“Short guys like us,” a friend of mine said to me recently, “should never get their pictures taken when they’re standing next to someone tall.”
“Short guys like us? What’s that supposed to mean?” I said, not exactly in those words. I used a colorful Anglo-Saxon vulgarism in there, once or twice, for emphasis.
My friend is in fact a short person, reaching barely 5 feet, 7 inches when fully dressed. I am 5 feet, 9 inches, which is, in fact, the statistical average for a man of my age and ancestry, and I couldn’t let myself be lumped in with the undersized leprechaun. I needed to draw a line, even if it hurt his feelings.
And it did, because he replied with a very snippy, “You don’t look 5’9″,” which I let pass because, in my experience, short guys are prone to lash out defensively, and you just have to let them get it out of their systems. On social media, short guys have come up with an ego-boosting term, “short kings,” but we all know desperate PR spinning when we see it. “Short kings rule,” you can read on Instagram or X, along with promises that 2024 is going to bring #shortkingsummer and claims that short men are better lovers. But like anything else, when you have to say it in a slogan or hashtag, how true can it be?
An extremely overweight woman once told a friend of mine that the two of them should go shopping together because “we know what makes our body types look best.” My friend was nonplussed — she’s basically height-weight proportional, and while she isn’t model-thin, she’s not what you’d call zaftig. She has the curves of a normal, healthy woman. She didn’t understand why this other person thought they had the same shape.
“What did you say?” I asked.
“What could I say?” she replied. “I promised we’d go shopping together once I lost a few pounds, and she nodded like she understood why I felt I needed to be on a diet.” A double insult.
It’s rarely pleasant when people lump you in with their specific problems. “You and I have problem skin.” “Is your background Irish? Mine too. I could tell because we both have those flat backsides!” “Unathletic guys like us need to stick together!” These remarks and others like them are always delivered in a cheerful, friendly tone, so it’s impossible to snap back. You just end up looking petty and competitive, as I did when I barked at my friend and offered to show him my driver’s license.
But after the initial sting of the insult fades, doubt creeps in. You’re left with the vaguely unsettling feeling that maybe they’re right and you’re wrong. Maybe you are short and fat, with bad skin and a flat butt. Maybe this is how others see you, and you’ve been too blind and egotistical to realize it. Later that day, perhaps, you’ll pass a mirror or catch your reflection in a window and think, Is this the right outfit for my body type? Or, Should I be putting lifts in my shoes?
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“I didn’t want to make her feel bad,” my friend continued, “but I mean, look at me. I’m a totally normal weight.” Which is true. I guess. But the minute she said those words, I couldn’t help but notice that, here and there, she seemed just a tad — what’s the word? — pudgy? A touch rounder and bloated than I’d noticed before. Nothing extreme, of course, but when I really took a step back and looked at her objectively, I could see why her friend might put them both in the same basic category.
I didn’t say anything remotely like that, of course. What I said was, “You look amazing! You’re in excellent shape! Your body is perfect!” But it’s not exactly what I was thinking, if I’m being truly honest. Because the truth is, I’m not 5 feet, 9 inches. I’m 5 feet, 8 1/2 inches. On a day when my posture is really great. And I carry that around with me, in silent shame, and dread the moments when some short king tries to pull me into his pint-sized world. So the least I can do is extend the same courtesy to my friend who maybe should cut down on the carbs.
Rob Long is a television writer and producer, including as a screenwriter and executive producer on Cheers, and he is the co-founder of Ricochet.com.