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How do I get over being looked down on my girls/women?

Since the age of 10 or 11 I've been struggling with accepting my height. One of the things people reccomended over the years was to be social, to go out and meet new people and be confident in doing that (to show that all of the negativity was just in my head, that nobody actually cares about your height).
Yesterday I went out, and I had two girls comment on my height in a negative way. The first one (she has for a week or two) has the need to constantly remind me that I'm short (even though I'm taller than her), calling me short and mocking me for it. The second woman gave me the age old compliment of telling a man that they look like a child, and subequently treating them in a patronising and condescending way as though they were a child (for some reason women like doing that to me).
What confuses me is that in the case of the first girl, I was with her boyfriend and two other friends and I was at most 2 inches shorter than the 2nd shortest guy: why is he an acceptable height yet I'm a height which means that girls have to mock me.
People say that height doesn't matter, and I believed that. Now I don't know whether I was stupid to believe that. I don't spend a lot of time with girls, and this thing has been one of the only times this year that I've gone out with a group of friends including a girl, and this is how she treats me for being short? Even her boyfriend said "Poor [my name]", pitying me, for being short or for being mocked, they were talking behind me and I was in a conversation when this happened so I don't know which.
I feel pretty crap and would like to stop feeling that way. If this is what I'll have to deal with everytime I meet a girl, then I have no idea how I'll continue tbh since it gets me down
(I'm 5'6, 18 but I've been "complimented" on looking 15)

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Lionel Messi is only 5'7 and is greatly respected around the world, Bruno Mars is 5'5 and is adored by many girls around the world.

Honestly, I couldn't be asked to read all of that ,because what 2 girls think of you means absolutely nothing. If someone looks down on you or thinks you look 15 then that is their problem not yours. Your precption of yourself is the most important, and if you continue to look down on yourself then you won't get anywhere in life.

Focus on what you have not what you dont
Reply 2
Original post by SuperHuman98
Lionel Messi is only 5'7 and is greatly respected around the world, Bruno Mars is 5'5 and is adored by many girls around the world.

Honestly, I couldn't be asked to read all of that ,because what 2 girls think of you means absolutely nothing. If someone looks down on you or thinks you look 15 then that is their problem not yours. Your precption of yourself is the most important, and if you continue to look down on yourself then you won't get anywhere in life.

Focus on what you have not what you dont


Lionel Messi and Bruno Mars both have vast achievements behind them, I have nothing compared to them. What 2 girls thinks means a lot, because one in two people I will meet will be female, and them looking down on me or thinking I look 15 matters because I won't be treated as an adult, I'll be treated like a child and mocked, because it's funny when an adult looks like a child (hence why those two girls had a problem). My perception of myself was quite good before I went out and spent time with girls, but now I've had that awful reminder that if you don't have height, you aren't an adult, or you don't deserve respect or you're just a joke of a man. I don't know how to get anywhere in life if I'm constantly looked down upon and treated like a child, it wears down my self esteem. I can't spend my whole life only around men.
Original post by Anonymous
Lionel Messi and Bruno Mars both have vast achievements behind them, I have nothing compared to them. What 2 girls thinks means a lot, because one in two people I will meet will be female, and them looking down on me or thinking I look 15 matters because I won't be treated as an adult, I'll be treated like a child and mocked, because it's funny when an adult looks like a child (hence why those two girls had a problem). My perception of myself was quite good before I went out and spent time with girls, but now I've had that awful reminder that if you don't have height, you aren't an adult, or you don't deserve respect or you're just a joke of a man. I don't know how to get anywhere in life if I'm constantly looked down upon and treated like a child, it wears down my self esteem. I can't spend my whole life only around men.


If you have low self esteem, then it will reflect itself in your actions and how you interact with people. It won't help your situation at all.

5'6 is not even that short there are guys who are shorter than you. I personally am 5'8 which is still below average height, but average heights means literally nothing. You are still taller than most girls.

