Do women really rule out average height men, or is it online talk?

[Uravinalaugh]

My younger step brother who is 19 [I am male btw], told me that women only want to date much taller men, he's roughly the same height as me, 5'7 [5'9 in thicker soled trainers lol], and is very introvert and hasn't had any dating experience, he has a few friends and I have noticed girls in the past being nice to him/liking him when I have seen him socializing. I was aware of this height bias which shows up quite a lot online and on social media, even here on mumsnet I have seen dating related threads where many women appear to be very dismissive of dating shorter men [used to nose sometimes using my OHs old account ,she didn't mind ahaha]

Because of this, I have been noticing often when I am out in public the heights of men to see if this is true, and it very clearly isn't. Last weekend I went to a well known seaside town for the day, due to the weather it was packed so millions of people and I would say literally the amount of couples of all ages where the man was average/slightly shorter than average height was the majority, it very clearly isn't the case that most women are not attracted to men below 6ft, 5ft10 or whatever. I myself have also never had a huge issue dating in the past, I never even knew I was particularly short until seeing this height related stuff online, and where women are concerned my height has never been mentioned

Was curious if this is only me that's noticed this, I think it could be more of a gen z thing than millenial and above? I'm not sure, but it definitely doesn't seem to match up with what I have seen with my own eyes in real life, have tried to reassure step bro that his height is fine, I think his parents have too, but don't seem to be able to convince him

Ah sorry, I misread your post and thought it was about the Netherlands rather than it being a rural highschool in the UK so I wrote:

“Maybe that has some impact but it’s primarily genetics (the main determining factor above all else regarding height across populations) plus the diet: lots of dairy food, lots of meat and vegetables as well so good nutrition but the dairy/ protein levels are the main difference in diet terms (the factor that impacts the next highest amount after genetics).”

But in terms of a rural high school in the UK it would make perfect sense because rural areas have much lower ethnic diversity therefore most people will be of northern European descent, so the skewing factor of large populations whose genetics originated from countries where people are smaller will have barely any/ far less impact on lowering the average, and I’m sure the good diet if people are living on farms also helps!

Do you really think most adults don’t know their own height? I know you stated in a previous post that you didn’t but most people surely do. Many, many posters on this thread have stated theirs and didn’t say “roughly” or “I think I am somewhere around….”, rather stated their height confidently. If you ever have to have one of numerous medications prescribed you have to have a height and weight check, or if you ever have any kind of sedation or anaesthetic for a medical procedure, and your height is measured to calculate BMI which is part of general medical checks so I find the idea someone could get to adulthood and not know their own height rather odd, tbh. I don’t believe that all of the men (and it is almost always men…) who misrepresent their height on dating apps are all just accidentally mistaken and when asked this question when registering for the app, if they genuinely had no idea, also had no tape measure in their house so couldn’t find out. It’s the equivalent of someone 100kg claiming they weigh 70kg then feigning innocence: it’s not hard to find out if you don’t already know, which itself would be very unusual.

It is “mysterious” that the “estimations” of men’s heights almost always seem to be higher than reality and the “estimations” of everyone’s weights almost always seem to be lower than reality if these were genuine mistakes because then we would expect the misrepresentations to be evenly distributed higher and lower, not always in a direction that the person making the misrepresentation considers likely to be favourable to their prospects.

When I am out in public I generally feel that I blend in and don't feel that I stand out for my height, seeing men my age group who are my own height or similar isn't a rare occurrence, and even have two in my social circle and I am ten years younger than you so not sure how thats working out

According to the internet someone my height should be struggling immensely with women, and that also hasn't been my experience either, so obviously I must be a rare exception for a man of my height

Yes height definitely isn't a deciding factor for everyone at all, the stats from online are very deceiving.
And no, skinny wouldn't be for me at all either.

I do think your comments are a bit odd though because you seem to be making out that women date a tall man even if he's a crushing bore without any positive qualities, when for most I would imagine that's highly unlikely, they still want to get on with him and enjoy his company and other qualities, they just only want to date men with those qualities who are tall, which is no different really to wanting to date someone beefy, presumably beefy isn't the only thing you care about so why assume that women who only date tall men don't care about anything else.

You're not a rare exception, some people on the internet just obsess over this and completely exaggerate and play the victim and make out that there's no hope for them and men of their height, they'd rather spend their time conducting experiments where they make a profile with their real height and a profile where they say they're taller and then post the results online to complain about it, instead of just using the apps to date like other people or just going out and meeting people in real life.

There’s always been this talk but actually it’s not true, I know several women taller than their husbands. Also some women are short, my DD’s are 5’3&5’4

This was part of the reason for my creating of this post as my brother is a nice lad and I don't want him to fall down that rabbit hole being a below average height lad for someone his age. I know I am not a rare exception, my previous post was in response to the person I quoted who I felt was being quite contrary making a point that I am a well below average height for someone my age and not a slightly below average height, which to me is confirmed by what I see with my own eyes when out and about and in social situations as well as my own life experience. I am fully aware that I am slightly below average height but I certainly don't feel short to the point that my height stands out, even amongst men my own age

I think you’ve quoted the wrong person. I know my exact height and actually put it in my post!

