Height-ism

This is my column for Scroll this week. It's about being tall. Because I am tall. And out of ideas for columns.

I’m tall. Five foot eleven. I’ve always been tall. My family is tall. I was a tall baby, a tall kid, a tall teenager and now a tall adult.

Being 5'11" when you’re in college is no big deal. Being 5'11" when you’re 12 and at your first school dance? That’s the stuff teen angst is made of.

Behind every tall person lies a story of that growth. Some get off easy: boys who have summer growth spurts and come back to school looking manly and post-pubescent; girls who sprout up at a normal pace but keep growing until they’re statuesque, graceful the whole way.

That was not my story.

I was the classic tall kid: clumsy, awkward, limbs too long for my body. Growth spurt after growth spurt, I was the tallest kid in class, which rocks when you’re playing tetherball, but isn’t so great when you have a crush on a boy who is a foot shorter.

My best friend for the first 14 years of my life has never made it past 5'2". I always secretly hated her for being little and cute, the kind of kid that unfailingly got to sit on the front row in every class picture. If you look close enough at those pictures, you can see me glaring at her from my spot in the back, next to the teacher.

I never made it out of that back row. For 20 years, I’ve been banished to the background, as though my punishment for giantess genetics is for my head to appear puny in every group photo. There have been other ill points too, like when I was thrown off the ballroom dance because there were no boys tall enough to partner me, or when the Disney internship program informed me that I was about 8 inches too tall to fulfill my childhood dream of being Belle at Disneyland.

I recently took a trip to the Amazon and I was disappointed to discover that women there are even shorter than average. I’ve always kind of liked the idea that somewhere in the jungle, there existed a tribe of giant Amazon women among whom I would feel right at home. Apparently, though, this is a myth.

Being tall and single adds a whole new dimension to the height issue. For some reason, the people in my life enjoy setting me up and height seems to be the only qualification they consider. A boy can be awkward, dull, unintelligent and generally impish, but if he’s over 6'3", they consider us a perfect match.

“How tall is he?” are generally the first words out of my mother’s mouth if ever I call her to recap a first date. And if I call after a breakup, her words of consolation are always, “Well, he wasn’t tall enough for you anyway.”

There was only one boy who passed the crucial height test. He was 6'9". My family was thrilled when I brought him home. I could see visions of basketball-playing grandchildren dancing in my mom’s head.

Dating him was revelatory for me, as I realized what life must be like for short girls. I wore heels without worry. I never slouched. Sometimes when we hugged, he would pick me up. I loved this.

But height alone cannot keep a couple together. So I’m back in the realm of the singles, wearing flats and trying not to be height-ist. Someday I hope to find a similarly long-limbed fellow with a similarly clumsy past. My parents will be able to re-kindle their hopes for athletic grandkids. His parents won’t accuse him of wasting his height on a short girl. That will be a great day for tall people everywhere.

But until then, I’ll stand up straight on the back row and be grateful that I can, at least, see over the short people’s heads.