Here, here! I’ve tried several tactics including a preemptive scream at the person or pushing the umbrella away. I am considering the self-defense umbrella.
My favorite advantage is being in a crowd; I know exactly were my companions are.
6’4" Male. Don’t forget showers. My parent’s house was designed by someone about a foot and a half shorter than me, the nozzle is right at shoulder height. That’s actually something I check in apartments now.
I also have no sense of how tall other people are. Part of that is growing up in Taiwan, but I can’t remember how often someone’s been described as “tall” to me.
Anyone have suggestions for office chairs? I’ve been looking off and on for a couple of years, but nothing fits in both shoulders and lumbar support.
Hal
6’9" Male.
Size 18(us) shoes.
It’s all a matter of perspective.
I have no problem with the height of buses and trains, it simply means my hands are left free to hold my book, as my head is wedged so firmly against the roof that I do not need to hold the rails.
It warms my heart, knowing I’ve helped a 85 year old get her dinner, I mean cat food, from the top shelf at the supermarket.
Shoe shopping is made incredibly easy, because I only have one pair to choose from (if that, many times). There’s no fretting over whether my shoes are fashionable or not, as I have no choice.
Years of bending down to talk to short people has given me rounded shoulders that would make me a shoe-in for a role as Quasimodo, except I’d need to perform the whole thing on my knees.
I never had to waste space by trying to store my sleeping bags in the cupboard, because for a year I needed them rolled around the metal edges of my then girlfriends bed, to stop my ankles and shins from bleeding.
In a similar vein to the shoes, I only have one model of car to choose. All I need to do now is pick the colour.
I never need to really mop the floor in the bathroom, because every time I am done, I have to step out onto the floor, still dripping, just so I can dry myself. Not to mention never having to worry about slipping over in the bathtub that is too short by about 2 feet.
Planes, trains, buses, cinema seats, beds, shoes, clothes, desks, chairs, doorways, showers, bathtubs, celing fans and light fittings… it’s all good :rolleyes:
Yimminee cricket!
I’m 6’5" with 9 1/2 shoes.
But I’m normal in all other aspects.
I went shopping for my first car the day after prom, and while I had changed my clothing, I only had the one pair of shoes: moderate heel, maybe two inches? Adding the height of the shoes to my already considerable tower of self, I made six vertical feet of potential buyer.
None of the salesmen seemed to grasp that I wasn’t rejecting their little sporty cars because of the color. Maybe I don’t like to perform a static-electricity demonstration with my head and the roof EVERY time I go anywhere? Or keep my ears warm with my knees?
I have a big boat of a K-frame car now. I’m very happy.
In junior high, my musical-theater-fan friend would always sing that song from A Chorus Line, “Four Foot Ten” to me. Only in my case, it was, “Five foot ten! Five foot ten! That’s the story of my life! I remember when everybody was my size. Boy, was that nice…”
5’9" woman checking in. I think I just had a revelation reading Aspidistra’s post: I’ve been doing a lot of soul searching, trying to figure out why though I have many close female friends, I usually become close friends with men faster. It’s not because I have some desperate need to be accepted by all men, it’s not because I resent women, it’s because THEY’RE TALLER. OK, maybe the other issues come into play, too, but I honestly think I just hate feeling like an Amazon when I meet someone.
Here’s something I hate as a girl: when you DO find shoes that actually fit, (size 9 1/2 here), that are reasonably cute, they inevitably have a BIGASS heel. Now I’m definately far from a cowering shy girl, but I really think dress flats are the ugliest things ever, and the shortest heel I can usually find is 3 inches. Which puts me at 6". Which is fine. But anything more than that, and I am seriously giving the tall MEN a run for their money. Hovering around 6 feet for a woman is kinda cool, klunking around in 5 inch platforms is not. It’s just so hard keeping up my standards of cuteness these days. 
Ditto with pants. And short skirts get downright dangerous on us tall girls. I mean, some leg: good. Sharon Stone-Basic Instinct-Accident: not so great.
Short person checking in.
I’m 5’1". Growing up, it wasn’t a big deal. I come by my non-height quite honestly–the tallest woman in my family is my mother, and she’s only 5’5". The tallest man in my family is about 5’8", maybe 5’9". So I never really felt short.
Then I got into the real world, and started noticing that most people aren’t just taller than me–they are WAY taller than me. Because people are SUPPOSED to be taller. It’s not them, it’s me.
So, I compensated by creating a tall personality. And you know what? *It worked. * The tallest man I’ve dated was 6’4" (talk about feeling like a fly on the Chrysler Building… ), and one day, we were joking about the height difference, and he asked me how tall I was, since actual numbers had never really come up before. When I told him, he looked utterly shocked, and said that even with at his height, he’d never have put MY numbers that low. “I knew you weren’t tall, but I swear, I was guessing you at 5’5”, maybe 5’6"," he said.
Of course, my tall personality doesn’t get jars off of high shelves, or keep tall people from tripping over me. Thank goodness I’ve also got red hair. People still trip over me, but it tends to be only the really tall people, like 6’5" or higher. I’m going to have to invest in some personal beacons for my daughter, though. She’s almost six years old, and she’s inherited my non-height. But she’s also got medium brown hair. She won’t be as easy to spot as I am.
I’m working on helping her create her own tall personality, though…
On both sides of my family, the men are quite tall. One cousin is just an inch short of 7 feet tall, for 'xample. We’re all used to it, heck, guys under six feet tall seem a little short!
