Comment by tmsbrg | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tmsbrg | Hacker News Reader

I wonder how much the negatives of being short are caused by lower self esteem due to simply what people say and think about heights.

I'm one of the shortest people in the country with the tallest people in the world, the Netherlands. My height is 164 cm (aside: why do people tend to give their heights in imperial units? Does anyone get that?). I actually never had a problem with my height or felt bad about it when I was younger. I felt bad about plenty of other things about myself. I remember in elementary school a medical inspection where the inspector told me I'll always be short, and asked me what I thought of it, as if I'd be depressed about it. I didn't get her at all. But whenever there's discussion about it online, it's things like people saying women prefer taller men, or people who are 10 cm taller than me saying they hate being short, and people like that inspection woman that do trigger the insecurity part of my brain.

I think it's completely irrational though. As other people have posted, I think the link between health, intelligence and height is one of correlation instead of causation. And I know women's preferences are often much more diverse and different than what people tend to say and think. But still it triggers that insecurity. And I know that can really be a bad thing in itself. Maybe that's the real "shortness" problem people tend to have?

It's all relative. As the paper shows, 164cm is average male height in some countries. The average person is only a plane ride away from being either a short or tall person. Unless they are Dutch.

Women certainly don't want to date men who are shorter than they are. So it is a definite inconvenience to be shorter than the average woman in your own country.

> Women certainly don't want to date men who are shorter than they are.

Where do you get that impression from?

Yup.

Just sit at a cafe and note every couple you see and count how many women are taller than their male counterpart. I'd be willing to bet you that if I did in my area, I'd find 0. In fact, in all my years of living and traveling I've only seen ONE couple that had a short guy (less than five foot six) with a tall woman (six foot tall+).

Or look at dating profiles on match.com and see what women want in terms of eligible heights. You're extremely likely to find women want guys who are taller than they are. In fact, it's not uncommon for a short women to want at minimum guys who are close to a foot taller than they are.

And then look at movies and show and see how often couples have the women taller than the man. It's not often.

I'd take what online-tech-forum-dwellers say about women with a grain of salt :) After all, we're humans, we have more than an evolutionary eugenetic instict for choosing our partners, like characteristics and social status, and apart from them, different women prefer different physical traits. For health, well, there is a certain clustering of centenarians in some parts of the world, especially in Japan and Sardinia, places not known for tall people. For intelligence, that's just nonsense; even if we say that intelligence is related to cranium size, we can't certainly say that cranium size is linked to height.

>I wonder how much the negatives of being short are caused by lower self esteem due to simply what people say and think about heights.

There are statistically proven negative points in being not very attractive in general. Beautiful people have (significantly) higher chance to become successful in their job and/or businesses.

> (aside: why do people tend to give their heights in imperial units? Does anyone get that?)

I'm from the US, so I do naturally think in the ridiculous old units, but I think it might be because measurements in cm are too big to be easily grasped, whereas measurements in meters are too small. Which is more readily apparent?

A.) 188 cm

B.) 1.88 m

C.) 74"

D.) 6'2"

Additionally, the old imperial units of measurement are more or less explicitly human-scale.

> A.) 188 cm > B.) 1.88 m

Those are exactly the same for anyone even remotely familiar with standard units.

Whether feet or centimetres are easier to grasp is a matter of what you are used to — its purely cultural.

Of course they are. People can tend to struggle mightily with decimals and fractions, however.

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