How High Heel Wearing Height Discriminators Have Stomped on Dating and Relationships

I am a single male. The title of this blog may make me sound like a scorned, insecure whiner who is repeatedly rejected by single woman, and now I am exacting textual revenge. And because my height is 5’10”, that may even give more ammunition that I am just a biased crumudgeon.

However, aside from the truth about my height, the rest of the above is hardly close to the truth about me. Anyhow, regardless of whether I am looking at the height issue holistically, or if I were flat out on a discriminatory war path against women who are borderline obsessed with height — there is no denying that we have a deeply serious, blatantly “thinning of the herd” situation here.

For those of you who have explored my site, you know that some of my science-based, research oriented articles and papers are published here, and that they strictly follow citation and peer-review guidelines. However, like pretty much everyone else in the world, I am also entitled to my perspective based on my research and well-documented, thoroughly vetted science.

For example, evolutionary biology teaches us that men and women differ in chromosome makeup (XY vs XX), that they do not equally contain the same kind or volume of hormones (women produce estrogen, testosterone, and progesterone; while men produce two out of three — testosterone and estrogen), and that both men and women have inherently biological reasons why they find certain physical features attractive over others.

Although this can lead to awkward conversations in the dating world, it blows my mind — and not in good way — how much we as adults avoid the proverbial elephant in the room when discussing physical attraction. That is, men typically look for physical features that are sexually attractive and which fuel their desire to mate and reproduce: Shapely hips, an ample bust, soft skin, pretty hands and feet, beautifully flowing hair, makeup and stand-out features that add to sexual signaling — these are all features that many men notice *first* before anything else.

Yes, some men prefer slim women, some prefer a little meat on the bones, and some have specific fetishes that exist on certain body types. For example, if a woman has a sizeable backside, or is super busty, or has elegantly long legs — these all stand out to men and stir a bulk of the sexual attraction they feel. It is no secret that men objectify women in varying degrees. I am not advocating that men should be slimy about that — however, as long as our biological wiring works the way it does, there will be*always* be some level of objectifying women to start a sexual relationship. Other animals “present” to each other all the time in nature. It is not a whole lot different with human animals.

In other words, it is asking the impossible of men to throw away hundreds of thousands of years of evolution and focus solely on personality or not care about body type. It is too big of an ask — and it completely misunderstands that *presentation* in nature is a key component of reproductive interest and success.

Plenty of studies support this — the science is already established. In fact, physical attraction is such a crucial factor to the human experience, that even infants gravitate to faces that are generally more appealing / attractive. As cliche as the term is, it is indeed in our *wiring*.

This is also the case with what women usually find physically attractive in men — though men come across near pornographic about physical attraction, compared to how women usually, and innocently, describe what they find attractive: “I like a man who is tall and has a nice smile.” Moreover, biology does back up why women tend to gravitate to taller men: It gives women an increased sense of security / being protected, and many will even say they feel more feminine and “petite” next to tall men.

So, I can’t argue so much about biologically influenced proclivities (though there is no strong evidence that tall men provide better protection and security than shorter men do) . Yet there is a bold line between having a somewhat innate preference and being flat out, shamefully superficial and flushing a large percentage of men out of the gene pool, because they are not at a height that makes women get all giddy and go gaga.

This issue has gone so far off the rails, that many women even point blank say in their dating profiles: “Need a man who is taller than me — I like my high heels!” Or “I don’t want to tower over a man!” Or “If you are below 5’9″ tall, don’t even think about messaging me!”

Yes, that is one of the many reasons why the dating world is a dysfunctional nightmare. And considering I often don’t hold back against blatantly ridiculous behaviors, I have had my share of heated debates with the opposite sex regarding dating and relationships.

One of my most contentious exchanges was with a woman who was 5’6″ and “relieved” that I am 5’10”, so that she could wear her “four-inch heels”. I sure wish that story was fiction, but it really did happen. And though I probably should have avoided my knee-jerk reaction to what she said, I chose not to avoid it and instead verbally skewered her: “So, because four inch heels and height are so important to you, are you going to tell the parents of all the short men out there that, in a nutshell, they genetically screwed up by producing a short son? Should his mother, who was 5’2″, have ditched his father because he was, say, 5’7″ — and that their son’s pituitary gland was not biologically suitable for him to become 6 feet tall?”

Yes, I did read her the riot act. But my comments did illustrate the almost unbelievable problem of reducing men to a physical quality that they can’t change. People are capable of losing or gaining weight, gaining muscle, modifying their facial features, etc. However, unless a man wants to go through the extremely painful — and not always successful — process of having their leg bones broken and then extended maybe an inch or two, provided there are no dangerous complications with that major of a surgery — height *cannot be changed*.

Furthermore, if we are going to talk in inches, are we serious that a captivating physical attraction comes down to whether a man is just literally one or two inches taller? I mean, if I were 5’11” instead of 5’10”, that would make me so much more physically appealing? Really?

And no, the argument to this is NOT “Well, what about all the men who want skinny women?” First, read what I wrote earlier in this blog: Men *first* look at the features — hips, rear, breasts, thighs hair, lips — that will get them sexually aroused, *before* focusing on weight, jean size, and body thickness.

Also, no, we are not going to the argument, “But the media pressures women to look a certain way”: There are so many flaws with that argument, I need to devote an entire blog just to that. In the meantime, a major counter to that argument is that women themselves predominantly cause the mess of judgement and insecurities out there — as it is also no secret that women are very competitive with each other, even competitively dressing to look appealing to other women or outshine them. In other words, stop already with blaming body insecurities on the media and men. Sure, some men are shallow — it annoys me too. Yet it is the epitome of a false equivalency to compare a man’s attraction to hips with a woman’s attraction to height — particularly because of, *gulp*, high heels.

If we want to stop the madness of superficial behaviors and instead promote a society of healthy dating and relationships, we have to — and I mean we really have to — throw out nonsensical discrimination. It is more than time to do this.