Don't put girls so high up on a pedestal, the guys who get girls are the ones who don't let a girls opinion influence how they see themselves. Also I can guarantee that you don't look like a child
Reply 4
Original post by SuperHuman98
If you have low self esteem, then it will reflect itself in your actions and how you interact with people. It won't help your situation at all.

5'6 is not even that short there are guys who are shorter than you. I personally am 5'8 which is still below average height, but average heights means literally nothing. You are still taller than most girls.

Don't put girls so high up on a pedestal, the guys who get girls are the ones who don't let a girls opinion influence how they see themselves. Also I can guarantee that you don't look like a child


I don't currently have low self esteem, I'm fairly confident. The problem is that very few girls will take me seriously because I look like a child.
5'6 is probably too short, it doesn't reflect the kind of "manliness" which is required in a man to be respected and treated like a man. As I said, I was taller than both of the women who called me small and looked down on me, it's because they're comparing me to men who are 6ft as their own standard of what a man is. If I'm not that, then to them I'm not a man and therefore am a child and they will treat me accordingly.
It's not that I put girls high up on a pedestal, it's simply because they're 50% of the population meaning that I'll have to deal with it in most situations. It's the frequency of this patronising and condescending behaviour which gets to me. I don't know how to stop looking like a child and being treated like a child getting to me.
P.S I've been told many times that I look 14/15 which sucks when I'm 18
Meh, if they aren't 6 ft+ then it's most likely that they are just calling you short to make themselves feel better for just being "average". Ignore such imbeciles, words can never hurt you.
Reply 6
Original post by JDieMstr
Meh, if they aren't 6 ft+ then it's most likely that they are just calling you short to make themselves feel better for just being "average". Ignore such imbeciles, words can never hurt you.


The thing is they're girls and shorter than me. Most girls don't want to be tall and would be content with being my height (5'6). She's short and she acts in way which suggests that she likes being short, especially in comparison to her 6ft bf. Words may not hurt me but the thought process which prompts the saying of those words can hurt me. If all women treated me like a child, that would definitely hurt me in life.
Original post by Anonymous
Since the age of 10 or 11 I've been struggling with accepting my height. One of the things people reccomended over the years was to be social, to go out and meet new people and be confident in doing that (to show that all of the negativity was just in my head, that nobody actually cares about your height).
Yesterday I went out, and I had two girls comment on my height in a negative way. The first one (she has for a week or two) has the need to constantly remind me that I'm short (even though I'm taller than her), calling me short and mocking me for it. The second woman gave me the age old compliment of telling a man that they look like a child, and subequently treating them in a patronising and condescending way as though they were a child (for some reason women like doing that to me).
What confuses me is that in the case of the first girl, I was with her boyfriend and two other friends and I was at most 2 inches shorter than the 2nd shortest guy: why is he an acceptable height yet I'm a height which means that girls have to mock me.
People say that height doesn't matter, and I believed that. Now I don't know whether I was stupid to believe that. I don't spend a lot of time with girls, and this thing has been one of the only times this year that I've gone out with a group of friends including a girl, and this is how she treats me for being short? Even her boyfriend said "Poor [my name]", pitying me, for being short or for being mocked, they were talking behind me and I was in a conversation when this happened so I don't know which.
I feel pretty crap and would like to stop feeling that way. If this is what I'll have to deal with everytime I meet a girl, then I have no idea how I'll continue tbh since it gets me down
(I'm 5'6, 18 but I've been "complimented" on looking 15)


The truth is girls do care about height but that shouldn't stop you from being confident. I have a friend who's almost 5' and although he is short, he's really really confident and girls don't even notice it. Will you meet girls that will reject you based on your height, yes but I'm assuming you have the same thing about girls as well.
Reply 8
Original post by GreenBell
The truth is girls do care about height but that shouldn't stop you from being confident. I have a friend who's almost 5' and although he is short, he's really really confident and girls don't even notice it. Will you meet girls that will reject you based on your height, yes but I'm assuming you have the same thing about girls as well.


