• RBWells@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Tall asshole. But what I want to know (as a taller woman) is why do tall guys go for tiny ladies? I am NOT judging, I like guys around my height and they like me, and I’m tallish because of my mom and dad’s height difference. You like what you like. Is it nature trying to breed us back to average height or something?

    • FauxPseudo @lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Guys aren’t that picky about size. We are picky about picking women that will pick us back. Size is very low on the priority list. I’m 6’2". Only one girlfriend was taller than 5’4". They all chose me.

    • tias@discuss.tchncs.de
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      1 year ago

      Women are the ones who put height requirements on their Tinder profiles, not men. I’ve never come across a single profile where the woman is looking for someone shorter. So your question seems very alien to me.

      Case in point: my girlfriend says she would not have started dating me if I was shorter than her. As a guy I am conditioned to avoid such superficial thinking because it leads to toxic behavior. Imagine if I would tell her that I wouldn’t date her if her boobs were a different size.

    • Makeitstop@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I don’t understand people who are only interested in a very specific type. As long as a woman is generally attractive to me,1 I can be interested regardless of her height. Sexy little hobbit or death by snu snu, it’s all good. Same goes for skin color, hair color, and most healthy body types.


      1 Obviously, finding them attractive in the first place is kind of the point. But I think we can also understand the difference between “would be attractive if not for [insert turn off here]” and “is not at all attractive.”

    • ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      There is the theory that sexual attraction is towards characteristics that are on the opposite side of the normal curve from yourself, specifically so that your kids are nearer the average of your species and thus more fit for their environment. I’m tall and had a huge underbite (until it was corrected surgically) and I go for tiny women with overbites. Also, smart women with money and style.

    • Subverb@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I’m 6’3" and my wife is 5’4", she’s told me many times that my height is super important to her and that she wouldn’t have dated me if I were shorter than at least 6’.

      Why do most (in my experience) women insist on tall men?

      • RBWells@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I don’t know, maybe like someone farther down commented, they want tall kids? So I don’t care because I am taller so my kids were all reasonably tall though my ex wasn’t? But if I was short I’d be pulled toward wanting tall guys to make taller kids?

        I’m about 5’9" and honestly the only guys who have been into me (and I’m older now so this is a reasonable sample, lol) are guys 5’8" to 5’11", and what is funny is most didn’t like me to wear heels because that made me taller than them when standing. Tall good, taller bad.

        So I was seeing this as a man-driven phenomenon/choice, my universe of potential partners hasn’t ever seemed to include the really tall guys but it’s possible I have been screening them out - I don’t think so, though.

        • pedalmore@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I think it’s just statistics. I’m a 6’4" dude, which is 99th percentile. A 5’9" woman is also pretty close to the top few percentile (I’m too lazy to look it up). There just aren’t that many of us, so it’s much more likely that they’ll end up with average size partners. I’m just guessing, I can’t see what’s actually going on down there.

      • RBWells@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Most short women? I see most women of my height with average height guys. Which makes some sense, there are more guys between 5’8" and 5’11" than any other height here. Went to a concert just last night and noticed it again. Yes almost all women were with guys as tall or taller than themselves, but most often as the men got taller the women they were with got shorter.

        I wholeheartedly agree that most women of any height look for guys at least the same height not shorter than they are.

        And this whole conversation has made me think about my own preference. Maybe since I am used to looking men in the eye, I was subconsciously uneasy feeling short? That is not something I’d considered before. Only had thought I didn’t care as long as not perceptibly shorter than me.

        • Donkter@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Two things: first, there’s probably a few biases at play between conformation bias and the fact that the taller a guy gets a similar sized woman would look shorter and shorter and vice -versa.

          Also you say (apparently) the taller a guy gets the shorter the women are; so why do taller men prefer shorter and shorter women and not: why do shorter women like taller and taller guys?

    • Kentronix@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I’m 6’5" and I’ve had many short girls hit on me. Tall girls almost never do.

      • duffman@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        A short girl once told me she needed to marry a tall guy so their kids wouldn’t be short.

        To balance it out essentially.

      • ParsnipWitch@feddit.de
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        1 year ago

        In my experience tall women have less confidence. Seems counter intuitive but that’s what I have witnessed as a short woman who is into women (of all sizes).

        Short women are seen as cute and attractive. I think it’s a myth that men do not have a height preference. Most prefer a woman who is shorter than them and they often give more attention to small women.

        Many tall women have serious self-esteem issues and that could be a reason why they hit on you less. Sadly there isn’t much research into it. Most research in preferences is focused on what women find attractive in men.

    • doggle@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 year ago

      Afaik not many guys go out of their way for really short girls. Tall guys rarely meet a woman as tall as them.

      If you’re a tall guy nearly all ladies are tiny to you. Whether or not they’re a bit shorter than average is kinda immaterial.

    • fsxylo@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      Because girls are shorter than me. It’s not a thing I “go for” it’s just my reality.

      • RBWells@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I don’t mean shorter, I mean short. I’m shorter than any tall guy, but usually see guys I’d consider quite tall (6’4" and up) with women under 5’4" and it always struck me as odd. I do understand it would be too hard to find a woman over 6’ in the US, there aren’t enough. I mean I don’t see the six and a half foot guys with the 5’9"- 5’10" ladies. So I figured it was a preference.

    • Mobiuthuselah@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      There’s no one answer to your question, but from an ecological standpoint, sexual selection plays the main role in this. There are a lot of variables and the societal pressures are integral. The people you live around, and the multigenerational influences that shape your community steer this selection. But that’s not to say that nature is intentional.

      As an example, the people who came to Hawai’i had a tendency towards very large men and very small women. Because of the isolation in the islander cultures and the relatively small population sizes, this could exaggerate selective pressures. I think it’s important to point out for whoever needs to hear it that being small statured should not be confused with subservience, absolutely.

      This is one example in a whole world of variables that agree with your observation, but there are many cultures where that sexual selection is completely different. The ideas of who does what in a relationship in order to build a life with another person is influenced by the agreements we’ve been taught in our communities and carried on in a way that expresses itself genetically over time. Like you said, people like what they like, and as such, the idea of beauty (or desirability as a mate, more accurately) continues to change and is not the same in other places. Ultimately, those that reproduce will give rise to certain selections, but the reasons are so varied that it can’t be apparent until looking at long spans of time and generalized pressures.

      All that to say, nature is not choosing or steering anything. Natural selection is backward-looking. It is an adaptation to pressures that existed, not an ideal or purpose for the future. It’s accidental, and stumbling, and pure chance in a lot of instances.

    • CaptainMcMonkey@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I’m pretty tall (5’17”) and I would totally date a tall woman, but chasing someone with one specific physical characteristic has always felt weirdly fetishistic to me. But now that I think about it, is me pursuing smart/funny people any different?

      Anywho, I tend to get chased by tiny gerbil people, and I’ve been told my height did matter to them; and the person I’m with is almost 5’3”.