"She's nice but very small"

[frostytinsel]

My mum rang me earlier to tell me about sibling's new girlfriend who she has recently met (I haven't met her yet).

First comment was along the lines of "Oh yes I met Annabel the other day, she's nice, very small, she's from India, spent most of her life in Dubai then came over here, I thought she'd be taller but when I met her she was very small, lovely girl though."

AIBU to be feel annoyed by this focus on appearance?

My mum often seems to point out how tall/ short/ big/ small someone is on first meeting them. I'm much more interested in her career, interests, etc but none of that was even mentioned, it was all about her appearance and the fact she wasn't British.

My mum's first question to her daughter in law, asking about the DIL's sister's fiance was, "is he good looking?". I saw that DIL was visibly taken aback but managed to stammer, "he's lovely," but I could see my mother wanted to know if the fiance was actually good looking. Old folk aren't interested in the personality of others!

I really wouldn’t worry. I’m short and most people don’t comment. Some people mention it but it small or short is not an insulting word. It’s not like pointing out someone is overweight. Men tend to find it attractive (as opposed to the poor short men of the world who some women won’t date). I can fit in small spaces.

Can’t reach very high and have to adjust the car seat when my husband has been in it. That’s the only negatives really.

It can be surprising to meet someone who is particularly short or tall if you’re always around average people iykwim. I’d say a comment about someone’s height isn’t usually a big deal unless it’s derogatory.

Your Mum didn’t say her being short was a bad thing, just remarked on it. If your Mum keeps going on about it then it’s an issue.

So what are you supposed to ask someone of a different generation? Which of the speakers in Plato’s Symposium best reflects their concept of Love? Do they believe that Tutankhamen was murdered by his uncle? What do they fancy for the 3. 20 at Ludlow ? Or how about where does your family live ( though of course that might get you accused of racism)

We used to call it small talk.

My nephew was very short compared to his peers until he was about 16. He got constant comments and pats on the head about being short. He was teased ('good-naturedly') and even given a nick name by peers / friends about being short. Basically it defined him. Then he grew and actually whipped up past many of them and is now almost 6 feet in his early twenties. He just grew late. Now everyone he knows comments on how tall he got compared to how short he was! His height is still a topic of conversation.

My late mum was similar but more obsessed with “prettiness” and weight. It used to make me so furious when she’d follow up hearing about new friends or colleagues by asking: “Is she pretty?” What to I care? Is that really the most thing for a friend/ doctor/ teacher to be?

I think many women if her age were also brought up to be the weight police. Sigh!

If you cant remember who Bob and Jane are then presumably its short hand to tell you who they are

What would you prefer your mum to say to help you work out who they are?

Are you a short man? If so I sympathise. But please avoid that blackpill thinking. It is poisonous. DS is seriously short - shorter than most short women. He has a beautiful, brilliant, kind and talented girlfriend about 4 inches taller than him who seems absolutely oblivious to his height. They met OLD and fell in love on their first date. It can happen. Not all women are put off by height. DH is tall but all the men I dated before him were short. Generally I preferred short men, being short myself. But I would have been very put off by any man spouting that black pill stuff.

@ILoveAllRainbowsx I don't think 5ft 1 is all that short for a woman my mum is 5ft 1 infact I know loads of woman who are roughly this height mum has no issues finding clothes. my Grandmother was 4ft 10 I'd only say anything below 5ft was short for a woman these days. I'm 5ft 3 and am taller than lots of my friends. unless we're all short here up north lol.
But I do think the older generation very much describe people by their appearance, atleast they'd be able to give a good physical description to the police in the event of a crime 🤣 whereas Younger people are too PC and frightened to offend by stating the obvious like they were tall,short,fat,thin, etc 🤣

I think in any one, whether meeting in person or just passing in the street appearance is the first thing you see.

First comment was along the lines of "Oh yes I met Annabel the other day, she's nice
As this was one of the first comments about Annabel I'd say mum wasn't to focused on appearance at first meeting but just using descriptive, (is that a word?) words to describe someone.
I think a lot of people would do the same.

The only man I’ve ever been truly repulsed by was very short, about 5’. He was a colleague. I always thought I hated him on sight but it was actually the way he went on and on and on trying to be one of the lads with the other blokes in the office (inappropriate touching, talking about ‘birds’ and ‘skirt’, winking and calling female colleagues ‘love’. Everything was ‘only a joke’ when even the other men thought he’d gone too far).

It was the early nineties and we were a group of young admin pool workers in a large company. I like to think that situation wouldn’t happen now.

My older brother is like that. Except that If you ask him what someone was like his first comment is about how much they weigh. That makes for a pleasant conversation. Signed, the overweight sister. :)

You’d like to think so, but I do think SMS (short man syndrome) is still a thing, but tends to manifest in anger issues and a hair trigger temper rather than sleaziness.

I'll hold my hands up and say while watching Mary Berry on TV last night getting Rylan to pick Brussel sprouts I couldn't help but notice the hight difference between the two....
My only thought was how sweet they looked as Mary hooked his arm as they walked through the field.

Yes, "tall" is the first adjective some people have used about me too. I'm 5'7" so not short, but I wouldn't have thought such a remarkable height that the first thing you'd think about me is that I'm tall.

Oh I do the stream of conscious crap when describing people I have met for the first time, it is an incredibly annoying trait of mine and I try really hard to stem it. It starts pouring out before I even notice. I am half Irish and I do think it is hereditary as my Mum's family were all the same. I remember telling my Dad about a new co worker I had at Clark's shoe shop when I was 17 and I remember him saying 'I will probably never lay eyes on this woman but I could write her a bloody lonely hearts advert after hearing all that.'

Maybe she think it's too soon to comment on the personality of someone she's just met, once.

The "but" would bother me here... as if her lack of stature is on the other side of the balance sheet, right opposite "nice".

When you first meet someone you can hardly comment about their personality. So looks are often mentioned. As pps have said, you'd go with your own preoccupations, so for my mum who had acne as a teenager, she'd always comment on a person's clear skin.

Oh fgs. Could somebody reset the Incel Swatter and release this one back into the wild, while they're up?

@ILoveAllRainbowsx Yes, I am only 5'1 and it is annoying. But no-one is perfect and there a lots of worse things to worry about.
Please don't categorise being short as some sort of imperfection or deficit. Rid yourself of this inbuilt negative viewpoint of small stature. It's like any other ingrained discriminatory thinking. It's wrong. There is nothing wrong with you just because you are short. It's just the height you are. And that height is perfect for you

I don't get the irritation.

Your DM met her son's new girlfriend which is clearly a source of interest to her. So she's bound to tell you some interesting facts. So she's Indian (interesting), lived in Dubai (interesting) and is short (OK not that interesting but descriptive nonetheless).

It would be hard for her to give a synopsis of her character and personality after 1 brief meeting.

There was nothing rude or offensive in anything she said.

There’s probably a bit of racism at play too. Like ‘Oh she’s small so it’s okay’. I’m tall and Indian and heavyset and people often refer to me in extremely horrible ways because I don’t meet a stereotype

@bellac11

I was looking for something a bit more impressionistic eg:

"You know the couple who live in Foggy Bottom, we had lunch at the pub with them last summer. They have three children and when we met there was a cricket match on the village green".

Telling me how someone makes a living is a) absurdly snobbish as if its their defining characteristic and nothing else about them could possibly be relevant and b) doesn't help me at all unless I'd spoken to him about his work as a consultant surgeon.

I come into contact with plenty of people in my life without having a clue what they do for a job. It can be interesting but it isn't automatically interesting and certainly shouldn't be elevated above other identifying information.