosted me in Kyoto to interview me for an ESL assignment.
The girls posed for photos with me (for proof they talked to an English speaker). The boys declined.
These anecdotes are bizarre for me because living in North America no one makes much about my height. (I am 176 cm.)
And it messes me up to read about “Big Ethel” or “The Giant” in a Haruki Murakami novel and learn the character is my height.
I don’t shop at a Tall Girl place. I don’t quite reach the minimum for that. But my dad’s paternal lineage is from one of those indigo-coloured countries on the map. In my dad’s family I’m average height for a woman.
My wife (Dutch ancestry) is about 5’10’’ (178cm), and her brothers are all around 6’3" (190cm). I tell her the explanation is simply natural selection. When the dikes failed, as they did periodically, only the tallest had their heads above water.
The correlation between height and perceived attractiveness for men is very strong. I’ve seen it a number of times: a woman mentions she’s met a man, and the first question from her women friends is “Is he tall?”. Height bias has been shown to be as strong as race and age bias in choosing a partner.
I saw a documentary in which a number of women were asked to view interviews with men of different heights and say whom they were attracted to. One guy in particular stood out as a catch - a doctor and published author, well-spoken, and who came across as a genuinely nice guy. He was well below average height, and that was the dealbreaker. The women overwhelmingly preferred one of the other guys - a tall, currently-unemployed lifeguard.
Flying when tall stinks b/c the seats are tiny and it’s damned difficult to keep my knees from getting crushed when the person in front of me leans their seat back. Similarly, signs that are hung too low on city streets or in stores wind me up a bit (as a stupidly hot-headed youth, I’d walk directly into the signs in a passive-aggressive attempt to knock them down, but that can backfire easily).
Beyond that, it’s likely a Really Good Thing that I don’t easily fit on a Ducati or in a Ferrari b/c I would’ve done myself in already.
