The following men are (or were, if deceased) all 5’7" or under (a surprising number of these guys are 5’3" or 5’4", even 5’2"!):
Al Pacino
Joe Pesci
Dustin Hoffman
Paul Simon
Martin Scorcese
Scott Caan
Richard Dreyfuss
Henry Winkler
Dudley Moore
Griffin Dunne
Daniel Radcliffe
Michael J. Fox
Seth Green
Jon Stewart
Josh Hutcherson
Tom Cruise
Macaulay Culkin
Elijah Wood
Bruno Mars
Jack Black
Woody Allen
Elton John
Emile Hirsch
Prince
Emilio Estevez
Sylvester Stallone (yes, really, apparently he’s only 5’7")
and, of course, Danny Devito (only 5 feet though some sites say he’s even shorter than that)
Still feeling short? It’s all in how you carry yourself. Dress in a way that lengthens the look of your body and highlights your best features. Working out helps too - works for Scott Caan and Stallone. And most importantly, have confidence! Women are far more interested in personality than how tall a guy is.
I’m going to go against the poll in a way and say that being fairly short does have its disadvantages for a man. Though at least 5’7" is taller than the average woman, which does count; a lot of women do like a man who’s at least a little taller than them.
I say “in a way” because I don’t think many women would reject a man just for being 5’7" (so nobody in the poll is lying), but being taller does give you an advantage. It’s like asking if you’d reject a man for not having, say, a friendly family: not something that you’d reject someone outright for, and also nothing to do with their own achievements, but it might give them an advantage if you know about it. There are lots of things like that.
This is going on conversations with my female friends (I’m female and gay, but have dated men in the past and most of my friends are straight) as well as the experiences of my male friends. The tall men in my social circle are definitely lusted over more than the short men, but the short men still get dates.
And I mean dates, which is what you’re probably interested in at 16, not just finding a life partner, which generally depeends on a lot more than superficial attributes; some people who are terrible at getting dates and attracting general female interest are nonetheless fine when it comes to finding that one person who really loves them and wants to stay with them forever. That’s probably cold comfort when you’re sixteen and just want to get your end away or at least get some snuggling. That one person thing is fine, but it’s not what you’re looking for right now.
Being tall is definitely a bonus. But that’s all it is - a bonus. You can still get plenty of dates without being tall. And there’s really nothing you can do about it anyway, so there’s no point worrying about it.
Pointing out that rich and famous men can succeed with women despite being short isn’t likely to be much of a comfort for a short man who is neither rich nor famous.
Giving the OP’s age: no Axe. Please. Seriously. They should have called it Skunkpee.
My cousin Iggy was 5’5" if you squinted; on several occasions, the first thing out of the mouth of people who’d hired him as their mountain climbing guide was “but he’s so short!” (he just loved running those to the ground). Dude wasn’t lifemate material but he also managed to somehow split with all his women in good terms.
Prior to Rocky one of the main items in Sylvester Stallone’s diet was reputedly ketchup packets obtained free at fast food outlets. The point being that the vast majority of those men listed weren’t always rich or famous. They started poor and obscure, too. Nonetheless, they wound up successful and all of them, presumably, have managed to find dates.
T.E. Lawrence was 5’3’’, and it would be hard to argue he wasn’t ‘masculine’ enough. He was of course gay, and not interested in attracting women, but I’m sure he could have easily done so if he wanted to.
Their has been some good advice in this thread. Pointing out the outliers that might as well live on another planet isn’t it.
To the OP I have to say that just be yourself and eventually things will work out. It doesn’t seem comforting now but that’s all there is. Many (most) people don’t peak in high school. Both sexes are way too concerned about what others think about who they date. There were plenty of girls I wouldn’t have dated in high school that I would (and did) date later. And I was no prize and had no business being picky. In high school there will be girls who are worried that kids will talk behind their back “Eeewww he’s soooo short!” That goes away. Some people never grow out of it but teenagers are particularly shallow. That’s one of the reasons why high school sucks. But at least you don’t have to worry about making a mortgage payment every month.
Still, I don’t think listing extremely successful people who we know have found dates is very helpful to someone who is not extremely successful. The OP is coming to a realisation, much earlier than most of us did, that he’s just an ordinary bloke, competing with other ordinary blokes, some of whom are taller than him.
I don’t know if the OP has mentioned this at all, but the short guys I’ve known, and the short boys I’ve taught, did and do also get teased a lot about their height. The adult short guys do it to themselves as a kind of defence mechanism. Short guys get teased about their height in the media all the time, too, so even if you’ve somehow missed this teasing in your real life you’ll have seen it on TV.
And 5’7" isn’t that short, really, but the OP isn’t actually that tall yet and some 16 year old boys are already well over 6’ by that age because growth varies so much. This is not a man in his thirties here, this is a teenager. He is not competing for girls based on his education, work, or even a loving personality, really, because the girls he’s interested in aren’t looking for a life-partner any more than he is. It’s a different playing field altogether.
It’s all well and good to say “have confidence, that’s what women really like, look at these immensely successful people who happen to be short have achieved,” but there’s no denying that short boys get teased for their height and that can only make it harder for them to achieve said confidence.
