I'd like to share some of my persoanl experience here, hope it might be helpful...
I'd say I'm average 5'8, so I don't pretend that my experience is very representative of that of a "real short" guy. But still the psychological experience must be pretty close.
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When back in highschool, I got picked on verbally pretty often, almost everyday, mostly because I'm different (I'm Chinese, so ethnicity was a factor, my ideals and my habits were different from those rich boys and big shots' children from my private school).
But one of the factors was that I was "short", the second shortest guy of the class (around 100-150 people), and the shortest guy was nicknamed "the dwarf". So just imagine the pressure...
I had no friends, let alone girlfriends... Although I was one of the best students at school, I was depressed and I was very self-conscious about my height. I was always thinking :"If only I was taller, something like 5'10 or more, people would respect me more, I won't be the stereotypically labelled the short asian and the girls would like me".
When I walk on the streets, if I see an attractive tall girl who's almost as tall as me or taller than me, I would feel this huge frustration growing on me "she must look down on me, me the short guy, there's NO chance for me with a girl like that". If there was anything I could do to be 5'10 or taller, I would have done it...
I was desperate and pathetic, getting angry for no reason over my height, even my parents would be worried about my beight complex from time to time.
Then I went to the best school in France for my university studies, two years of studies so hellish that time just passed without me having too much time to worry about my "short height" and all the consequences. Basically all we did was studying, nothing else.
Two years later, the big exams came, I finally got into one of the best engineering schools in the nation, now it's party time!
I started to bcome more and more social, the people there were definitely more intersting and nicer than the racist rich kids from highschool.
I made more and more friends, and more and more people got to know my name, I was becoming one of the "famous" people on the campus, lot of people knew who I was.
No one would make fun of me over my height anymore, I felt respected, I felt good. In return, I got even more social and more confident.
The only problem was that the school had very few females, and most of them were ugly. And since the campus was pretty far from everything, we were pretty screwed girls wise.
So although I was much more confident and social than before, the obsession of the "tall girl" complex was still haunting me.
Then I went to the States for my master's degree. Damn ! That was amazing!
30000 people on the same campus, half boys and HALF ARE GIRLS!
It was the first time for me to see something like this, amazing!
But then I was quickly pulled back to reality, I was a master's student in the computer science program: almost zero female student in all the classes I take, and most of the students are not from the states, so no such thing as the potential "hot female friends" of my classmates or immediat acquaitances.
I went to some of the international students' parties, it's ok, but not great. There were some female students, some were very pretty , but they were all grad students and much older than me, so no interest on my part. But I started to notice something: they actually like me alot. I wasn't the short asian guy, but rather the funny social and interesting chinese guy from Paris who speaks perfect french.
The biggest change came when I started to go to the local clubs with my friends.
At the beginning it was weird and "hard". All you guys who go out sure can imagine this: a bunch of european short/average guys in engineering majors, with absoluetly NO social proof in a college town club, speaking poor english on topt of that.
Anybody decent in college would at least KNOW some cute girls they go out partying with.
We were like a bunch of losers in the middle of all this, many TALL and goodlooking guys, dressed sharp, and having fun with their hot female "friends", requiring only little effort to escalate things...
We felt like sh*t...
Personnally, from my previous socializing and partying from the engineering school, I really liked dancing. Dancing with girls is definitelt much more fun, but I could have fun dancing by myself. I wasn't one of the guys who pretend to enjoying dancing when actually they just like the excuse to grab girls.
As time passed, all my friends didn't want to go to the clubs anymore because of the lack of success. At the mean time, I befriended some of the dancers from the club (those who are paid to dance before the patrons get all drunk and get the courage to hit the floor), and I started to learn how to breakdance.
Now without knowing it, I was getting more and more social proof.
Until some day, a gorgeous but shy "nice girl" came on to me, she couldn't get enough of me. I was really really surprised, I mean, everybody in the club wanted her, all taller than me. I was just this short asian guy who doesn't come with a single hot female friend, thus zero social proof, who just happens to know a little breakdancing.(don't want to create any unnecessary arguing here, but it's true that Asians are usually perceived as uncool and unsexual in the US due to negative racial clichés. Which is not the case in France for example...)
Seeing this, many other girls also wanted a piece of me, grabbing my asss and stuff, pretty annoying since I was so focused on the first girl
Me, the short slef-conscious engineering guy, knowing zero HBs got all this??? That was beyond belief...
And the same scheme happended a couple of times through out the year. Every time, it's the same type of girl: very beautiful but "innocent looking", not the whorish, make-up clad partygirls who want everybody to fancy them.
Then again, for some reasons, I got tired of pure engineering stuff and went back to France to study marketing. I discovered a whole new world.
Now half of the people I see are females, far more attractive than the engineering days. And the most exciting part is that most of them like me, some really fancy me. Some of the attractive ones are actually pretty tall, sometimes much taller than me.
At all the parties I go, the ladies usually always try to find an excuse to talk to me.
Now I've long been over my "short man"'s complex. Thinking back, I still couldn't beleive how pathetic I was...
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Ok now after the storytelling, a few things I learned:
- If you are short or at least you feel short, you need to learn how be confortable with your body. I know it sounds cheesy, but it's absolutely true! Trying to overcompensate by being overly agressive or trying to hide it with some high heel shoes will only make you look pathetic.
- Confidence is the key, I'm talking about real confidence, not when you fake it. Because when you fake confidence, you either overdo it or you fall back again into being a wimp. But again I agree that condifence doesn't come out of nowhere. It comes from past SUCCESS. If I didn't get to become so social and interesting thanks to the positive feedbacks I was getting, if I didn't live the encounters with those real real beautiful girls who wanted me, nobody but me, I'm not sure if I would be who I am now.
- Now let's come back to height and the hot tall girls, I totally agree with what some one said a few threads earlier, There are two types of tall girls: those who don't really care as long as you have something to offer in other fields, and those who want nothing less than a tall guy. Now it's just your job to find those who are of the first type and who are also of your taste
- Do NOT automatically assume that every girl wants a tall guy, just like don't assume that every guy wants a girl with big chest, or that every guy wants a girl with blond hair. It might be the case quite often, but it's not always the case. Again go out and look for those who don't get hung up on the height issue instead of lamenting about your height all day long.
- Being short doesn't excuse you from being fit. Personnaly I don't recommend becoming real bulk, because that would be a kind of overcompensation. I've seen girls laughing at some anaesthetically overly muscular short guys. Trust me, it's a NO NO. Personnaly, I noticed that after I started doing breakdancing and capoeira and I got more fit (swimmer type of fit), I got more looks.
- Ok I might add that I also realize now (more than in high school) that I have a good looking face. Like some one said earlier, if you are short and you are good looking, many times you can get away with it, but not always though.
I know my input is kinda messy, sorry for this. We are not writing abook here right?
