When youâre looking for a partner, what boxes do they have to tick? Maybe you want someone smart and funny â someone you could take home to dinner with your parents. Perhaps you hope for a man or woman who wants kids, and doesnât smoke. But where do you stand when it comes to their height?
TV host Richard Osman, from âPointlessâ, who is 6ft 7, recently started dating jazz singer Sumudu Jayatilaka, who, at 5ft, is 19 inches shorter. Does this mean anything other than Jayatilaka needs to learn to start standing on her tip toes? Theyâre not the only celebrity couple to make headlines for their height gaps: Sophie Dahl and Jamie Cullum; Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise; Nicolas Sarkozy and Carla Bruni have also bridged the gap.
Anyone whoâs used a dating app will know that in the modern world, height matters. On Tinder and Bumble, itâs often listed prominently on peopleâs profiles â particularly by heterosexual men. But, is worrying about height a superficial concern or is it harder to make that connections if you feel out of proportion?
Kyle Sowden, 23 and 5â˛11, from Manchester, lied about his height on Tinder. âI noticed that I got more matches when I had 6ft written in my bio rather than when I had 5â˛11,â he says. âBut when going on dates with people, not one person noticed or even mentioned that I wasnât 6ft.â
Without that immediate face-to-face connection (or neck-crick), Sowden says apps allow users to be âpickyâ and âshallowâ â just by writing what he thought women wanted, it made a difference to him getting a date. And given how fickle âswipingâ culture is, he doesnât think itâs surprising men feel pressure to tweak their height when looking to connect with women.
Simon Farrant, 32, agrees, saying he finds women on dating apps really do care about men being tall. âThey seem particularly obsessed by height, the taller the better,â he says. âI found it very strange to be asked that question so regularly.â
Ellie Lees had the opposite problem â a man lied about being shorter than he actually was. âHe said he was 6â˛3, he was 6â˛7,â she says. âI am 5â˛2 and couldnât cope, I bailed at the earliest opportunity.â Leesâ date may have lied âdownâ not âupâ, but it reinforces Sowdenâs point that some people feel the need to tweak the truth in order to secure a date â and being hidden behind a screen allows them to do so.
Height canât help but influence peopleâs choices once they meet IRL, says Shannon Murray, 42, from Dublin. Murray is 6ft tall and uses a wheelchair. Even though sheâs sitting down, it still makes a difference to her if a man is short.
âIâve dated much shorter guys but I felt gargantuan and uncomfortable, itâs not them itâs me,â Murray says. Her ideal height in a partner is between 5â˛9 and 6â˛2. âAbove that is too tall for leaning in to my wheelchair,â she says.
Eleanor Janegar, 36, who is 6â˛1, doesnât mind being taller, but says men feel âemasculatedâ in her presence. âThe term âintimidatingâ gets thrown around very quickly,â she says. âI have had men who said they were 6ft cancel on dates when finding out my height, even when I told them that wasnât an issue for me.
âA lot of shorter men also simply donât consider it an option. I donât really mind in that most people are shorter than me anyway, so it doesnât register with me.â
Janegar says sheâs also had the issue of men âfetishisingâ her height and asking sexually inappropriate questions. âI think it comes down to societal gender expectations,â she says. âI have heard a lot of women say they donât want to feel larger than a man because it makes them less feminine.
âI think it works the opposite way for straight men: the idea that a woman who is taller calls their masculinity into question.â
Height isnât an issue for everyone. Lucy Taylor, who is 5â˛8, says it would never bother her when dating other women. âWhen I first started getting with women it was quite strange to usually be the taller one,â she says. âI donât date men anymore but when I did, I never understood the fascination with tall men and preferred to date men of a similar height to me.â
Hester Grainger, 41, from Reading, founder of Mumala Club, is 4â˛11 and her husband is 6â˛1 â she also says itâs never been an issue for them. âPeople do comment on how short I am, especially some taller friends,â she says. âI donât think about how short I am but then I see photos of me with other people and see the height difference.â
And Laura Catchpole says she and her husband are a foot apart and completely happy. âFor us it doesnât really matter, there is nothing that person can do about it, so itâs a bit mean to hold it against them.
âIâm more interested in what is in his head than how far away it is.â