MetaChat - How Tall Are You? Do you identify as Tall, Short, or Indifferent?

5'9"

I identify as tall, especially now that all my co-workers are Asian.

posted by small_ruminant 05 July | 14:56

6'3" (~190 cm). I'm tall and indifferent. What was that you were saying? The air up here... pshhhhhh.

posted by Hugh Janus 05 July | 14:57

I'm 5'5", which makes me slightly above average for a North American woman. I'm happy enough with my height. I wouldn't like to be any shorter, and I can always be taller by putting on a pair of heels. And clothes always fit me.

posted by Orange Swan 05 July | 14:58

I'm about 5'7", which I agree is the perfect height to be.

posted by ThePinkSuperhero 05 July | 14:59

5'4", which I think is below average for American women. Which I guess means "short" but I don't think of myself as short. I have never dated a man under 6'0", but I think it's coincidental.

posted by crush-onastick 05 July | 15:04

74". I just bought a Queen-size bed so now my feet won't hang off the edge of those damn 75" mattresses! I'm tall enough for government work.

posted by sciurus 05 July | 15:04

I'm somewhere around 5'11". Since I'm not sure of the exact number, that probably qualifies as 'indifferent.'

posted by box 05 July | 15:05

180 cm (5'11''), and I wouldn't want to be any taller.

posted by Daniel Charms 05 July | 15:08

I'm 5'6". A little on the short side, I suppose. But I dig it.

posted by the great big mulp 05 July | 15:10

6'5" here--makes it hard to find clothes, but easy to see at a concert.

posted by mrmoonpie 05 July | 15:14

6'5", which makes me tall, and prone to smacking my head on doors and such, which may explain a lot.

posted by King of Prontopia 05 July | 15:15

6'1". Tall enough that it is a pretty rare occasion when I need to look up to somebody, indifferent enough that those are the only times I think about it.

posted by danostuporstar 05 July | 15:16

In my teens and twenties, I measured just shy of 5'11". Now I'm almost an inch shorter. Not happy to be shrinking so soon!

So, partly in response to the answers here, right now I'm identifying as "tall." In the grocery store and the library, strangers often ask me to reach items from the top shelf.

An old friend, a fellow of imposing character but not of imposing height, visited me this weekend. As we walked around my town, he looked me up and down, and up and up and up, and said, "Wow. I forgot!"

posted by Elsa 05 July | 15:17

5'8". Medium shortish for American standards. I identify as medium shortish.

posted by qvantamon 05 July | 15:18

I'm just shy of 5'10". I'm tall, always have been, and love it, even for the difficulties in buying clothes. I used to want to be even taller; I actually get a little annoyed by women who are much taller than me. I guess I feel territorial about being The Tall Chick.

posted by scody 05 July | 15:19

I'm pretty much like that, too, dano. I don't really notice other people's height until theirs approaches mine, then I'm like "Whoa! That guy's tall!" Which then reminds me that lots of people think that about me all the time. I get tired of "so, how tall are you?"

posted by mrmoonpie 05 July | 15:20

I'm 5'9" and consider myself average height.

posted by BoringPostcards 05 July | 15:21

5'9" (and female). I don't identify as tall, but every so often I'll run across a news article talking about some model or actress being phenomenally tall at...5'10".

So I guess I am, but it doesn't register. Especially now that I'm dating a guy who's 6'2".

I would guess the fact that I never wear heels plays into my lack of feeling tall--most women in heels are the same height as me in flat feet.

posted by Fuzzbean 05 July | 15:21

I'm 4ft 11 and a half. Yes, a true short-arse.

posted by essexjan 05 July | 15:24

I am the perfect height.

posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson 05 July | 15:25

5'9"/5'10". Not tall. Not short. I'm fine with it.

posted by CitrusFreak12 05 July | 15:27

i always identified myself as 5'4" until I went to the doctor two years and they claimed I was 5'5".