And it’s OK to feel a bit shitty about being short and the way it makes people treat you.
And then get past it because you can’t do anything about it. And build on the aspects that do make you attractive - they tend to be good things to have anyway. Also remember that sex when you’re young is mostly terrible and you’re better off wanking.
I can’t help but think that if the womenfolk here are more likely to date a 5’7" man than the general population, maybe the OP should date someone from the SDMB. So ladies - how you doin’?
Seriously though, OP - feeling like a miserable social pariah at 16 is surprisingly common across the world so I wouldn’t give up hope for the future based on that. The best advice I can add to what’s come before is just to do stuff. By which I mean start learning skills and having experiences that will serve you later in life, round out your personality, make you more interesting. Learn to play an instrument well, take up wall climbing or tennis, travel if possible, write some short stories, learn to speak a foreign language or two, practice your cooking skills (ladies do love a good cook!) and so forth. And while you will initially be terrible at whatever you strive at, you’ll get better and if you start now, you’ll be at least competent by the time you start college and really good by the time you graduate.
And maybe along the way you’ll discover your purpose in life. And if not? At least the journey will be worthwhile.
I think it’s more to point out that while yes, being short isn’t something you desire it doesn’t have to stop you from being successful down the line in whatever you do. I’m sure all of those guys got teased about their height, have gotten turned down for dates because of their height, and have at times felt self-conscious about their height but they didn’t let that stop them from doing stuff.
The problem with listing off all the non-celebrity successful short guys I know is that OP doesn’t know them from Adam. Like, there’s the guy I met when I just started to get into flying who mentored me, encouraged me to get my private pilot license, and is a good friend of mine - he comes up to about my shoulder. Happily married, flies helicopters for a living now. But the OP doesn’t know him, neither does anyone else here, and for all you folks know I’m making him up. Owner of a local hobby shop in my town, about my height, successful businessman, well respected member of the local community, never seems to lack for female attention - but who here knows him? Rinse and repeat.
Short guys, I know adolescence is hell. It’s hell for everyone. But, to paraphrase Dan Savage’s comment about a slightly different version of teen-age hell: it gets better. Really, it does. As people mature - and like I said, we’re not talking a lot of years here, just a few - they get less superficial, they acquire interesting expertise in various subjects, they get more confident. Really, it does get better.
It’s easy to blame your height when you were actually rejected for being weird, or bad at talking to people, or believing something stupid, or for any other of the billion reasons people get rejected for. Stop blaming your height for your rejections. Stop trying to figure out WHY people are rejecting you at all. It doesn’t matter, just keep looking for someone who doesn’t reject you.
I gotta say as a short man (5 foot 6 at my peak), now long married and successfully reproduced a few times, tall girls intimidated me when I was, long ago, single. My wife is percentile-wise taller than me but still an inch or two shorter in absolute terms.
And a good friend of mine in the days after marriage, a tall beautiful very succesful female physician, would often complain that the short cute guys would never ask her out … in point of fact the pool of guys confident enough in who they were to ask her out was pretty small. I would not have been back in the day either. Too tall too beautiful to possibly be interested in the likes of me. The result was that she did not go out very much.
Short version is that in retrospect honest confidence (not arrogance, hubris, or overcompensation driven by real insecurity) seems to be what many of the female persuasion seem to be attracted to. Yeah what many others have said. I am very happy where (and with whom) I ended up but I wish I had the confidence then that I do now.
Talk to different young women and find out about them, what they like and do and why. Ask those who you find interesting out. The worst that happens? You get turned down and really no worse off than before with some skills building under your belt. And you will get turned down lots because that is par for the course. And quite possibly you also at some point won’t be. As one of my favorite songs put it: “there is every reason for not failing.”
Actually she’s average height for female and I am short for male but I am still taller than her. Her 5-4 (about 50%ile) to my 5-6 (about 10%ile). Hence our boys have ended up a bit taller than me.
For anyone who is curious the conversion is to add 5 inches to a woman’s height - thus she is the percentile same as a male who is 5-9 and conversely I am the same percentile-wise as a woman who is 5-1.
Alright, thank you everyone for your advice. I am feeling less insecure about my height now. It’s not that I really have a problem with actually being short, but I was getting worried that dating would become much harder for me after what I heard on other forums. But it seems like I have been proven wrong in this thread. And I am doing everything I can to maximize my height (exercising, stretching, eating well, just the sleeping is a little iffy) and my parents are taking me to a naturopath to see how I can maximize my nutritional intake (as I do have some problems regarding that, you know, my body doesn’t absorb some vitamins well which may be part of the reason I am short).
But regardless, even with my short height, I think I shouldn’t have too much of a problem finding love.
Imo you should just focus on other qualities that you can actually improve about yourself other than your height, i’m personally around 5’8 male, and i felt bad about my height for a long time when i hanged out with friends and family members who were taller than me i always looked and felt tinny around most people, but sooner or later you’ll learn to just live with it cause it doesn’t really matter, my older sister is around 5’3 and she’s married to a guy the same height as me 5’8 so it doesn’t really matter you just gotta learn how to be a man and don’t give girls more attentions than they deserve, and you’ll see how attractive you’ll become to everyone.
