MY idea of romance is far from an old fashioned one.
I have no desire to slow run into my partner’s arms while ‘Love Lifts Us Up Where We Belong’ plays. I don’t need a Clarke Gable-esque gent to dazzle me with over-the-top chivalry, nor do I want to be literally swept off my feet a la Dirty Dancing.
With homosexuality, interracial dating, ‘cougars’ and more now welcomed in our far more liberal times, why is there still such a stigma of tall women dating short men?
Still, there is one classic rom-com cliché that I can’t seem to shake - that lingering moment when a woman looks up into her lover’s eyes. The ‘looking ‘up’ is the operative here.
For a very long time I had one unwavering criteria when finding a suitable partner: 6ft and above, please.
As I stand at a lofty 5ft 10, I'm a considerably tall woman eclipsing the UK average height for females by six inches. Given that 5ft 9 is the national average height for men however, it does mean I dwarf most guys in my surroundings. Finding a man that is far more advanced in latitude than most is therefore a difficult feat.
With shining examples of the short man/lanky lady dynamic, such as 5ft 11 Sophie Dahl and 5ft 4 Jamie Cullum, Carla Bruni and the French Republic President Nicolas Sarkozy and famously, Tom Cruise’s persuasion to taller women Nicole Kidman and Katie Holmes, it’s a wonder why I’ve never wanted to set my sights a little lower.
Tall women with short men - celeb couples
Well, for a start, it’s the potential awkwardness that puts me off. Looking down on a man when kissing, tilting and crouching to one side with uncertainty when in pictures and my most feared concern, wearing God-awful kitten heels. It’s either flat to the ground or high to the sky, ladies.
These are all shallow fears of course, all stemming from a school life of towering over all the boys in class.
I will never forget the day I decided to wear an all green tracksuit for ‘own clothes day’. I can't watch a 'Green Giant' advert without dying a little inside. Ever since then, I’ve coveted a tall man to make me feel, well, small.
“I’m not really a heels girl so that’s not an issue for me. Yet it really hit me when looking at a Great Gatsby poster and Daisy looking up at Gatsby. It’s hard to escape the idea that you’re ‘supposed’ be with someone taller than you,” said author Thea Euryphaessa.
Thea EuryphaessaThea stands at 5ft 8.5 and is currently in a relationship with her partner who is 5ft 6.
Thea admits dating a man shorter than her wasn’t easy to embrace at first.
“I was disgusted with how shallow I sounded. I was really disappointed in myself,” she said.
“It seemed to derive from the idea of the little woman under the protection of the powerful, devouring strong man. Men equate a bigger woman with their mothers and being mothered. And, there was a fear for me of feeling less feminine. As my partner is broad and stocky, I have to admit small and skinny may not have worked.”
As a gender norm, height has been seen just as much a male trait as aggressiveness, strength and power. The result, for some shorter men, is what is widely known as ‘short man’s syndrome’ or the ‘Napolean complex’ to make up for not having the leg-span of an NBA basketball player.
Even so, just as much as dating a taller woman could be a challenge for some men’s egos, dating a shorter man is a challenge to some tall women’s femininity.
"It really hit me when looking at a Great Gatsby poster and Daisy looking up at Gatsby."
With a life faced being called an 'Amazon woman' , a term that can listen like fingernails on chalkboard to a tall woman, there’s a want to protect some of your inner ‘girly-girl’ by veering towards a stereotypical hyper-masculine man.
After all, to be called ‘Amazonian’ is to near enough suggest you could scale trees in a single bound or outrun a jungle cat. Not exactly the dainty, quaint, feminine images most have in mind.
Admittedly, these views bare resemblance to 1950s misogyny where tall women were feared to become spinsters by their concerned mothers. Evidently this is still an engrained insecurity, and some, still let old-school gender norms hinder the dating process.
Thea said: “I have even lost weight as to not feel tall and big. Yet I have also embraced the term ‘Amazon woman’, as that is what I am, a powerful, strong woman.”
"I have also embraced the term ‘Amazon woman’, as that is what I am, a powerful, strong woman."
Even so Thea acknowledges that it’s still a taboo for other people.
“People do look at you,” she said. “Yet when it comes to relationships there have always been trailblazers that challenge the norm. I’ve had men come up to me to say thank you - I’ve given them the confidence to go for a taller girl.”
With homosexuality, interracial dating, ‘cougars’ and more now welcomed in our far more liberal times, why is there still such a stigma of tall women dating short men?
“We’ve had several thousand of years of patriarchy,” explained Thea, “It’s just in the water and we drink it. This wouldn’t be an issue in other cultures. We all play a part in creating these conventions.”
Aaron Roberts, a 5ft 7 radio presenter believes the problem largely lies with women.
He joked, “I would date a taller girl, 5ft isn't that tall.”
“Honestly I have no prejudice about height. Girls seem to have an issue about height more than guys do, in my experience.”
Taking an inward look at my own preferences, I would agree women aren’t as at ease with dating shorter guys despite the fact it is an incredibly shallow and prehistoric way to look at relationships.
Of course we could site archaic theories on ‘natural selection’ and women’s instinctual want for physical dominance, but that, for me, discards the most important things in relationships: a connection and shared values, not whether a man can reach a book from the top shelf or not. Sentiments both Thea and her partner agree with.
Thea said, “When he was asked whether he feels less of man because of my height he answered, ‘she makes me feel more of man’. And he’s more of a man than any man I’ve ever known.”
It’s hard not to feel downright ashamed of my earlier criteria when looking at Thea’s content and happy relationship. After a while, height becomes an after-thought when you’re in love. Succumbing to these unrealistic gender constraints feels like an offence against feminism.
Now, I am definitely more open to dating someone smaller, just with one tiny, albeit vacuous, request: just never ask me to wear kitten heels.
Back Of The Queue For Kitten Heels
You can read about Thea Euryphaessa’s life in her books, Running into Myself and Growing into MySelf,both available from Amazon.
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