It's not stopping me from being confident, I used to lack confidence and I changed so now I act as a confident adult. It's just annoyingly patronising that my friends girlfriend felt the need to mock me for being short, to treat me as though I weren't a man but instead a child, and to talk about it behind my back with him.
I will say though, when I initially met her, she didn't go "wow you're really short" like a lot of other girls/women I've met. I think it's because she and her boyfriend maybe had nothing to talk about so she just started taking the piss out of me to get a conversation with her boyfriend going about how I'm so short and how I look stupid.
I've got a friend who's about 5'5. He's pretty strong, confident and popular (with guys and girls).
Original post by Anonymous
It's not stopping me from being confident, I used to lack confidence and I changed so now I act as a confident adult. It's just annoyingly patronising that my friends girlfriend felt the need to mock me for being short, to treat me as though I weren't a man but instead a child, and to talk about it behind my back with him.
I will say though, when I initially met her, she didn't go "wow you're really short" like a lot of other girls/women I've met. I think it's because she and her boyfriend maybe had nothing to talk about so she just started taking the piss out of me to get a conversation with her boyfriend going about how I'm so short and how I look stupid.


I understand, but like I said, there will be girls that judge you based on your height and there's nothing you can do about it really. Most girls that comment on your height, are not really trying to annoy you. I've done it before and I didn't think that it does bother guys that much before speaking to my friend but now I clearly know. Your friends girl does sounds like an awful person but you shouldn't let her win. Try speaking to your friend and tell him you feel uncomfortable with her or stop seeing her.
Original post by GreenBell
I understand, but like I said, there will be girls that judge you based on your height and there's nothing you can do about it really. Most girls that comment on your height, are not really trying to annoy you. I've done it before and I didn't think that it does bother guys that much before speaking to my friend but now I clearly know. Your friends girl does sounds like an awful person but you shouldn't let her win. Try speaking to your friend and tell him you feel uncomfortable with her or stop seeing her.


I would have spoken to him about it but he already knows that I've struggled with my height but it's also that mocking a guys height (or lack of it) isn't seen as bad, nowhere near as bad as mocking someone's weight. So I think if I had told him about it or if I had told her to stop mocking me then everyone would have seen me as being oversensitive, overreacting, over aggressive. I also imagine that she would have also found it funny that I, a short guy, was telling someone with a 6ft bf (my friend) to stop talking **** about me. I think things could have gone much worse if I hadn't just ignored her.
I'm not going out with them again any time soon though, I don't necessarily feel that I fit in with them and this crap has made me lose some faith in my friend (he pitied me instead of saying "hey his height doesn't matter" or "no he's actually not pathetic and childlike").
Original post by Anonymous
The thing is they're girls and shorter than me. Most girls don't want to be tall and would be content with being my height (5'6). She's short and she acts in way which suggests that she likes being short, especially in comparison to her 6ft bf. Words may not hurt me but the thought process which prompts the saying of those words can hurt me. If all women treated me like a child, that would definitely hurt me in life.


Yeh, that's one way to look at it. But if it were me (I'm like 5'7), I'd be thinking "what does she gain from doing this?". Two obvious reasons would be, 1) To make you feel miserable, or 2) Make themselves look like they are above you. If it was 1, duck the ugleh azz girls, why should I give 2 flying ducks about their unneeded opinions. If it's 2, I'd just stay quiet and ignore their bs, if it helps them sleep at night, so be it. Idk if this can be helpful but this is how I would analyse the situation so my reaction is based on logic and calculations, not emotions,
Original post by JDieMstr
Yeh, that's one way to look at it. But if it were me (I'm like 5'7), I'd be thinking "what does she gain from doing this?". Two obvious reasons would be, 1) To make you feel miserable, or 2) Make themselves look like they are above you. If it was 1, duck the ugleh azz girls, why should I give 2 flying ducks about their unneeded opinions. If it's 2, I'd just stay quiet and ignore their bs, if it helps them sleep at night, so be it. Idk if this can be helpful but this is how I would analyse the situation so my reaction is based on logic and calculations, not emotions,