BOO YAH. 5'5" BITCHES.

as you can see, I identify myself as short.

but mighty

also -> essexjan, my mom is 4'10" and all the guys on her side of the family are 5'2" or less. weee.

posted by stynxno 05 July | 15:28

My cousin is 6'3" and of average proportions. She married a man who is 6'10" and also of average proportions. From afar, they look quite ordinary, but when you approach them, you have a moment where you expect to have reached them, but they're still looming in the distance. When you're next to them, even if you're relatively tall like me, you still feel like Gulliver.

They have the tallest (longest?) baby girl I've ever seen.

posted by Hugh Janus 05 July | 15:30

I self-identify as Benito Mussolini during the week and Angie Dickinson on weekends.

posted by Hugh Janus 05 July | 15:32

5'8 (and a half)" and I didn't think I was taller than TPS, but I guess maybe I see her when she's in tall shoes?

I alawys thought of myself as tall-ish, but not tall tall.

posted by gaspode 05 July | 15:32

From afar, they look quite ordinary, but when you approach them, you have a moment where you expect to have reached them, but they're still looming in the distance.

hahahahahaha

posted by scody 05 July | 15:34

I'm 5'-1" and am always the shortest person in the room. Unless Jan is there.

posted by Specklet 05 July | 15:41

Taller than some, shorter than others: 5'8".

posted by safetyfork 05 July | 15:44

I'm 5'7" and a half, which I consider average, but some people tend to think I'm tallish. Hmmm.

posted by smich 05 July | 15:47

Five feet even. Take that, essexjan! ;-p

posted by bunnyfire 05 July | 15:49

5'8" or 9", I'm not all that sure. So, average.

posted by me3dia 05 July | 15:54

I'm 5'10" and think of myself as tall. And I'd never actually consciously identified the feeling that scody mentioned, but after reading that, yes! I get that too! *I* am the tall one, dammit! :-)

I think it's partly because I got tall early; I was always the tallest girl (and usually the tallest kid) in my class, until middle school or so when other people caught up.

posted by occhiblu 05 July | 15:58

6'4", and I still can't dunk.
≡ Click to see image ≡

posted by Hellbient 05 July | 16:07

I'm 6 feet even. I identify as "not short" when I bother to think about it.

Which isn't often, except when I feel like making fun of short people.

posted by dersins 05 July | 16:10

From afar, they look quite ordinary, but when you approach them, you have a moment where you expect to have reached them, but they're still looming in the distance.

haha the basketball players at IU, who tended to hang out together, were the same way.

posted by small_ruminant 05 July | 16:10

5'4" and female... i think this used to be 'average' but is now on the short side. i've always identified as short, but it's because i'm the short one in a rangy / big family. 125 lbs and i guess i'm what could truly be described as an 'athletic' build. i've always been stocky, these days i simply don't carry much excess fat.

i never cared much about height of my partners, and have dated every height from 5'2" to 6'10". i have come to the conclusion that, at least for me, i like guys in the average-to-short height range, if only because it's easier to hug/walk/smooch with them. the mister is 5'7" and an ideal snuggling height for me. the last few guys i dated before him were no taller than 5'10".

despite that i've done it myself, extremely tall / extremely short partner combos have always rather comically reminded me of a great dane paired with a chihuahua for some reason.

useless anecdotal data point: the bar-none hottest 'one who got away' in my early 20s was all of 5'2" (collegiate gymnast). i sometimes still wonder how he's doing. i kicked myself for a long time for being too flaky and shallow to commit to him (he wanted a LTR at the time, i did not).

posted by lonefrontranger 05 July | 16:25

*envies bunnyfire's tallness*

posted by essexjan 05 July | 16:28

I am a whopping 5'3". I'm short.

small_ruminant, are you an IU alum? When were you there?

posted by sisterhavana 05 July | 16:29

5'2"
(although my ID says 5'3", I was wearing heels that day)

posted by kellydamnit 05 July | 16:30

I'm 5'3" and consider myself short (and not skinny by any means). My b/f is 6'6", making us a comical great dane/chihuahua (or pug) couple. And I love it!

posted by altolinguistic 05 July | 16:34

5'-2 1/2" on good days. So, shortish, even for female.