Apologies, I meant this comment for the OP!

You would be suprised how many men actually overestimate there actual heights, at least from what I have seen. I actually watched a youtube video recently of men out in the streets being asked there heights before being checked with a tape measure[not the kind of content I usually consume, just something I came across and watched out of curiosity], and literally every single guy on there had overestimated, or perhaps exaggerated there height from slightly to significantly, suprisingly including men who were above average height, ie 5'11 guy thinking he was 6'1. Whether many of them were in denial and convincing themselves they were taller than they were to make themselves feel better, or whether it was genuine error I don't know, but that appeared to be a good example of how some men can incorrectly judge there own height

My point is that it’s not remotely plausible that they “over-estimated”. Why would all of the estimation errors result in them stating they are taller than they are, not some under-estimating, if it was genuine?

It may be self-delusion in some cases and in other cases they are deliberately lying but regardless, it’s not a neutral, accidental “estimation error”. It’s dishonesty either with themselves because of denial, or deliberately misleading people.

Either way, such behaviour indicates some psychological issues that are a huge turn-off for women based on what people have said on this thread, because nobody sane wants a deluded boyfriend, or a lying boyfriend, or a boyfriend who deals with issues with denial, or a boyfriend who has a chip on his shoulder about his height.

The best advice you can give to your step-brother is probably to meet people in person (so any OLD filters don’t apply) and to not develop a Napoleon complex because the unanimous verdict on this thread as far as I’ve seen is that even the women who don’t care about a man’s height find that a huge turn-off.

Or, all else failing, he could move to a country where there are lots more very tiny people and at 5’7” he’d be considered average height or maybe even above it!

Yes definitely try your best to keep him from going down that rabbit hole because it seems so many get sucked in and obsessed with their height and end up with a victim complex and it's so so unhealthy.

I’m 5”2 and I like 5’6 to 5’10. I can go as tall as 6’2 at a push but it’s not a bonus if he is tall.

Tom Holland is 5ft 7 and I think James Mcavoy too.
And they’re very popular with the ladies.

I have to admit I like a tall man.

I'm only 5'3" tall so this generally hasn't been a problem for me. I probably couldn't/wouldn't date someone who was around my height though.

It's all about the magnetic charm and communication at the end of the day though.

I would and have only dated tall men 6ft 5/10 minimum which sounds bad but I also don't expect men to accept I've always been slightly bigger than average weight wise. It's all about preference and I think that's fine. It's when those preferences are turned into conspiracy by the manosphere they become dangerous.

Dd is 22 and has started dating a lovely young man who is about 5ft 7. She is 5ft 5
She always was attracted to taller men but met her boyfriend and now doesn’t give two hoots about height .

Everyone has preferences that's fine. Can't be easy to find dates though considering men over 195cm make up only less than 1% of male population in UK.

But it is true x we can not agree with it, think it’s awful but the bias is there.

Because they are rich famous and incredibly confident.

Carrying a bit of extra weight doesn't help either but if you have preferences you have to be willing to deal with the fact your pool is limited. It's a choice I'm happy to make and I'm happy to deal with the consequences of that choice. I think a lot of what makes men and women unhappy is that they have preferences but don't want to accept the consequences of them.

5 feet 7 for a guy isn't an average height, it's short!

Not an issue for me as I'm short and have had boyfriends ranging from that height to 6,3!

If the average woman is 5,4 or 5,5, then yes, most of them probably would want at least 5,10.

BTW, most men probably wouldnt want to date women over say size 12 or a particular weight so it works both ways.

I'm older now, early 60s, and a few years ago I did date a shorter man for a while. I'm 5'7" and he was 5'5". Initially it was ok but, as I'm quite curvy and he was slightly built, I started to feel like we were a couple from one of those old 70s postcards (even tho I'm not THAT big). I couldn't shake the image from my brain so I had to end it. Although I like very tall men, as long as he was a couple of inches taller than me it'd be fine.

Tom Holland is 5’8 believe, to be fair I think both of them would have done fairly okay even if they had been normal everyday guys, they are both good looking and are also both known for being very nice guys

Meaning to reply to @mullers1977

I probably should have put slightly below average in my title, I used the auto recommendation and didn’t realise until now it said average

In my experience I would class 5’7 as on the shorter side but not short enough to cause significant issues probably because at that height your still taller than a reasonable amount of women, I’m assuming 5’5 and below is when things get noticeably difficult for a man, probably because in that height range you are the same height or shorter than the majority of women

As for the size thing, I don’t have a particular body shape type where my attraction for women is concerned but I’ve very much been attracted to women on the bigger side as long as it’s not to a severely unhealthy extent