Liking dating a girl that is taller than you

UPDATE: There is now some scientific evidence that even concludes that short men make better partners. So by all means, gentlemen, go forth and ignore society's small-minded trivialities.

The first question most strangers ask me is "How tall are you?" If I'm feeling charitable, I answer honestly: "6-foot-2." They often follow-up with, "Do you ever date shorter men?" Consider this my full answer.

First off: Yes, I have. Which makes me weird. The average woman is eight percent shorter than her male partner. In one survey, about half of collegiate men required their date to be shorter, while a monstrous nine of every ten women said they would only date a taller man. And online, it's even more brutal: Women can calculate how tall they are in their highest heels, add a few inches for good measure, and then filter out men who fall below that sum. Of course the ability to search for people who meet our criteria is part of the appeal of online dating. But while women say they have a "type"—they love bearded gingers or get off on guys in glasses—they don't filter out every man who doesn't meet those specific physical criteria. Height is different. It's a sweeping prejudice masquerading as sexual preference. When one guy changed his height on his OkCupid profile from his actual 5'4" to an average 5'9", his response rate nearly doubled.

Read: 10 Ways To Have Better Sex, According to Science

This is bullshit. Single people sign up for a half-dozen dating sites and apps in order to widen their pool, yet most won't break the height taboo. It needs to change. Men should date women who are taller than they are, and women should date shorter men. For chrissakes, I'm talking about all of us getting laid here! Only four percent of heterosexual couples feature a shorter man. Let's increase our odds.

Now, in order for you, a shorter man*, to circumvent this bullshit and convince wonderful taller women to date you, you have to understand why women feel this way. Let me explain.

* To be clear: You can be tall and still be shorter. I'm taller than 95 percent of American men.

Right now, many men incorrectly believe that women want a taller man for evolutionary reasons—to protect us and our offspring. But if you ask women, it's about feeling feminine. In Data: A Love Story, Amy Webb's memoir about online dating, she confesses she felt she needed a man who was at least five-ten. (Webb is five-six, making that requirement just one inch shy of the eight-percent average.) "I wanted someone to overpower me, who could wrap his entire body around me in a hug, but who could also throw me down on a bed and ravish me," she writes. "Someone who's smaller may be wonderful, but in my case he will never make me feel like he's in control." (To those of you who just thought Fuck that, I agree. I'll get there in a minute.)

Women have internalized the message that it's better for us to be smaller. This is essential to know—it's not just about shortness, but also skinniness. To be bigger than men is to worry that you'll turn them off. Webb found that it isn't just men lying about their height online, women do, too—to appear shorter. (With good cause: Women over six feet receive forty percent fewer messages on OkCupid than their 5'4" counterparts.) Ask any super-tall woman about her dateless teenage years and the number of times a well-meaning adult said to her, "The boys are just intimidated by you." Taller is mannish. Taller is… weird.

So how do we get over our collective height hangup? Tall women provide a natural test case. After all, it's nearly impossible for we amazons to find a partner who meets the classic 8-percent height differential, so we've had to get comfortable dating smaller men. If I hadn't, I would still be a virgin. So let's first take a basic lesson from the world of super-tall women: Do not approach a leggy lady and fucking open with "How tall are you?" Or some dumb joke about the weather up there. She will dismiss you. I've taken to giving my whiskey a single swirl, looking down my nose and saying slowly, "You are boring me. Go away."

A novel idea: Think of height like tits. You would never walk up to a woman and open with, "What's your bra size?" Even if her height is part of her appeal, wait until fifth-date post-coital bliss to say how much you love it.

Which brings us to your more general task: neutralizing her insecurity by conveying that bigger is sexy. That you love her in heels. That you don't feel like less of a man when you're with her. This is complicated stuff. Some of it boils down to you owning a more classic masculinity—going in for the kiss first, deciding the dinner location, simply being more assertive. But keep in mind that, because you're asking her to question gut-level beliefs about what she finds attractive, you need to be willing to broaden your own definition of what you find attractive—and convey to her that it does not contain the phrase "smaller than me."

Of course, women also have to be willing to check their own biases about short men. I consider short guys my natural allies and am constantly making the case to my female friends that they should stop fetishizing tall men. (When one friend narrowed her OkCupid search to men taller than six feet and then complained about a boring date with some guy built like an NBA player, I laughed in her face.) Here's how I figure it: If a man is comfortable with the fact that I'm taller, he's also likely to be comfortable with the fact that I'm competitive and outgoing and career-oriented. As in: It means he's a secure man.

Everyone, it is time to expect more. To go on even just one date with someone who falls outside of our eight-percent range, and to ask ourselves whether there's actually less chemistry there. To think of a world with all these new, gorgeous options. If you won't do it for yourself, try it for my sake. I'd really appreciate if we could all stop asking "How tall are you?" We're above it.