I was standing in Starbucks recently, looking forward to my peppermint mocha when I noticed this young woman standing next to me. She had flawless skin, the sort of smooth chestnut hair I’ve always craved, and was dressed in a trim wool suit with a silk orange scarf tied expertly around her neck.
She was elegance personified … and very tall.
To my surprise, I felt tears welling up in my eyes. Standing next to her, I felt like a displaced hobbit, slightly sweaty and not nearly as well put together. At that very moment I wanted so badly to have this woman’s grace, her stature, her clothes.
The problem is I never would have been able to carry off an outfit like that, even if it had been purchased from Chanel.
My husband thinks my Napoleon complex is amusing. “It’s never going to happen,” he says of my desire to be a taller woman. Just like my curly hair, which turns into a brittle scouring pad on rainy days, my height is something I’ve never completely accepted about myself.
And yet, the world around me is always so quick to tell me how lucky I am.
“Men must love tiny women like you,” more than one female admirer has gushed. Not exactly, I want to say. There was that one guy I dated in Boston who informed me that I would be just perfect—if I were only a few inches taller.
And that other jerk from the more recent past, who grumbled to his friends that I had “permy-looking hair and was kind of SHORT.”
Tell me something I don’t already know.
To all you gals who yearn for a petite body, guess what. It’s not always great being under five feet tall. Aside from the obvious annoyances—having to watch your calories, getting your pants taken up by the neighborhood tailor—there are more subtle problems that crop up.
People tend to respect you less when you’re small. It’s as if they look at you and think you’re this adorable little creature that can be stomped on at regular intervals. Because you’re so gosh darned small, there’s not much damage you can inflict on them … other than punching them in the ankle.
