Some men just can’t help the tall tales
Men are getting shorter, and they seem not to have noticed.
In a foray into online dating, I keep meeting men whose profiles say “5 foot 10” but who, in person, are shorter than I am.
I have been 5 feet, 6 inches (and a bit) since age 12. In seventh grade, I walked the school corridors gazing over my classmates’ heads. I didn’t mind -- I was always picked first for basketball. I couldn’t dribble, but I was tall and never missed a free throw.
By ninth grade, the other kids had caught up. I was a medium-height, mediocre athlete and have been so ever since. Dating in my 50s feels like being back in middle school.
I raised the height issue with my friend Alice. Could it be that guys are losing bone mass and getting shorter? She shook her head fiercely. “By his 80s a man might have lost an inch or two in height,” she said. “But in his 50s? Oh, no-no-no.”
L.A. is a short town, said 5-foot-2 Alice, who is in showbiz. “A lot of actors are not very tall -- my height.”
In Hollywood, then, height is not related to achievement. If a person is doing well, does anybody care how tall he is? The topic has never come up with my male friends. I’ve never had a pal say, “I’m posting a profile on match.com. How tall should I say I am?” My 5-foot-5 ex seems perfectly comfortable with himself. I don’t recall that height -- his or mine -- ever came up in conversation.
The real issue may be self-deception rather than dishonesty. Some men seem not to realize they aren’t 30 anymore. A man who described himself as an avid outdoorsman and Sierra Club leader had not been hiking (or a Sierra Club member) since the 1970s. “I’m almost 60,” he told me. “I don’t have to sleep on rocks anymore.” I wondered, as I gazed over his head, at what age he started telling himself he was not really 5 feet 4.
I did meet one tall guy. His profile said he was 5 feet, 11 1/2 inches and a marathon runner. Sure enough, he was tall, though he didn’t look to be in particularly good shape. Still, runners come in all shapes and sizes. Over coffee, I asked about his regimen -- where he runs, how many miles a week. Turns out he was in the New York Marathon in 1983 and hasn’t put on a pair of running shoes since.
It occurred to me that maybe I have gotten taller. I have been taking calcium supplements since my 20s. Or could they be making yardsticks smaller? I stood in bare feet against a door frame and marked my height, just the way we did as kids. I measured 5 feet 6 (and a bit).
If guys aren’t shrinking and I’m not growing, then somebody is lying. That raises the question of why a person would tell a fib so easily found out. A person might dye his hair or inflate his job title and get away with that. But if he tells me he’s 5 feet 10 and, at our first meeting, I’m looking down to make eye contact, he is sooooooo busted. It’s not so much that he’s short -- honestly, I don’t care -- but that he’s a liar. Everything from that point forward is suspect.
Maybe heightening is the next hot trend. A story in The Times on March 31 described how young people in China are having surgery to make themselves taller. They say it’s a career lift for women who want to go into film and for anybody seeking government work. It’s an image issue, one Chinese Foreign Ministry official said.
This could be the next wave in cosmetic surgery -- torso extensions? -- but I hope not. Better for guys to embrace their inner Humphrey Bogart and see me as a potential Lauren Bacall.
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Deanne Brandon can be reached at weekend@latimes.com.