And, I always find the "tall" people when I cannot climb high enough to reach things off the top shelf.

Course, it's a big surprise whenever I bump my head into something casue is such a rare thing...

Essexjan - at least you're taller than my Mom...!

posted by mightshould 05 July | 16:38

I'm 6'2" with shoes on. It counts with shoes, right? Ok, fine, 6'1.5", I admit it.

I consider myself on the short-side of tall.

posted by mullacc 05 July | 16:43

o shi twins w/ mullacc

posted by cortex 05 July | 16:45

And I'm tall.

posted by cortex 05 July | 16:51

I'm 6'10", barefoot. Sometimes I play a game where I pretend that short people are dolls and I move their arms and make them say things in a high falsetto voice. It doesn't make me any friends, but oh how I chuckle.

posted by cmonkey 05 July | 16:57

I'm 5'3" and consider myself short (and not skinny by any means). My b/f is 6'6", making us a comical great dane/chihuahua (or pug) couple. And I love it!

We beat you by an inch, alto! I'm 5'3" and he's 6'7". I have a "thing" for tall men. I like to feel all tiny. I'm a shorty. My sisters are all leggy and ginormous. My kids are huge. Once I was standing with my daughter on my hip and my sister said to me, "I always thought you looked so awkward with a baby, like you didn't quite know what to do with it. Then I realized that you're carrying around a kid who's about half your size."

On preview: 6'10"?!?! I have a new crush.

posted by jrossi4r 05 July | 16:58

I'm 5'6". A little on the short side, I suppose. But I dig it.
posted by the great big mulp 05 July | 15:10

anti-eponysterical!

posted by Hellbient 05 July | 17:00

jrossi, my cousin is 6'7" and his wife is 5'2"! If I didn't know better I might think that you were my cousin-in-law (I mean eh, what's an inch?).

I am 5'4", but I frequently lie about my height and claim to be 5'5". Strange, because I've never lied about my weight, which is probably a far more common fib. But I do wish I was taller. I love the tall feeling that I have in high heels.

posted by amro 05 July | 17:15

(I mean eh, what's an inch?).

I am 5'4", but I frequently lie about my height and claim to be 5'5".

Shh. I'm allowed to contradict myself.

posted by amro 05 July | 17:20

5'11...definitely tall for a woman. i love being tall-i get to look down on most people.

posted by slackshot 05 July | 17:43

I am 6'3" and I have been the tall guy my whole life. I grew early, so was often judged to be older, until I hit about 25 or so, when I started being judged to be younger. Apparently my new boss thought I was in my early 20s, which was why his jaw dropped when I said I'd been married 12 years.

Anyway, that's a whole other thread I suppose. My thoughts so far?

1) a 6'4" friend and I have oft discussed the tall man's hatred of a taller man. Who does that guy think his is, and so forth.

2) I'm not far off in most of my sort of guesses, except for Specklet, whom I assumed was in the 5'7 range, and cmonkey, who I kinda thought was about a foot shorter. Oh, and for some reason I'm surprised by jrossi's husband's height.

I've always thought it was fun to see what people guess my height and weight to be. They always have me much taller, and lighter!

posted by richat 05 July | 17:55

I'm 5'7", which, if I wasn't Chinese, I'd consider average, but since I am, I feel tall...especially when I'm amongst crowds of other Asians who are vertically challenged.

posted by phoenixc 05 July | 18:09

5'3" and a half. I feel short most of the time....but am actually pretty okay with it.

posted by YouCanCallMeAl 05 July | 18:09

5'9". Never felt short until I found myself reading personal ads about ten years ago. It seemed like every woman who placed an ad specified that all respondants must be at least 6' or over. Now I have a complex. Fortunately, Science Girl chooses to overlook my slight stature.

posted by bmarkey 05 July | 18:14

Sometimes I play a game where I pretend that short people are dolls and I move their arms and make them say things in a high falsetto voice.

And it's SO annoying!

