“When will the obsession with men's height end?”
The Guardian
asked just a year ago .
According to the communications of the dating applications, it is already over: the dating application Bumble ensures that height is no longer an important issue for more than 30% of single people who use the application.
Looking at the facts, it seems like it never ends: the height filter is one of the most used in the application and many men add a few centimeters to their height and confirm that old saying that size matters.
Makeup about a man's height has entered the American presidential race.
Politico dedicated a long report last October to analyzing whether the (fallen) Republican candidate Ron DeSantis has lied about his height and wears shoes with hidden elevations.
More facts: according to a study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the average height of Spanish men is 174 centimeters.
But it only takes a quick look at dating apps to discover that their members are not part of the studies, since a large majority exceeds (at least, they say) that height.
Could neuroscience explain why so many lie about their height?
Louann Brizendine, author of
The Male Brain
, an essential book for understanding the male mind, believes it is very simple.
“Men lie about their height on social media and dating apps to increase their attractiveness to women, believing women prefer taller, stronger men.
“Stronger men are considered to be able to protect women more and give them a better standard of living, as they have more power and status is usually associated with taller men,” she explains.
“The male trait of height has been socially desirable for as long as scientists have been studying it, and on social media men try to present themselves in the most desirable ways possible,” she notes.
She clarifies that women can do something similar when referring to the size of their breasts, and assures that it is not strange for both men and women to lie about their age on social networks.
Relating height to protection capacity may seem surprising (and even primitive) to some, but when consulting with various single women, it is common for many to think this way.
This is the case of Ariadna, a 29-year-old physicist.
“I like to feel small and protected.
I recognize that if the man is my height, or shorter, I lack that protection.
I certainly use height as a guide.
If on dating apps a man says he is 175 cm tall, I already suspect that he is more or less my height (I am 170 cm tall), and I confess that this information already helps me to rule out that person.
It may sound cold, but in reality, in the applications we are putting the filter that we want in life.
Maybe in a real life encounter a short man could win me over, but on these apps he wouldn't even give it a chance.
That's why I deleted these
apps
, because I want to start getting to know people inside."
Tom Holland and Zendaya at the premiere of 'Spider-Man: No Way Home' in Los Angeles in 2021.Emma McIntyre (Getty Images)
Applications like Bumble, aware that sometimes their users establish filters that end up being too demanding, decided a few months ago to “soften the filters” so that users would open themselves up to suitors who went beyond their most immediate demands.
“Are you seeing users appear in the list of profiles that do not fit the criteria you have established?
It is probably because we have introduced a new functionality to soften your filters to give you the opportunity to see users outside your preferences,” they indicate.
Even undeniable idols like Miguel Herrán have suffered from the complexes of not measuring the same as in an interview with El País Semanal, in which he explained that when he was little, his classmates told him that although he was very handsome, he was too short (he measures around 170cm).
Therefore, it is not so strange that according to a statistical study by OkCupid, men usually add about five centimeters more height to their profile.
A popular TikTok video shows a woman toying with the idea of measuring her dates on the Hinge platform to make sure they meet the height they claim to be on her profile.
“I am 172 cm tall and I recognize that on the applications I say I am 176 cm tall.
Although on more than one occasion my dates, upon seeing me face to face, have told me that I am shorter than they expected, I believe that four centimeters extra is not an exaggeration.
I found my ex-partner on a dating app, and over time, she recognized that if I had entered my real height, we would never have
matched
, so I don't regret it,” admits Javier G, a 33-year-old
account manager
.
“Considering that on average, taller men have more status and power, the temptation to lie or exaggerate height on a man's social media profile leads to more men lying about height,” explains Brizendine.
Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman in 1998. Ron Wolfson (Getty Images)
However, it is undeniable that height is something that is kept in mind, especially when the person looking for a partner has a height that deviates from the most common canons.
This is stated by Sara García, a 41-year-old communications consultant, who is 1.82 cm tall.
“I think it is something that is taken into account when you are taller, but because since you are a child, they put you in the back row for photos, at your communion they put you alone, it seems like you are getting married, and all the world makes sure to constantly remind you how tall you are.
So, if you don't have an environment that normalizes it, like in my case, my friends were tall, I understand that you think that height is something that matters.
However, in Germany or the United States I have never seen this issue as a barrier, although perhaps it is because, on average, people are already taller,” she explains.
"Although I have never felt that flirting with boys who were not my height was a barrier, it is true that I have always looked for compensation in physical structure, because in the event that they were somewhat shorter than me, I felt attracted to boys stronger.
But I admit that when I flirted
online,
height was something that worried me, and that's why I always put it in my profile.
The funny thing is that I was too lazy to think about arriving and being told “You're so tall!”
By the way: they always did,” she adds.
The triumph of the 1.70 man
When talking about couples in which the man is shorter than the woman, it is quite difficult not to mention the case of Tom Cruise (who is around, or so he says, 170 cm) and Nicole Kidman, who is 1.80 cm tall.
The truth is that the actor, although he has always claimed to be very proud of his height, wore raises on the red carpet so that visually, the difference in height between the two would not be very visible.
Nicolas Sarkozy is 160 and Carla Bruni is 177.
When they posed together on the cover of
Paris Match
, no one missed the fact that the model and singer reached out to the former president by the chin.
So many memes were generated that the publication itself was forced to clarify that in the photograph selected as the cover, Sarkozy was “coincidentally” on an upper step as the image was taken in front of a staircase in front of the couple's house.
Ron DeSantis during a rally in South Carolina in 2023. Sean Rayford (Getty Images)
The height difference was also widely commented on, in better terms, thanks to the couple formed by Tom Holland and Zendaya, who are separated by 10 centimeters in height (to which must be added those added by the heels that she has worn in some premieres in which she posed with him, such as
Spider-Man: No Way Home
, in which they worked together and whose promotional
tour
became an improvised tribute to the differences in height. A difference that the actress Sophie also showed without complexes Turner and the singer Joe Jonas. Daniel Radcliffe, Bruno Mars, Jeremy Allen White or the president of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy are other examples of men who are small and at the same time sexy, successful or desirable.
On the big screen, we rarely see striking differences in height.
However,
casting
director Marta Noguera denies that the height of the actors is taken into account when casting.
“I have never encountered a
casting
process in which we had to take into account the height of the actors and actresses, even when creating pairs.
I don't think it's important.
In fact, many times we don't even know how long they are, especially if it is a process in which we ask for
amateur
recordings of the performers,” she explains.
“At the level of a personal anecdote, in a project that I did during the pandemic, we did all the
casting
through these types of recordings and when we arrived at the time of viewing, I met all the actors and actresses and I was surprised at how very tall they were. They were all.
"I would never have said it, neither because of the
self-tapes
nor because of the film!" she says.
Deception is tolerated in cinema.
On Tinder we shouldn't.
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