One more thing: nothing builds self-confidence like deciding you want to learn how to do something, figuring out how to learn it, and then teaching yourself. Seriously. And a guy that knows that–that he can master whatever, if needed–is always attractive.
If you are planning on settling down with one spouse it barely matters if millions of others would reject you for any reason so long as you get that one person.
Even when plural marriage becomes legal, you still won’t want to marry more than half a dozen of the billions theoretically available.
Of the two governor’s of my state whom I have been next to in person, they both were about 5’7" (if not shorter). Their wives were smokin’.
Okay, this is a good place to start with the dating advice: Don’t ask a woman for her honest opinion, and then assume that a)she’s lying to you or b) she doesn’t know what she’s talking about (or is a freak) and her honest opinion is useless. It’s rude and insulting and very unattractive. Actually, that’s more life advice than dating advice–don’t treat anyone that way.
Yeah, you and every other teenager in the entire history of humanity. Even otherwise confident, outgoing folks your age get derpy talking to someone they’re crushing on. Hell, otherwise confident, outgoing folks twice your age sometimes get derpy talking to someone they’re crushing on. Don’t sweat that too much, okay?
Congratulations, you pretty much just described my husband when we met in college. By no means unattractive, but by no means conventionally handsome. Smart, but not brilliant. Hilarious, but in a nerdy way that a lot of people didn’t always get. Mostly wore jeans and t-shirts. Pretty good guitar player, but not replacing Eric Clapton any time soon. Polite and considerate, but with a man’s knack for sometimes saying things that made every woman in the room give him That Look. By no stretch a social reject, but by no stretch knee-deep in the ladies. He’d be the first to tell you he was just this guy with nothing in particular going for him.
Except he was just this guy who meshed with me in ways I can’t really articulate. Just a guy who was gracious enough to still be into me after I spent half our first real date laughing hysterically at him for tiptoeing and standing on stuff because I was wearing heels. (In my defense, it was incredibly ridiculous, and I was entirely taken by surprise by never having seen him act like that before.) Just a guy willing to stop worrying about how other people think it looks for me to be three inches (more if we’re dressing up) taller than him. Just a guy willing to not worry about whether I’d think it was silly or immature or chintzy of him to pick up Happy Meals and take me to the park to eat them on the swings. Just a guy who’s enthusiastic about all sorts of fairly random things. Just a guy who never saw any of these things as stuff he had got going for him to make up for his shortness.
Not that it ever occurred to me to consider his height as something that he needed to make up for. I know women who do think like that, but they’re by and large the sorts who will date any asshole loser taller than them if the alternative is being single, so I feel the less attention paid to their opinions on dating, the better.
Absolutely.
Speaking from my huge, statistically relevant sample of 1, they do seem to try really, really, really hard. It’s pretty awesome.
Oh, and another thing - this angsty, no-one-will-ever-love-me-I’m-inferior shtick is cute at 16, but you have about 18 months to knock it off before it becomes deeply creepy and unsettling. So give yourself a few months to wallow, if you need it, then get to work on a healthier outlook.
I wish I could identify with your second paragraph. I know people who do, and I envy them. I was severely unhappy in adolescence, but that was also very interesting for me, and I met some fascinating people. My university experience was even worse, a miserable debacle from start to finish. Depression and misanthropy took away most of my youth, and I still can’t catch up.
AU, good for you that you’re trying to get some help now. I wish I had at sixteen.
The taller man is usually elected president. If you’re going to try to be a president, you need to be taller. Other than that, it doesn’t seem to matter much.
From where I’m sitting, this poll is at 7 to 77, with 77 out of 84 women saying that you’re wrong. I think the problem is that you’re not willing to listen to anything we’re saying.
I’m 47; I’m hoping that I’ll figure out what I want to be when I grow up some time before I retire. 
Frankly, it’s not all that cute right now. 
I’m not saying that university is the place where has that epiphany. It’s just where I happened to learn to get over myself and get on with life. But it certainly helped that I was no longer surrounded by a fairly homogeneous peer group that had already assigned me a niche in the social hierarchy.
My university experience can be described as “a fairly homogeneous peer group that had already assigned me a niche in the social hierarchy.” Then again, I had/have a lot of mental problems that were only exacerbated by all that.
Damn, I wish I had learned this, also. 18 months… 17 years… there’s a big gap there.
Heartily agree.
~Wednesday, happily married to a non-whiny 5’-6" guy.
[QUOTE=OurLordPeace]
Damn, I wish I had learned this, also. 18 months… 17 years… there’s a big gap there.
[/QUOTE]
Never too late to get better!
I don’t understand this. I can’t speak for others, but I personally don’t have an idealized version of me that’s the hero. Whenever I imagine myself as confident I imagine myself as somebody who accidentally steps on others toes. If anything, my idealized version of myself asks every person in the world what they think and waits 30,000 years before making a decision. I consider myself too impulsive to be my hero, and I can takes months to make decisions.
