I am five feet seven inches tall. I am also five feet six and three quarter inches tall. It depends on who’s asking, how attractive they are, and whether I think I can get away with it.
Rounding up your height is a universal male experience. Why do we do it? Nobody knows. It’s an age-old tradition, passed down through generations of men who refused to be perceived accurately. 5’11” becomes 6’0″. 6’2″ becomes 6’3″. And 5’6ยพ” becomes, with a little optimism and zero shame, 5’7″. Some numbers just have a nicer ring to them. And nowhere is this more sacred than in the case of the short man, for whom an extra quarter inch is not a rounding error โ it’s a lifeline.
As a proud member of the short man community, I am also a basketball player. Why? Possibly self-masochism. Possibly a deep psychological need to make things harder for myself. Possibly both. Being a short man on a basketball court is a deafening experience. Your neck hurts from constantly looking up. Their necks hurt from constantly looking down. It’s like a bunch of grown adults trying to host an 11 year old.
It doesn’t stop at the basketball court. Being short is a full time job. Take the gym. Last week, some guy was hogging the Smith machine โ the only piece of equipment I needed. A tall man might have just waited, or asked plainly. I don’t have that luxury. So I walked up, smiled, and said ‘Big man! Nice form on those squats, mind showing me how to do that?’ He was doing squats. Big, impressive squats. He beamed. He stepped aside. I set the bar to bench press height and never looked at him again.
The thing about being short is you can’t afford to be rude. A tall man can tell someone off and walk away looking mysterious and brooding. I do the same thing and suddenly I’m an angry Chihuahua. So you learn to laugh first. Always laugh first. Someone makes a height joke โ you laugh, you clap, you say ‘bro you’re so funny, genuinely.’ And then, once they’re comfortable, once they think you’re friends, you say exactly what you wanted to say from the beginning. Softly. Calmly. It works. It always works. The problem is there’s always a next time.
And don’t get me started on the world itself. Ceiling lights. Top shelves. Who are these built for? The average man? The average height only exists because a few extremely tall people skewed the data. I would be perfectly average in a just world. Instead I am standing in a grocery store staring at a Chocos Stars and Moons 15% Extra pack that I cannot reach. I will not ask for help. What I will do is pick up the step stool they conveniently sell two aisles over, place it in my basket, use it to retrieve my Chocos, walk to the billing counter, and say โ ‘Oh, is this plastic? Hmm. I don’t think I need it.’ And ask them to place it back. Every single time.