He squeaks out things like "Heeeey mah name is Specklet an' I'm reeeel short! I can't see the top of mah fridge! I like to eat things like baby carrots and those little rounds of cheeeeese 'cause everything else is tooooo big!"

posted by Specklet 05 July | 18:33

Funny, I eat baby carrots and those little rounds of cheese because they TASTE DAMN GOOD.

So there.

*snickersnicker*

This is probably not the place to admit that I pretend I'm a field mouse when I'm eating those little rounds of cheese. So I won't!

posted by Fuzzbean 05 July | 18:39

Really, though, I'm 5'10" and I feel perfectly average and indifferent about it. Except when I read personal ads and discover that I'm clearly too short to even hope of ever attracting a woman.

posted by cmonkey 05 July | 18:57

I'm 5'11", with the Afro 6'9".

More "big" than "tall" (former football player), but taller than most people I know.

posted by kirkaracha 05 July | 18:58

Wow! So I was actually dead on when I imagine you to be 5'10" cmonkey! So far, then, I'm really only surprised by how wee Specklet is.

posted by richat 05 July | 18:59

That's why I'm called Specklet!

I have small bones, too, so some people are surprised when I tell them I'm actually over 5'. (If I keep eating pizza like this, though, no one's going to be commenting on my petite-ness. Heh.)

I got a big mouth, though...

posted by Specklet 05 July | 19:03

Specklet's size often comes in handy when we're out burgling museums, stealing precious jewels out from under the noses of inattentive security guards. I've never met anyone who can tiptoe over infrared alarm beams with such grace.

posted by cmonkey 05 July | 19:04

5'-2". And they're not blue. What mold?

posted by chewatadistance 05 July | 19:43

6'2" and loving it. Perfect height: never feel short, not freakishly tall.

posted by chuckdarwin 05 July | 19:45

5'4", maybe 5'5", but definitely too short. My driver's license says 5'3", the bastards.

posted by casarkos 05 July | 19:53

He squeaks out things like "Heeeey mah name is Specklet an' I'm reeeel short! I can't see the top of mah fridge! I like to eat things like baby carrots and those little rounds of cheeeeese 'cause everything else is tooooo big!"

My loaf pans were ruined in a baking incident months ago, so now I bake bread and coffeecakes in mini-loaf pans. And then we pretend we're giants.

Fee Fi Fo Fum.

posted by Elsa 05 July | 19:56

I'm 6' 1". I'm tall I guess. I'm also skinny which is a bad combo since it adds up to gawky.

posted by jonmc 05 July | 20:02

5'7"

Although I wish I were 5'9". Seems like the ideal height to have for me.

Most of the American foreigners that we have over here are way above average (above 5'10" I'm guessing), and you can spot em a mile away in a crowd of us Asians.

posted by hadjiboy 05 July | 20:08

5'7". I'd like a foot more. A leg even. 3 boobs and 17 fingers. I'd blend better. IRL.

posted by carmina 05 July | 20:13

3 boobs

One on the back, for dancing?

posted by jonmc 05 July | 20:20

sure, as long as I balance.

posted by carmina 05 July | 20:23

5'4". Exactly average. But I pack a wallop.

posted by Pips 05 July | 20:34

5'10". I like being tall. Growing up I never longed to be shorter.

posted by LoriFLA 05 July | 20:39

5'8". Wish I were taller, though; my closet is filled with heels.

posted by rhapsodie 05 July | 20:49

5' 12", or not quite 6'. I don't feel tall, but people refer to me as such. I can reach most things, and I'm the perfect height for courting lovely tall-ish girls (like my wonderful gf) and making the spoons.

Who here wishes they were taller?

posted by Eideteker 05 July | 20:55

Who here wishes they were taller?

Me.

posted by stynxno 05 July | 21:16

my closet is filled with heels.

Not shoes, just heels. She steals them from morgues.

posted by jonmc 05 July | 21:33

I am 5'9. Indifferent.

50th percentile for a USA-ian male. I suppose I'd be a midget in a place like Scotland or Holland.

But here in the us of a, I'm average.

