Kimberly Emerson

It was the early 1980s.  Izod ruled the polo shirt.  Michael Jackson, Madonna, Wham and Whitney Houston ruled the radio.  (Yes, people listened to radio.  This was before iPods.)  Exactly one person had been seen wearing a mini-skirt at my school, and the reviews were not good. (We’d all be wearing them in five years, but as they said in Ragtime, “We did not know that then.”)  Penny loafers and flipped-up collars were omnipresent, and hairspray molecules outnumbered oxygen in the atmosphere.  It was junior high, the land where might makes fun of right.  Where Different equals Bad.  Where “watch your back” is not a warning, it’s good, sound advice.

It was when I realized that there was no hope for it, I would indeed be tall, and began bargaining with God.

I didn’t mind so much, really – in most areas, anyway.  I’d always been one of the taller folks in my class.  No sudden growth spurt for me, I started out in the lead and maintained my slow but steady rate of ascent.  I was already ahead of most of the boys and at one point, passed up all of them but one.  (Even he and I were tied for awhile there.)  My whole family was tall, so it wasn’t like I hadn’t seen this coming.  There were a number of good things about being tall, actually – better access the high shelves, long arms to reach things under furniture, and really great legs.  (It’s the one physical attribute in which I have always had faith.  Even the self-esteem deprivation tank that is junior high couldn’t talk me out of that one.)  Really, the only major drawback showed up when I thought about dating. One of my circle (since it really wasn’t her fault, I won’t name her) put it succinctly: “He has to be older than I am and taller than I am.”

And there it was, the mantra that would haunt my existence for the next thirty years.

Okay, half the mantra.  The very first guy to ask me out was four months younger than I was.  I discovered I actually didn’t have a lot of problems with that one.  The height thing, however, was another subject altogether.

It wasn’t that I didn’t date guys who were shorter than I was.  I did.  There weren’t a lot of other options.  Right after junior high, we moved to the L.A. area.  In Northern California, I am considered tall.  In Southern California, I am freakishly tall.  (There is a much bigger contingent of Asians and Latinos living down here, and for reasons best known to God and certain geneticists, they tend to be shorter than we folk of Northern European ancestry.  I don’t really know, but since the Asians and Latinos have better skin than I do, I’d say probably they use all of their energy producing a superior epidermal layer and thus have less of it for bone mass.)  Still, though, somewhere in the back of my mind lingered the idea that every time I went out with one of them, people were secretly making fun of me.

This wasn’t (entirely) paranoia on my part.  When a sitcom wants to set up a couple as the comic relief, they frequently make the girl much taller than the guy.  The sight of a woman staring besottedly down at a man gives everyone the giggles.  I have to admit, sometimes it makes me laugh, too.  There’s something about the image that just doesn’t quite match the romantic ideal we all have in our heads.

Of course, if I’m being honest, I blame being tall for lots more than just my dating misadventures.  I’ve used it as an excuse for not getting cast in shows and not getting for hired office jobs.  (And for not being able to find decent pants.  As much as the fashion industry belittles everyone’s self-esteem by advertising all their wares on long-legged anorexics, they don’t believe that women taller than 5’7″ actually shop in retail stores.  Trust me on this one.)  Am I right in blaming my stature?  Yes and no.  Sometimes it might be a factor – it does make me a little intimidating to some people – but probably not as often as I think it is.  (Except for the pants.  I have proof about that.)  In some ways, it’s not a bad thing.  With dating, as with a lot of those acting roles and administrative positions, the choice is completely subjective.  (You listen to a hundred and fifty women sing “Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina” and try to make an intelligent casting choice.  I dare you.)  Why not find something to blame it on, since it probably wasn’t my fault anyway?  It’s harmless, right?

…Or maybe it’s not.  The trouble is, if I put too much stock in that, it begins to color my judgment.  I’m not going to ask that guy out for coffee.  Sure, he seems interested, but he doesn’t really want someone taller than he is.  I start cutting myself off from opportunities in anticipation of failure.

A couple of years back, I chanced on a story from Linda Ellerbee (author of one of my favorite books of all time, And So It Goes – I’ve read it at least ten times). She said she’d always been told that you have to date men older and taller than you are, but right then, she was dating a guy who was both younger and shorter than she was, and she’d never been so happy.  (Full disclosure, I can’t find any proof they’re still together.  If it helps, I can’t find solid evidence that they’re not, either.)

I started to leaf through my friends’ relationships, to see how well they stacked up to that romantic ideal, aside of being height appropriate.  Guess what?  I found something off about virtually every one.  He’s twenty years older than she is.  She makes more money than he does.  Their names sound funny together.  They live with his mother.  Take your pick of categories equally shallow, most people blow at least one of them, and usually more.

What, I wondered, would life be like if I let this particular crutch go?  Not just by deciding that it doesn’t matter to me, but by making the assumption that my height doesn’t matter a great deal to the rest of the world, either?  Kind of scary, because I’d have no more excuse to shy away from risks, but kind of exciting too.  What if the whole world really were open to me?   I wouldn’t have that excuse to blame when things go wrong, of course, but maybe, just maybe, I could learn to stop needing excuses.  I could just say “Oh, well,” when something doesn’t work out, and move on to the next thing.

From now on, if a guy has pretty eyes and cheekbones that make me stare openly, I’m going to flirt with him regardless of whether his height exceeds mine.  It may sound like a very small step, but I think those are the ones that matter most.  Giant leaps?  We humans tend to backslide from those.  Small steps, we can live with.  Sure, other people may choose to laugh at the image we present, because our height ratio is off or for any number of other reasons.  I’ll be laughing too, at the idea that I could ever let anything as inane as someone else’s opinion interfere with my chance at happiness.

Now, nice eyes and cheekbones?  I’m sticking by those.  Somethings are non-negotiable.

Kimberly has dated her fair share of tall and short guys, and finds that all of them are capable of entrancing her or irritating her, depending on the day…and that she’s equally capable of entrancing and irritating them.  And so it goes.

Tags: crutches, height, ideals, junior high, Linda Ellerbee, Madonna, Michael Jackson, middle school, Ragtime, self esteem, Wham, Whitney Houston