Clothes and shoe shopping is a year ‘round activity because we’ve found that outlet-type places often have larger sizes but you have to check them every month or so. The inconvinience is often off set by lower prices. We’ve also discovered those bed risers (they look like the stoppers on the end of a cane) are great for raising the height of work tables, so no more back pain from stooping over teensy tables. Short of having a mattress custom made, we still can’t find a bed that doesn’t leave the guys’ feet dangling off the end.
Has anybody had bad Halloween (or similar) experiences? I was 5’ 7" by the time I was ten and quit trick-or-treating, in tears, because people accused me of being too old for a kid’s holiday!
Another shrimpie checking in - I’m 5’1". Grocery shopping is a (literal) pain in the neck because I can’t reach half of what’s in the store. Because I am too shy to ask for help, I usually climb the shelves if no one notices I’m trying to reach something. (I’m not shy about other things, just about asking big people to get things down for me.)
My best friend is a woman who is six feet tall. People do look at as oddly when we’re out together, but I don’t usually notice the height difference until she hugs me, and I find my nose smushed in between her boobs.
I once dated a man who was 6’10" tall and weighed roughly 350 pounds. He was able to cover my entire HEAD with his hand.
That absolutely kills me. The pain, oh the pain. I’m 6’5" BTW and oh the pain. Their is not one stance at all that is comfortable. Thank goodness for dish washers.
6’6", 385…Cars dont fit, clothes dont fit, houses dont fit. Airplanes dont fit. Finally, the movie theater got loveseat seating. The world is made for munchkins.
My wifes 5’3"
When I was 10, we had our kitchen remodelled. The guy who came to do it spent hours, if not days trying to persuade her that, really, she didn’t want the benchtops raised by (gasp) 2 inches even if she was 6 inches above average female height. She’d hate it, it would all end in tears, no good could come of it, disaster looms, and so on and so forth.
Mum stuck to her guns. Yay mum.
sigh I miss the old house. Now what I need is an excuse to redo my kitchen
I’m checking in at just under 5’5" I think I’m officially 5’4 5/8", actually. Yes, and I’m a guy, so I guess that makes me pretty short. Two girlfriends have been taller than me, the other maybe half an inch to an inch shorter. I would be extremely enthusiastic about another two inches. I figure that would give me the best balance when it comes to fitting in this world, both in literal terms and with regard to the dating problem that has been mentioned. I’d have about equal pick of short and tall (assuming they’d take me, heh) and that woudn’t be bad; I like them both.
What I really want to tell you about, though, is my friend. He’s 16. He’s 6’11", last I checked, and that was six or seven months ago. He’s still growing, so he might 7’ by now. Scary, huh?
6’1", which would normally be just fine, except that I’m living in a country where the average male height of 5’5" and an apparent standard deviation of 0.01". Shoes and shirts are next to impossible to find and I don’t know how many times I’ve smacked my head on doorframes and light fixtures.
On the other hand, at least I’m above the crush during rush hour. Chicks seem to dig it, too.
Not quite as easily definable as the heighth problem, But I am way to wide for this world. I’m only about 5’11, and pretty fat at 260, but my big problem is I am just way to wide. My shoulders just don’t fit many places. I hated the original VW bugs. The top starts curving in way to soon and in order for my shoulders to fit I have to sit at a 45 degree angle. Bathrooms that have tall urinal stalls suck, because I have to stand at a far angle to fit, and have to curve back to hit the porcelin. I usually buy 3xand 4x shirts otherwise the shoulder seam cuts into the tendon between my neck and shoulder, but then it’s pretty much a dress cause I’m short for that size. And sleeping in motels sucks, because I need two full pillows in order to sleep on my side and not get a serious neck crick cause my neck falls to far while I sleep, but most motels only have two skinny pillows per bed. The benefit is that having wide shoulders gives everyone the impression that you are bigger, and therefore taller. I have won a lot of bar bets from people who insist that I have to be 6’3’’ or more.
Ha! I’m 6’2’ and my wife is only 4’9". We have interesting times to say the very least. 
Then again, out of my three kids, my son is about 2 inches shorter than me and wears size 13 shoes…at 14 years old. Both daughters are right around 5’4" or so…
I’m lucky that at 6’5" and 190 I seem to be just shy of “too tall”. I can get shoes (US 12), trousers (34x36), and dress shirts (17x37) fairly easily. My car is a Smart which has a suprising amount of headroom. One annoying thing is shopping for a high-end bicycle. Shops don’t stock the exteme sizes for bikes over £1000 and they are reluctant to order one in just so you can take a test ride.
There are a lot of 5’11" women here! Count me in, too. It is difficult to find pants that are long enough, but I have found several stores now that have a style I like and I just stick to them. All I have to say is thank goodness for the current trend of having extra long sleeves on every top, I can finally find shirts that don’t look like 3/4 length sleeves on me.
It was more of a problem in school, finding skirts and shorts I was allowed to wear was hard because they had to be longer than our fingertips with our arms at our sides, and shorts just don’t come long enough for that.
I usually like being tall, but I do understand the rediculous feeling you get standing next to a petite woman.
the world is too tall for us short folks.
you’ve never been in the position of having to ask strangers to help you get things off the top shelf in supermarkets.
never had to knock on you next door neighbour’s door because you can’t change the lightbulb in your front room.
and you’ve never been forbidden from riding all the cool rides at the funfair because you aren’t tall enough!
hah!
(i’m just jealous of you)
Reprazent!
Try getting men’s pants in a 30 waist and 29 leg. Try asking your wife to get cooking equipment down from the rack for you. The humiliation.