Let me qualify that -- everywhere except the number 7 train, I'm average. When I get on the 7 train in the morning, about 85% of the passengers are immigrants from Asia and Latin America, the majority of them barely making it to my chest level. I've had the experience of looking down a crowded car over their heads, seeing the only other guy at my height and thinking "Oh, there's the other American on the train today."

(Their kids are another story altogether. Immigrants feed their kids. So the first generation tends to be very tall. Koreans, for some reason or another, tend to be the tallest of the bunch. This isn't scientific or anything; it's purely anecdotal.)

posted by jason's_planet 05 July | 21:39

I'm 185cm (6'1" in your archaic measurements). I consider myself medium-tall, mostly because I get reminded a lot that I am taller than the "average person" they use to determine things like proportions of car interiors or seat pitch for planes (mostly, there is just enough room between the seats, but my knees are pressed against the seat in front and my head is above the headrest, so I can't relax.). Like others, I only really notice when I am close to someone who is taller than me.

posted by dg 05 July | 22:33

5'10" and I always hated being tall. I used to stand in the doorway where the kids got measured with the waffle iron on my head, hoping to get scrunched somehow mysteriously smaller. Fail. However, like Elsa said I'm starting to shrink and suddenly I'm all like, wait! I am the tallest one in the room! I'm always the tallest one!

Dating - most guys, in my experience, don't like dating a taller woman. Some won't even try and some get all weird about it. Pity. It did used to bother me (I had a boyfriend in college who was like 5'3" and when we went to the bar I always had to order because they couldn't see him. Sad but true.) but nowadays? For gods' sake, height is like the least important thing.

posted by mygothlaundry 05 July | 22:52

Not quite 5'6" and I wish I were taller...chupahija is 5'10" and one of her favorite things to do was to come up and loom over me while I was reading on the floor in the living room. My taste generally runs to big men...but the cosubject of my jealousy poem isn't that much taller than I am.

posted by brujita 05 July | 23:34

5'1": on a par with Specklet, taller only than Jan.

People who've met me tend to find this surprising. Apparently I look taller, whatever that means.

I'm fine with it. In an emergency, there's always the option of big shoes.

posted by tangerine 06 July | 00:49

Being a 4ft 11.5 inch commuter on a packed train is not fun. That is all.

posted by essexjan 06 July | 01:13

My feet just reach the ground, and short as my legs are, I'm very happy about that, because if they were any shorter, I'd be a constant gravity anomaly. As it is, I'd be described as a 6'0" perpetrator by any convenience store clerk, according to the legally mandated height markers on the door frame of any convenience store in Florida.

posted by paulsc 06 July | 04:50

6'3"; always thought myself tall; generally happy at this height.

posted by misteraitch 06 July | 07:10

6'2" and i never really think about it, most of my friends are right around 6'.

also: we come from a relatively tall family (by american standards), and occhi is the shortest, which may explain her "I'M the tall one!" complex.

posted by dno 06 July | 07:12

Interesting (and a tie back to the inspiration thread) that most of the people who responded with their height and the height of their partners were women. Two days ago, my wife and I celebrated 19 years together. I didn't know how tall she was until I asked her last night. Height is the least interesting of her very gorgeous measurements.

posted by danostuporstar 06 July | 08:14

Dating - most guys, in my experience, don't like dating a taller woman.

mr. gaspode is 2 or so inches shorter than me. Didn't stop me or him for a second. Then again, he's not most guys.

posted by gaspode 06 July | 08:23

How tall is Grace Jones? I imagine her as taller than me (though I may be wrong), and I'd date her in a New York second.

I love this picture of her, though it may Not be so Safe For Work (which keeps it from being my desktop).

I bet she's not as tall as I think she is, but the way she growls, "If you want a man, grab him... and take him!" in Conan the Destroyer adds two feet to her stature, easy.

Then again, there's always Mary Lou Retton.

posted by Hugh Janus 06 July | 08:35

Oh, if we're talking about dating and stuff--I dated a woman who was 4'11", a full foot-and-a-half shorter than me. When I was on my knees, we were the same height.

posted by mrmoonpie 06 July | 09:07

...most of the people who responded with their height and the height of their partners were women.

