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Comment by darkmarmot | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

Interesting, but we were both 19 in college.

Ok, so not necessarily the case there but maybe in some cases where those darn insecure men are lying about their height.

Even if someone asks me my height I probably just say 6'4' and leave it at that.

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.

> … almost 6’2”

So…you are 6’1”?

LOL. Touche.

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.

Just figured I’d bust you out given the topic. :-)

Which is preferred: truncating or rounding?

Truncating. OP is right

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.

> there's a 2 or 3 inch bump across the board

You’ve discovered a new unit of measurement - the “dating inch”. Applicable not just to height.

It's like the opposite of the women's clothes sizing phenomenon.

Yeah the bump breaks down around 6’3”.

That's what you get for using inexact imperial units.

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