Thinking that women would benefit if they were more open minded about height in a potential partner…

[Moonfishstar]

… and not write off the majority of men who are under 6 foot (85%).

Women seem to be fighting for a small proportion of men - with the disappointment that will inevitably bring to the many who inevitably won’t succeed. Of course, it’s even crapper for the good,
but short, men out there.

Of course, we all fancy who we fancy, and I’m not saying we should date shorter (or even average!) men out of pity or a “sense of fairness”, but how much of women’s desire to bag a tall guy is actually societal, and down to how they think other women will view them?

I agree with your last paragraph.

Appearance wise, the most attractive thing l find in men is height. I can disregard a lot of other physical things if they’re tall.

It’s top of my list. I’m 5ft 8. Dh is 6ft 2. He’s the shortest man lve been with.

Nothing to do with how much they earn then😂

🤣 Yes, you have to admire the boldness of the approach though. You could go to the effort of improving your self esteem, your health, you could build skills people find admirable, you could become knowledgeable about interesting subjects, you could take on interesting adventures or climb a career ladder and aquire a whole bloody catalogue of qualities considered to be attractive.

But no, we'll just sit at our computers in our dressing gown and harangue all women to find us attractive regardless of their preferences.

My DB is 5ft 7. SIL is 6ft. Thank goodness she didn’t care about his height. She admitted to me she’d hesitated before swiping but she is very glad she didn’t.

Ha, that's me. But I'm 5 foot 11. I'm just not really attracted to men shorter than me. Thankfully my husband is 6 foot 3.

Ok so 15% of women is not exactly a majority, is it? Not to mention that a survey would not have sufficient sample size to represent population at large, nor is it a particularly strong level of evidence.

I think I've dated men from 5'5" to 6'6". It's not their height that means I'm not seeing them any more. It makes no odds when you're lying down, anyway.

But it is true a lot of men's profiles on OLD will say something like "5'10" - because that seems to be important here." (Not sure it is, except as a way to exercise my eye-rolling muscles.)

I've not seen many women's profiles, but I doubt there are very many saying "don't bother if you're less than 5'8"/6ft/ whatever." (there probably are a few.) I have seen men's profiles saying "don't bother if you're over size 14," or other things like that, so I'm not feeling too sorry for men who aren't doing well on OLD, much as I realise the guys being demanding about physical attributes aren't always the same as the ones who get little interest on OLD. (Would be interesting to see the Venn diagram, though.)

My Dh is 5 6" and he is wonderful, height never bothered me. He doe not have issue with his height either, always says he is very happy with how tall he is.

Dd was watching an American show on YouTube called ‘Pop the Balloon’.
In the episode I watched the women had to burst the balloon of the men they found the least attractive at first sight.
Many of the women burst the balloon of men who were under 6ft as they said they wanted a tall man.
The interviewer would then speak to the men who weren’t chosen . Some of the shorter men had great personalities and as a result the women would ask that these men receive a new balloon. In most cases, the women ended up picking the ‘shorter’ man.
I suppose shorter men have to have other great qualities to almost ‘compensate’ for their lack of height.

Weirdly, I've noticed that usually it isn't even the very shortest guys who are the whiners. It's the guys who are about average or just somewhat under average who make it into their entire personality to be "short and suffering for it".

It's never the really tall men that give smaller men a hard time about being small either. Men between 5'7" and 5'10" are the people who IME get really insecure about it.

I have a friend who seems to only consider relationships with men who are very tall. In some cases it was the only 'positive' trait they had! Some of her boyfriends in their 30's didn't have a steady job/trade or any qualifications and lived with their parents or brother - but they would be 6'4😬
She has been single for a while and although I am hopeful she will meet someone nice, I really think her obsession with height will make this difficult.
Having said all this, she is the only friend I've had who is that obsessed with height. Another old friend of mine seems to prefer men closer or only slightly taller than her own height, which is around 5'6".

I'm going to be honest, I have had 3 boyfriends, including DH and they have all been 6'2 or 6'3. I wouldnt date someone shorter than 6ft and I am just shy of 5'2.

I did have a taller friend have a go at me once saying the tall men should be reserved for tall women!

But the heart wants what it wants...

I did not set out to find a tall one, and I did not realise (until this post) that having bagged one was a win.

Now that I know this, a sense of smug superiority is setting in and it’s pretty good.

Yeah, but @Moonfishstar wasn’t suggesting women should consider shorter men because it was ‘kind’ or ‘fair’. They were suggesting women will miss out on fantastic partners who just happen to be short if they set height as an absolute red line.

This! I'm 5ft 9 barefoot and don't want to feel like the butch one in the relationship. Nothing to do with societal norms 🙄

I think women can be attracted to whoever they're attracted to. I'm sure similar could be said about men dating older women or larger women or women with a certain hair colour or whatever.

Fwiw, I've dated men ranging from 5'3" to 6'5". None of my friends who have dated were bothered by a man's height.

Yes, same. I'm 5'9". I only need him to be 1" taller. I have accepted that I might pass up a really good man because he is shorter than me, but I can't get past my insecurity.

I prefer tall men
my other half is 6ft 3 and pretty much any one I’ve dated seriously has been over 6ft

5ft 10 -11 would be the lowest height for me 😂
I’m 5ft 6 myself so with heels I can easily be 5ft 9

I just wouldn’t physically fancy a short guy no matter what

I might like them but I couldn’t see myself with them long term

but then again I wouldn’t date someone who smokes or was a big drinker either

Well DH is 6ft but I'd have gone down to 5ft 10. Not smaller. I find short men unattractive. I like tall men, not skinny.

Yes but maybe the 15% is because they think people will fabricate their height slightly if male so 5ft 8 is actually 5 ft 6 and average height for women is around 5 ft 4/5.

I certainly never had a 6ft requirement, my DH is 5ft 11.
I did have a has to make me laugh, is easy going and not a knob requirement however!

I agree.
Men have historically and biologically had less at stake than women so can have a different attitude.
Men are taking less of a gamble, and care about looks at a push. Women are perfectly allow to want a certain height or wealth.

I don't find men who are shorter than me sexually attractive (I'm 5'9"). Can't help it.

I liked to date men who were taller than me , but I'm 5 foot 1 , so I was hardly cutting off a large portion of the male population 😅 my dh is 5 foot 11 , so hardly a giant but he's tall enough to reach the top shelf 🙈

This is only a thing on social media. In real life, women don't care! My DH is 5 ft 6, my dad is 5 ft 7, my BIL (married to my sister) is 5 ft 4 and my stepdad is 5 ft 8.