I understand what you're saying and I agree, which is why I'm going to stop going out with them, because I can get the same enjoyment from other things with a lower risk of having to hear unneeded opinions.
The reason why I cared is about how it made me feel. It was the same kind of comment which I'd received while being bullied in school from about 11 to 14, those kind of comments made me feel horrid and I got that same feeling for the first time in a few years when she started talking about me. I guess it reminded me of the times that people used to laugh at me for being short, I'd cry and I remember how it made me feel. I've come to the realisation that it's childish of her and I'd rather spend time with someone more mature, who has a sense of humour better than "oh lol you're short hahahaa". Your replies have helped a bit I think so thanks :smile:
5”6?? goodness me i thought you were going to say smaller, i would consider that the ideal height for my boyfriend as im quite short myself (5”4) (my point being that - there’s always a girl smaller than you that will appreciate your height😂)

listen, height doesn’t matter. yes people may make jokes of it, which is wrong, but it won’t stop your future ‘love life’. i have a crush on a lad who’s smaller than me, but idc because he’s funny and clever.

honestly, just make sure you have a bloomin good personality and when they do make jokes, laugh along with it so you are shown to be appreciative of a joke, and if you show that you aren’t bothered (even if you are) they will stop doing it as frequently, if not at all.

i hope this helps?
Op, get ripped and wear black. If you look like a fully grown man but just a little on the short side they'll look dumb calling you a 15 year old
A lot of girls won't even think of your height as an issue. I'm 5'5.5 and I find the majority of guys I'm interested in are around my height. I'm not really that bothered about them being significantly taller. My last ex was apparently 5'7 but we were basically the same height and it really was not a concern. He was confident and had a big personality and so much going for him. Even when I first ever laid eyes on him I didn't even think about if he was taller than me.
The only short guys I'm not attracted to are the short beefy ones but I wouldn't be attracted to a tall beefy guy either.
My best friend is dating a guy her height (5'6) and it took me ages to even notice it. She doesn't care either, it's never been an issue. He looks quite young facially as well but he's a good looking guy.
The guys that I like that are around my height to 5'8, have no problem getting girls. They have great personalities and you wouldn't even notice their height.
I think they could all probably get the majority of girls they were interested in (that found their faces attractive as well). I don't think their height has ever been a disadvantage or a reason most girls would reject them.
There will be some girls who won't find you attractive because of your height but there are also so many who just don't care.
Dw I'm in the process of becoming ripped, I started a month or two ago. I also wear dark colours because I read a while ago that it somehow makes you look taller/older, it doesn't stop people from thinking I'm 15 though.
Original post by Anonymous
Dw I'm in the process of becoming ripped, I started a month or two ago. I also wear dark colours because I read a while ago that it somehow makes you look taller/older, it doesn't stop people from thinking I'm 15 though.


They sound like idiots anyway, short guys are faf
Original post by Anonymous
5”6?? goodness me i thought you were going to say smaller, i would consider that the ideal height for my boyfriend as im quite short myself (5”4) (my point being that - there’s always a girl smaller than you that will appreciate your height😂)

listen, height doesn’t matter. yes people may make jokes of it, which is wrong, but it won’t stop your future ‘love life’. i have a crush on a lad who’s smaller than me, but idc because he’s funny and clever.

honestly, just make sure you have a bloomin good personality and when they do make jokes, laugh along with it so you are shown to be appreciative of a joke, and if you show that you aren’t bothered (even if you are) they will stop doing it as frequently, if not at all.

i hope this helps?


I know there are girls who are shorter and who don't really care about height, but they're rare and I don't consider my personality and interests the best at getting me a girlfriend.
It's not that I don't like height jokes, sometimes I make them about myself (but not too much because I don't want to come across as self-hating). The problem is when I can't be sure of their reasoning why they're making the joke; is it to put me down? To get people to laugh at my expense? Or is it just friendly banter? I don't mind friends making them occasionally because I know that they're my friend and like my for who I am, yet this girl very rarely sees me and very rarely talks to me so I can't be sure it's just a friendly joke. But I just ignored her when she was doing it because it was behind me back and I was talking to someone else at the time, I thought it would be rude to stop my conversation.

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