My head is on fire all the time with possibilities. I can always see 1000 billion ways things can go wrong or right, and I have to consider each and every one of them and try to minimize harm (even at the cost of maximizing help). If I’m “confident” I’ll be forced to disregard those thoughts, and while it may result in more good things, because I’m doing stuff instead of thinking. However, is it ethical to bring more good into the world if, as a side effect, it also brings more harm into the world due to a lack of forethought? I don’t think so. A greater good does not outweigh a lesser evil, and by making a conscious decision to be confident and disregard those thoughts I am a making a conscious decision that I may hurt people in my confident pursuit of good, and that’s wrong even if my good deeds proportionally outweigh my increased bad ones.
That doesn’t mean that all confident people are callous jerks. I’ve known some great, loving people who are confident. But I don’t understand how they do it, I reason and consider every action so as not to let heuristic thoughts and actions not hurt people. I still fail, and that’s why I hurt myself, to remind myself of those failures. But to become confident and increase the number of instances seems morally wrong to me.
The last time I tried being “confident” last week I did manage to do a good deed and make somebody’s day. But not sitting there and considering all possibilities was exhausting. I literally fell asleep after I got home from it for 38 hours. And woke up with a legitimate migraine. Without waking up once. That’s how exhausting it is to disregard planning and policing of my actions. It terrifies me to think that I may lose myself, or bring even more harm by being confident. I know I’ll never be attractive because of it, but even if I have to remain celibate to minimize harm I think I’m morally required to.
Women reject guys that are insecure. It doesn’t matter if it’s about your height, your race, your acne, whatever. Insecurity stinks. It’s not just women. Nobody likes someone who’s insecure. I don’t keep friends that are whiney and insecure. I don’t date women that are insecure.
Sure, there are disadvantages to being short. That’s just the hand you’re dealt. What if you couldn’t grow facial hair? What if you had too much body hair? What if you bald early? What if you sweat a lot? What if you’re flat footed? There are about a million things that keeps you from being the perfect specimen of a human being. You have to minimize those and emphasize your positive traits. Some lady out there will like you for you. Maybe not every lady, but there should be at least 1, right?
Plus, if a girl rejects you for being short, wouldn’t you rather not date someone who can’t overlook (heh) your height anyway?
I can definitively say that not every single woman out there holds 5’7 as some sort of mystical line in the sand of no-copulation. I mean, what do you think they do? Pull out a tape measure before saying yes to a date with you? What’s the difference between you at 5’7 and someone at 5’8? or 5’6 for that matter? If silhouettes of the 3 of us were shown, I’d imagine a woman would be hard pressed to say definitively who was more attractive.
FWIW, I’m 5’8 and am one of the shortest guys in my circle of friends. That does not hold me back in the dating pool… ever. In fact, I’ve got a couple friends who are freakishly tall (6’6, 6’7, 6’8) and they really lament at the lack of size-appropriate prospects out there. There are a lot more 5’0 girls out there than 6’0 girls.
P.S. Whatever 4’11 girl you know right now at 16 who say they prefer 6’0+ guys are overcompensating. They’re self conscious of their own size and try to deflect that. They’re probably thinking “Gosh I’m short. However, maybe to a guy who’s 6’0, he won’t notice a difference between me at 4’11 and a girl who’s 5’2.” To a guy who’s 5’7, a girl who’s 5’2 or 5’3 can slow dance with you comfortably. A girl who’s 4’11 will still be noticeably short.
Yeah… you know that advice I gave upthread to Anonymous User to look into cognitive behavioral therapy workbooks for anxiety? You need to do that too. Yesterday.
… or find one of those confident people as a sweetie. Let them make the immediate low-risk decisions, while you do the research for the critical important decisions like which house to buy, what stocks or bonds to invest in, what companies said Sweetie should work for (because Confident Sweetie will get a lot of offers, but may not know how to evaluate them).
Meanwhile, you might want to check out those workbooks. Might be interesting.
While we’re at it, let’s clear up the race thing too. I have heard that quite a few white women see Indian men as unattractive because of stereotypes of them being unhygienic, creepy, having a small dick, having an annoying accent, and leaving them eventually due to arranged marriages.
Me on the other hand - I am a good counterexample to those stereotypes. I don’t have an accent, have really good hygiene (in fact, maybe even a little over the top), rarely eat curry due to dietary restrictions, and my whole family had love marriages (so they will let me find someone who I like) and my parents don’t expect me to live with them after marriage. I heard some guy the other day tell me, “Yeah, you’re pretty fucking white.” (Not literally, but in terms of how I am.)
But anyway, I am a little worried about the first impression when they first see me that they might think these things. However, I heard it shouldn’t hold me back too much especially once I get to know them. Is this correct? This shouldn’t be much of a handicap, right? Just making sure…
Think about it this way. Tall guys die younger. So when you’re 70 you’ll have all the chicks.
Hmm. Lost me with that one.
(BTW, drink milk before or with spiced foods; I have been told it keeps one from “sweating” garlic; I have no idea if it does work, with garlic or any other spice, because my sweat doesn’t do that, but give it a try.)
What do you mean?
And also, I can only consume products that contain minimized amounts of dairy so I have to take calcium supplements. But I drink a lot of water, I use deodorant every day, brush and floss twice (rarely three if necessary) a day, shower 1-2 times per day, and carry mints with me.