Being a Tall Woman Stunted My Sex Life
Getting beyond the extra inches that kept me from being dateable
Everything was going according to plan. Operation Make Jason Fox Mine was in full swing and the wait would be worth it. He was simply the cutest thing that ever entered seventh grade. Wavy dark hair, bushy eyebrows, big brown eyes that could make puppies whimper. And dimples…the kid had Harry Styles-level dimples.
We were getting close quickly. He’d always pick me to be on his kickball team at P.E. He’d hand back papers in class with a smile. He’d sidearm nudge me as if to say, “we’re totally going to start making-out soon.”
I just didn’t know how to make my move. After all, I was twelve and still had stuffed animals on my bed. Looking back, I waited too long.
Eighth grade hit. My body stepped on the gas and my limbs grew at a rate faster than was necessary. To put it simply: it freaking hurt. At night, my shins would squeal out in pain and my mother would bring me warm washcloths and a glass of milk. Then she’d leave me in the dark alone with my thoughts.
My thoughts weren’t fun.
How had I gone from shorter than most girls to virtually the tallest within a year? How had I had turned into a legit string bean?
My pants were now several inches too short and the only time my parents bought clothes for me were on my birthday or Christmas. Both were months away.
Instead of boys, I became obsessed with my legs. I wondered if there might be some sort of mercy surgery that a doctor could perform where the bottom five inches of my legs could be removed and donated to someone who really needed them.
My dream of a deep kiss from Jason Fox had vanished. I never got looked at by the boys, only gawked at and told “dude, you’re tall.”
I hated that it was different for boys. Dude, you’re tall was such a compliment for a boy. For a girl, that phrase made you feel like a carnival freak. Like they might try to feed you carrots through the cage.
In high school, all my perfect-height friends started getting boyfriends. They would try to set me up with adjacent friends, but nothing ever stuck. No kissing, no handholding in the halls, no dates to dances that weren’t “friends because we’re friends with those couples.”
My view of my body was simply this: you are not desirable.
When you are a teenager, the feeling of not being wanted by another human being is soul-crushing. No guy wanted to date a girl taller than they were. I had spiked up to 5'9" and my selection of guys taller than that were slim.
In a last ditch effort, I joined the basketball team. (After being hounded by the coach to join when he saw me walking down the hall.) I figured most of the boys basketball players were tall, so they’d be much more open to a tall girl.
I forgot about the cheerleaders.
We would travel to away games with all the boys and girls teams…AND the cheerleaders. Needless to say, the tall boys fell for the “cute as button” girls with festive pom-poms. Can’t blame them, really.
Enter: college.
I still kept growing and I landed on my final height of 5'11". But things were much different in college. Suddenly, I was at parties with guys who were seniors. Or guys in grad school. They had become men. The percentage of guys taller than me doubled!
The stats had improved for me.
But my mentality had not.
It was my low self-esteem that allowed me to get in a relationship with a twenty-two-year old man who was gorgeous, but not in college and an alcoholic. He made me feel desired instantaneously. It was that fairy tale moment where he saw me from across the room (at my height, not all that hard) and he waltzed up to me, seemingly raptured.
He swept me off my feet. Adored me. Smothered me with attention.
Within a month, he was physically abusing me.
It took me almost a year to finally kick him off me and call for help. If only I’d known that I was deserving of a fairy tale type of love that would make me feel desired and respected.
It took me two years of drinking, drugging, sleeping with any guy I could find at any height before I found my true love.
He spotted me from across the room. Now standing at 5'11", it was understandable. This guy was 6'2" but he could’ve been a hobbit and I’d still want a ring on my finger from this one.
Eighth-grade me could’ve used a pep talk from twenty-one year old me. She would’ve said: Stand tall, pull those shoulders back, love yourself…inches don’t matter. In fact, use your extra inches for kicking off predators. Use your inches to block shots and retrieve things off shelves for those less fortunate. Find the one who will talk to you until 2 a.m. about music and poetry — it will be worth the wait. Meanwhile, play some basketball for fun. You are powerful in the paint.
You are powerful.
