Carlos, a 31-year-old tool designer for an aerospace company in Washington State, has learned to avoid the four nightclubs in his area because his six-foot-six stature makes him such a visible target, his height a provocation for any drunk guy with something to prove. In certain situations, height can have more immediate physical consequences. “People expect more of them than they’re developmentally able to deliver, and suddenly they are treated as if they’re mentally or emotionally delayed.” “When we do see taller-than-average children, there is a phenomenon of others mistaking their age for someone older,” he explains. David Sandberg, a pediatric psychologist who’s studied children and height. The stigma for taller children is common, says Dr.
They see me, this big guy, and assume I’m stupid.”
I have a finely tuned bullshit detector thanks to people who’ve tried to take advantage of me. “Don’t write that I’m bitter because I’m not, but people think that every second of my life has been lucky, and it hasn’t been that way at all. I didn’t realize until I grew up just how much my childhood affected me.” Russell works as a self-employed electrician and has the wariness of someone who’s been hardened by formative experiences. “Adults would call me ‘retard’ because they assumed I was an adult at 16. We all know how adorable and precocious small kids can be, but what does the tall childhood look like? “As a kid I wasn’t allowed to play with other children because some parents thought, ‘He’s too big to play with my child,’” says Russell, who was five-seven in the fifth grade. Russell, a 47-year-old, six-foot-ten man in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, found his height particularly challenging as a child. “I think for some guys, being tall is a great personality boost,” Jack said, “but for me, it’s another way to feel different and inadequate.” The gentle - and reluctant - giant. As he said this, my mind flickered back to all the times he would adjust his height (slouching, leaning against walls, crossing his legs) in an effort to take up less space. He described the expectations that come along with his height - the masculine personality traits of being dominant, aggressive, the leader - and all the ways he would feel even worse about himself when he couldn’t measure up.
“It’s more of a burden than anything else,” he said. The idea that, for men, taller equals better has such a stranglehold on our cultural understanding of height that some parents give their shorter children - who are otherwise healthy - growth hormone, and limb lengthening has become a popular and dangerously unregulated sector of India’s medical tourism industry. At six-foot-three, he always drew the attention of the room, would make more money over a lifetime than average-height folks like me, was more sexually attractive to women (which, as gay men, is maybe less important, but hey), and was perceived to be a more effective leader. (Some names have been changed.) Whereas I’ve tried any number of tricks to become taller (chunky soles, posture exercises, setting the stationary bike seat just a hair too high), Jack actually was tall. As a guy of average height (five-foot-nine) who’s always wished he could be taller, I envied my friend Jack his size. It was late-ish at the bar when we got to talking about height. A man on stilts walking on Nassau Street in Manhattan.