Not to mention, tall is huge plus for men, and roughly neutral for women. Tall women only dating taller men, is to paraphrase Agnostic, the equivalent of a man saying “I have C cup man boobs, so I’ll only date women with D cup and larger breasts.”

That said, I (5′ 9 3/4″) dated a taller woman (6′0″) once, and although it took a little while getting used to the different physics of hugs, dancing, and the like, it was never a big deal.

I’ve been following that, actually. It’s pretty shameful, in my opinion. Suggesting that you shouldn’t vote for someone because they’re fat is pretty shameful. I hope it backfires.

Rob,

If you read through the comments of the post above, tall women apparently do feel that they suffer disadvantages in the relationship marketplace compared to their normal-heighted (and even shorter) sistren. Guys are intimidated and so don’t ask them out, guys that are with them are insecure, and so on. I still think (agreeing with you) that they are more often the issue with the desire for a man taller, but I do think that there’s more to it than that.

If Justin is seriously arguing that women prefer fat guys over skinny guys, he’s even more clueless then I thought.

I can corroborate your assertion, Trumwill. I spent an unfortunate percentage of my young life overweight - not grotesquely so, but I had a stomach. This was also the period of my life in which girls ignored me for the most part. While I think that part of the reason fat guys are ignored is because they disproportionately tend to be shy and lacking in self-confidence, there’s really no getting over the fact that few woman want to be with a fat slob.

In regards to tall girls, the biggest problem is that since most women prefer men who are taller then them, tall women have a smaller pool of men to choose from. I’ve had women outright say to me that they refuse to date men who are shorter then them. Height is one of those inflexible metrics of a man’s desirability.

But Linus, women caring about how tall women are even though men don’t is evidence of pricing themselves out of the market.

On the other hand, I’m not super short. 5′9 or 10, but I’m the only guy I’ve known who is shorter than his mom.

One disadvantage to being tall and with a shorter girl is stride difference. I have a long stride, and when I’m walking tend to get where I’m going fairly quickly. When I’m walking with my wife, I forget myself and frequently have to stop and wait for her to catch up (she’s 5′8″). It’s frustrating for both of us sometimes, though by now we’re both used to it.

What’s odd is that I was this height when I was young - high school through college - relatively thin until after I got married, but all that time practically zero interest from women. So while being tall is a plus from a practical standpoint, I think it only really serves to enhance a relationship possibility, not start one.

Not quite. His position is that girls like guys that are their size or larger, which since most girls are overweight, means that being overweight is a premium. My position is “NUH-UH!” but that what he says does apply to height.

While I think that part of the reason fat guys are ignored is because they disproportionately tend to be shy and lacking in self-confidence, there’s really no getting over the fact that few woman want to be with a fat slob.

Yeah, confidence is a factor, but I would say it’s 60/40 or 70/30 in favor of actual appearance. That’s not to say that weight is an insurmountable drawback. Just that if you take any guy that’s big (and not in a muscular way) and romantically successful and make him thinner, he’ll have more success. Take any fat guy with a self-confidence problem and make him thinner, he’ll have more success. The latter guy thin may still have less success than the former guy fat, which confuses people, but there ya go.

It’s pretty hard to distinguish people have figured out that a category of the opposite sex isn’t interested, so they stopped trying, from being genuinelly uninterested in that category.

Never having been a tall woman, I can’t say with any real knowledge. But those that have tried dating short guys say that they don’t work out due to male insecurity. It’s possible that in at least some of the cases it’s projection, but I’m not sure it is in all cases. I’ve known a lot of short guys with Napoleon complexes. About half of the guys that tried to pick on me in junior high were shorter than average.

True. I hear more complaints from tall women abou

So while being tall is a plus from a practical standpoint, I think it only really serves to enhance a relationship possibility, not start one.

Being tall isn’t sufficient. But it’s still quite a boost (no pun intended). Enough to get you noticed by people that otherwise might not notice you and even get a flicker of interest from people that otherwise, well, wouldn’t notice you. But it’s not nearly enough to seal the deal.

But how long does confidence last without positive reinforcement for the non-delusional? By and large, confidence is a function of success. Sure, success depends on luck too. Most people can dust themselves off a few times. In the long run, confident people have reasons to be that way. Women especially seem really good at spotting false confidence.

That being said, confidence is based not only on what successes one has but also on what successes one has recently. A spot of good luck can become a string of good luck because of confidence. And so, despite being more-or-less the same person you were after than stroke of good fortune, you can have different successes. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that when I was in the dating world, I would typically go about three dry months followed rather suddenly by angling with three girls at once.

Some of it is luck, but some of it is that when I am feeling good about one prospect, I am feeling good about myself. When I’m feeling good about myself, I’m (a) more likely to put myself out there and (b) far less likely to blow it when I do.

And if confidence is not the silver bullet (and I don’t think that it is), a lack of confidence (aka insecurity) can be deadly.

On tall women thinking they’re disadvantaged in dating: I agree that they feel that way, but I think they feel that way because they have higher(heh) expectations because they’re tall. Women like tall so much, it wouldn’t surprise me if tall girls are more likely to be “Queen bees” in single-sex peer groups. But height and social standing are not as attractive to men as they are to women.

Both men and women think that the other sex puts more weight on traits that they themselves like in the opposite sex or admire in their own. Men think women like men way more muscular than they actually do, probably because men tend to be cowed by and admire muscular men.

It is quite possible that women think men like tall, and therefore women, including tall women, think tall women are higher in desirablity than they are.