I am 5 feet 11 inches. My brother is 6 foot 9. The rest of our family follows suit. So whenever we go anywhere as a group, it is guaranteed that at least one person will stop us and make the stereotypical tall comment, "How’s the weather up there?" "What did your parents feed you?" And my personal favorite, "Can I cut off some of your leg, I need some height for myself?" Sure, being tall is great, I can reach the top shelf and I’m always tall enough for rollercoasters. But any fellow tall people can understand when I say there are many downsides to being tall. And if you are not tall, let me enlighten you to the problems of giants.
1. People will always comment on your height.
Everyone will ask how tall you are or ask if you've grown. This is different than the “Oh look how big you’ve gotten,” from the relative you haven’t seen in five years. This comes from practically anyone you meet, and sometimes complete strangers.
2. This one's for the girls: You are or have been taller than most of the guys your age.
You had to quickly get over dancing with short boys during school dances and know that wearing heels to prom is completely out of the question.
Which leads me to…
3. Many boys you date will be your same height or shorter.
If you’re cool with ruining your future kid’s chances of going D1, go for it. If not, keep the tall genes going.
4. You block people’s view a lot.
For example in church or a movie theatre. Especially if there is more than one tall person with you, it feels like you’ve just built a brick wall for the people behind you. To the people who have been on the short side of this, we feel bad about it and there is nothing we can do, maybe get a box or phone book to boost yourself up so you can see over us.
5. Fitting into cars is like playing Tetris.
If it’s just you in the car, there is no problem. But try and put three or more tall people into one vehicle and it becomes a challenge of how far can you move the seat back and how far can you curl your legs up.
6. No clothes are long enough.
This goes for pants, dresses, shorts, shirts, everything. It will all be too short, which is only a big problem if you’d like to cover any part of your thighs or stomach.
7. “So you play basketball? ” is a question you answer regularly.
Or any other sport that pairs well with being tall.
8. Flying on an airplane is more painful than you'd think.
Picture this, you’ve carefully selected the seat with the most legroom, slowly wedged yourself into said seat, then the person in from of you slams their seat back onto your knees, making you unable to move for the rest of the flight.
Also don't even think about trying to put down your tray table.
9. You are used as a human ladder.
"Can you reach that for me" is a question you are asked daily. And the answer is always yes, I can.
10. You get cut out of a lot of group photos.
First you get put in the very back, then your head gets cut out of the photo because no one else is as tall as you. It is tragic.
Which brings me to my last point:
11. Shower heads, ceilings and doorways are too low.
The world just isn't built for tall people. I can't count the number of times my tall brothers have hit their heads on doorways, ceiling fans, signs at the grocery store, or when the shower head is too low to even shower.
