With dating and relationships, height is often given far too much importance. While tall women can be unfairly maligned by potential partners, it is typically short men who get the short end of the stick. Shorter men can feel sidelined or dismissed when pursuing a romantic partner simply because they don't meet the social norm around the ideal height for males.
Attraction is complex and subjective, but the trend of rejecting short men is very real and rooted in bias. It's important to recognize and scrutinize this bias and what drives it. Only then can short men get a fair shake like their taller counterparts, and the dating world might be able to finally move beyond seeing height as a factor that should limit attraction.
It's fair to say that men who are shorter than average often face a number of disadvantages while dating. To paraphrase one study, short men tend to partner with women with lower average incomes and education. This suggests that height is a measuring stick that women use to gauge a man's validity as a potential romantic partner.
Height might even play a larger role than personality or character. This is why rejecting short men solely because of their height is a bad dating strategy that will prevent you from possibly meeting your ideal match.
You could argue that it borders on discrimination, but ultimately, people are allowed to date whoever they want and based on their own criteria. That said, the height bias applied to men might be distracting and prevent people from having a more illustrious and fruitful dating life.
This bias might stem from cultural storytelling and evolutionary belief. In stories, heroes and villains are often portrayed as men who are strong and dominant. Furthermore, they often possess leadership abilities. These stories are ingrained in our society, which views tall men as confident. Just peruse a dating app to see if you can filter by height, and you'll understand the thought behind something that should be less significant.
Outright rejecting short men diminishes everyone, because it emphasizes height over more important qualities like compatibility and character. Short men are capable of bringing the same qualities as anyone else to a relationship, including empathy, kindness, loyalty, and humor.
There's a broader social effect in play here. Bias toward short men limits the pool of potential connections, creates emotional harm, and reinforces a shallowness for desirability. Both short men and potential partners might be missing the chance to make a meaningful romantic connection.
Height might always play a distinct role in attraction, and that's understandable. The problem is when it becomes a gatekeeper, locking out perfectly good prospects from finding love. Short men continue to deal with hurdles in dating. Height should be one factor, but never the deciding one. It's on all of us to challenge height bias to end the silly discrimination and encourage the dating scene to appreciate more important qualities like integrity and kindness.
