Mon, October 13, 2008
As a 5 foot 10 inch girl (that’s 178cm), I’m no stranger to feeling like a freak in China. Especially seeing as I’m prone to dating Asian men. It kills me that most of the good looking Beijingren I meet on a Friday night in Sanlitun are just below the ‘acceptable’ stature for me. Because apparently it IS a big issue to your friends if you contemplate dating a guy who is one inch shorter than you. “What if you want to wear heels?”, being the optimum rationale. This, it would seem, is a very worthy reason to not date a guy. I mean, you can’t go your whole life wearing flats, can you? I don’t think that Suzie Wong's will even let you into their establishment unless you’re wearing some kind of sexy feet elevators. But if you do wear heels, will it make your man feel less of a man?
I guess it all comes down to the masculine instincts to protect his woman, and if he doesn’t feel like the big man next to her then it’s going to challenge his ability to feel like the hunter, provider, macho man that every man likes to think of himself as. My Chinese ex-boyfriend insisted that I didn’t wear my warm winter jacket as it made me look “too strong”. I froze all winter so that he didn’t feel as though he had his arm around the shoulders of ‘the incredible hulk’.
But I did it, because in a similar way, girlies also want to feel safe with their man. If you are confronted by a gang of Jay Chou looky-likey youths down a dark hutong, she wants to be sheltered and protected; this is much harder to do if she is looming above the guy like a lamppost, and may even give the youths the impression that he is an easier target. Being a big girl, she’ll just have to step in and sort out the matter. This is not one of those moments that’ll make either of them feel great about themselves, that’s for sure.
What if you really like a guy who is shorter than you, or you’re a guy that really likes a girl who is taller than you? Well it seems obvious to me that you have several options, which are:
a. Shun the mockery and society’s taboos and love each other in the way that you want to. b. Guys, two words, Platform Shoes. Girls, one word – Flats. c. Girls: Try not to walk side-by-side with your mini-man. And crouch when you are standing next to him. Men – for heaven’s sake, don’t crouch. d. Girls: Walk in the gutter. Ok, it’s nasty and dirty, but this will give your pavement walking man a good 5 or 6 inch advantage. It could be genius…but probably not advisable with the 9 million bicycles in Beijing.
Ok, so maybe my tips are lame, but remember this: Horizontally, height is irrelevant.
