Picture this: you’re sitting in a lecture hall on the first day of classes, and you spot a hot guy you don’t recognize a few rows ahead of you. You casually stare at him for like, the entire lecture, and basically miss whatever the professor drones on about for an hour. At the end of the class, you’re getting your shit together to leave and thinking about how you’re gonna strike up a casual conversation with him. But as you’re on the way out, you see him stand up. Dear god, this guy is like 5’8”, tops. Fuck. You have to let all those dreams and fantasies go, because you are 5’11”, and it’s just not gonna work out. These are the struggles that tall girls face on a daily basis.
1. Clothes Don’t Fit
All girls know that finding clothes that fit perfectly is difficult; but this problem is so much worse when you’re tall. Short sundresses that look cute on your friends become borderline explicit when you put them on, while maxi dresses usually hit somewhere between mid-calf. Already short daisy dukes literally look like denim underwear. And don’t even get me started on jeans. “Long inseam” my ass. 75% of the “long” jeans I try on are essentially capris. Shopping online for anything is completely out of the question. I love clothes, but almost every shopping trip I take ends in frustration.
2. Having Short Friends
Unless all of your friends happen to be on the basketball or volleyball team, good luck not towering over everyone all the time. Maybe you’re like me, and you had a lot of short friends in middle and high school who asked you to pick them up, “just to see what it’s like to be that tall.” Sometimes you might feel like you’re delegated to the role of mom-friend because you can literally see and keep track of all your friends at once, even in a crowd. You miss out on the bonding experience of borrowing clothes from sisters for parties and mixers because they just don’t fit. You also might accidentally choose to wear your cute heeled boots as a PNM during recruitment, and then proceed to dwarf every sister you talk to at every house.
3. Partying Is A Bitch
Honestly, this one’s 50/50 in my book. On one hand, you’re the first one to see when a group of your sisters shows up, because you stick out. On the other hand, you can always immediately see that bitch from your chem class as soon as she walks in. And then you get to see her leaving with that guy you like. Win some, lose some, I guess. He was only 6’2”, anyway.
4. Weird Body Image Issues
A lot of girls have told me they wish they were my height, but being tall comes with some pretty weird body image issues. Unless you’re as skinny as a VS Angel, being tall is usually synonymous with being heavier than the average girl. This might make you worry that you’re crushing guys if you ever take the reigns and hop on top. It also might make your ex-boyfriend drop you while trying to lift you onto his lofted bed, accidentally hit your head on the bed frame, and have to interrupt what you were doing for an apology and an ice pack (yeah, I’m still mad about that, Sean). Stuff like that doesn’t exactly boost your self-esteem.
5. Dating Is Hard
I honestly can’t stand when short girls complain about short guys going after them, and claim that they’ll only date guys who are 6’0” and up. Can you please take that hot 5’9” guy?! You’re only 5’4”! I basically HAVE to date guys that are 6’0” and up, which limits the dating pool as is, and having some 5’3” bitch steal a six-footer doesn’t make my life any easier. In addition to that, some tall guys aren’t even into dating tall girls. In some cases, they might poke fun at you for being tall by telling you to dunk on them (thanks, Tinder guy, you fucking douche). To make matters worse, you can’t really wear heels anywhere you might meet guys, for fear of absolutely terrifying them with your height and making them feel “emasculated.”
Let me be completely honest here: I really do like being tall, and I’ve never once wished to be shorter, but being so damn being tall comes with a lot of issues. You can’t just hem your jeans to make them fit perfectly, you’ve got a limited dating pool, and you constantly have to deal with the fact that walking amongst shorter people making you feel like Godzilla terrorizing innocent civilians. That being said, over the years I’ve really learned to embrace these issues and roll with whatever my height throws at me. Even if that includes the the occasional low hanging object in a frat basement and the headache that follows..
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