Most men lie about how tall they are

(newyorker.com)

19 points | by bookofjoe an hour ago ago

28 comments

  • nostrademons an hour ago ago

    Note that some of this is competitive benchmarking, and often encouraged by those men's partners, and tends to circulate around the way bullshit does because there are relatively few reality checks.

    For the longest time I thought I was 5'9". Then my sister got a new boyfriend and was like "Yeah, he's 5'10". Well, I met boyfriend and I was at least an inch taller than him, so I guess that meant I was 5'11". On to my dating profile 5'11" went. Girls I met were like "You're really tall for an Asian dude" and my coworkers were like "We have an unusually tall team", so I got plenty of validation for my newfound height from external sources.

    I finally went to the doctor's (yeah, it's pretty common for men to skip a few years in their 20s and early 30s), and sure enough: I was 5'8.75". My sister's husband is 5'8".

    • bushwart an hour ago ago

      I'm 5'8.7667", sorry mate I have you beat.

      • nostrademons an hour ago ago

        You must be taller than me, feel free to put 6' down.

    • undefined an hour ago ago
      [deleted]
  • comrade1234 an hour ago ago

    I had a funny experience in a group where height came up and I answered that I'm 6'1" and a girl in the group exclaimed that that's her boyfriends height too but he was standing next to me and was probably six inches shorter. Everyone looked very embarrassed and did the looking around but not at anyone thing...

  • ryandrake an hour ago ago

    There was a Reddit post a while ago (so take it with appropriate authority) plotting the distribution of men's reported height[1]. It's a pretty normal bell curve, with a distinct spike at exactly 6'0.

    I wonder how much of the exaggeration is caused by the US measurement system providing an easy numeric threshold of "6". Does a similar spike appear when you limit the population to those using the metric system?

    1: https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/xmeh3p/oc_...

    • _--__--__ a few seconds ago ago

      180cm is the roughly equivalent round number benchmark but it's a bit shorter and most European populations are a bit taller on average

  • twiss an hour ago ago

    I think this is more common when reporting heights in feet+inches than in cm. Rounding up 1.76m to 1.80m seems much weirder than rounding up 5'11" to 6', since all measurements in cm are very precise-sounding.

  • bookofjoe an hour ago ago
  • dec0dedab0de an hour ago ago

    I am 5'10.25", but I just say 5'10". It is hilarious whenever someone else claims to be 5'10" and I am multiple inches taller than they are.

    • sgt an hour ago ago

      That's at least 5'11" man. Maybe even 6 feet.

      • drrob an hour ago ago

        And 6' is basically 6'2"...

  • MrGilbert an hour ago ago

    I'm 174 cm in height. Do I wish to be taller? Sometimes. Do I wish to be taller to impress a potential romantic partner? Absolutely not. But I'm shorter than most men in my country, so on social occasions in public (club, party, whatever), I struggle to make my way to the bar, because I literally cannot see a thing. I cope that with being on the louder side to make my way. It is what it is.

    Also:

    > "smash your face with a hammer"

    > "tiptoemaxxing"

    Everything but seeing a therapist, huh?

  • Simiry an hour ago ago

    I’m 6 foot and a quarter, if I say I’m 6 foot people don’t believe me and it becomes a conversation, if I say I’m 6’1 people believe it and say nothing else.

    Path of least resistance

  • sgt an hour ago ago

    6'6" here. No way I want to claim more.

  • wvbdmp an hour ago ago

    I always explicitly quote my government ID.

  • undefined an hour ago ago
    [deleted]
  • neuroelectron an hour ago ago

    The New Yorker is basically The Sun with rambling text instead of pictures of aliens.

  • coolThingsFirst an hour ago ago

    Giant of a man standing at 5'10, felt no need to ever lie about my height.

  • Madmallard an hour ago ago

    Why is this on the front page of Hacker News?

    How does this have to do with anything related to Hacker News?

  • joleyj an hour ago ago

    Is it lying if you believe it?

  • kylehotchkiss an hour ago ago

    > From guys trying to make it past women’s six-foot filter

    IMO this filter is a red flag unless she is taller herself. What benefit is there to getting past it? Don't reward people for being overly arbitrary in this stuff ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

    Height is a dumb status symbol for a country where getting ahead for most people is no longer possible.

    • lostmsu an hour ago ago

      That depends on your dating goal.

  • QuercusMax an hour ago ago

    I like to tell people that my doctor said I'm 6 feet with shoes on.

    Not lying; it's true! I'm like 5'11.

  • firdunupsa2 an hour ago ago

    Ok grandma, why did you post this on Hacker News

    • bookofjoe an hour ago ago

      Who you callin' grandma?

  • decremental an hour ago ago

    [dead]