I came this close to mentioning my partner's height, only because he's part of the reason I now identify as "um, sure, I guess I'm tall" rather than my previous sense of "I'm tall! I'm tall! I'm one hundred feet tall!" Before he came into my life to stay, I was often the tallest person in a room. Now he's usually the tallest, and I'm shorter by five or six inches. It affects my self-perception.

I have occasionally noticed the prejudice mentioned here, that men don't like to date taller women. In my (limited) experience, it's more keen among men almost my height: if a guy is one inch shorter than I, he's likely to be sensitive to the difference in our height.

But there's a pool of men several inches shorter who seem drawn to me only because of my height, as climbers are drawn to Mt. Everest: it's there, and they yearn to scale it.

posted by Elsa 06 July | 09:10

Well, I mentioned it because that was what the original thread was about, right? Cultural perceptions of what the relative heights of men and women who are paired off should be.

posted by crush-onastick 06 July | 09:57

I'm five feet tall. Sometimes at banks I get on tiptoe to see over the counter.

I like to walk under low things, like tree branches and scaffolds. It's thrilling.

posted by halonine 06 July | 10:30

also: we come from a relatively tall family (by american standards), and occhi is the shortest, which may explain her "I'M the tall one!" complex.

Actually, I suspect it's more that I *used* to be the tall sibling, until dno hit his growth spurt. Our mom would always warn me, "You can't tease him forever! One day he'll be taller than you!"

He is now taller than me, but that didn't really stop me from teasing him. :-)

posted by occhiblu 06 July | 10:51

I think I outgrew my brother when I was 19 or so. The height is definitely from my dad's side of the family--of the nine boys in my and his generation, only one is under 6 feet.

posted by mrmoonpie 06 July | 11:56

I was a tall person (back row in school choir and pictures, etc.) until I was twelve or so, at which point other people kept growing but I didn't.

posted by tangerine 06 July | 13:29

tangerine: me too. There are pictures of me aged 8 or 9 where I'm taller than my classmates. Then I stopped growing at around 11 or 12 and everyone shot up past me.

posted by essexjan 06 July | 13:49

Grace Jones is 5' 10.5".

posted by Eideteker 07 July | 20:49

I'm 5'5" but I'm latin american so I'm average.

posted by Memo 07 July | 21:31

6'2 but for some reason people often think that I'm taller. Must have good posture or something. I'm really long-waisted though with short legs (33") so I look taller sitting down and I don't really fit into any chair/car/airplane/movie seat/etc. I have to have a little Fresnel lens at the top of my car's windshield so that I can see traffic lights since normally they are out of my line of site.

posted by octothorpe 08 July | 15:24

5'5" and the only time I've felt short was on Sat. night when I was standing next to a friend's friend who happened to be the tallest girl I've seen IRL. I've always felt average.

posted by LunaticFringe 09 July | 12:25

5'6" - mostly indifferent and/or middling. Some people have claimed that I must be taller. Usually those are people about my height or a couple inches taller who insist that they are about 6' tall.

posted by PY 10 July | 01:54

5'7'', and I've always thought of myself as average until I looked up the statistics just now. Even moving to Japan I'll be at most average.

posted by Citizen Premier 10 July | 02:42

5'4" and I still wish I was taller (5'7" would be lovely). My shortest brother is 6'1", tallest is 6'6". Even my mum is taller at 5'5".

posted by deborah 10 July | 14:30

i'm 5'4" which use to be the average for women (5'6" in heels, which had diagrams of women naked except for heels) which makes me optimal in heels, tall amongst the short people and short amongst the tall people. Just fine when everyone is in a pile on the floor like cats. Suck when having to reach for things when not in heels or at concerts or anything advantageous to the tall.
i can look bigger when necessary, like most animals.
General don't have a problem with it but do find it novel to see how tall some people all, able to look up thier nostrils and comment on their tallness.

posted by ethylene 10 July | 16:29

not all but are
arrr'

posted by ethylene 10 July | 16:33

05 July 2007