One poem I particularly enjoyed features a hypothetical, enticing personal ad:
ATTRACTIVE VIBRANT ENGLISH PROFESSOR, 35, INTERESTED IN
CANDLE LIGHT DINNERS, BICYCLING, GOOD BOOKS, SEEKING TALL
GOOD LOOKING PROFESSIONAL, FINANCIALLY SECURE, UNDER 40 . . .
I’m 5’4” but shortness doesn’t actually figure in my self perception; I’m surprised when anyone else sees me that way. Like the law professor who began a letter of recommendation saying, “Frank is a little bit of a guy, but . . . .” That seemed bizarre to me.
Nevertheless, when dating, I couldn’t avoid being aware of the height factor. Most women want it. Or believe they should. Even short women. Men below a certain height tend to be sexually invisible to them.
Gals wouldn’t always put it baldly in a personal ad, yet still it lurked. One who didn’t use the T-word in her ad nevertheless ended what had seemed a very simpatico date with, “Well, I’m really looking for someone taller.”
But this is not just about sex. That evolutionary history favoring height also affects men’s attitudes. They too have an unconscious heightism. A taller man is imagined to be an abler man. So, while I did alright in my professional life, I can’t help wondering how my career path might have differed had I not been seen as “a little bit of a guy, but . . . .”
Anyhow, Joe’s poem contains another personal ad, more promising for guys like him, yet in some elusive way perhaps less alluring:
FRUMPY WOMAN, GOES SHOPPING WITH CURLERS IN HER HAIR,
TENDS TO PUT ON WEIGHT WHEN BREATHING, INTERESTED IN
WATCHING DAYTIME TV, LOOKING FOR SHORT MAN TO ANNOY.
** “Vertically challenged” is, I believe, the politically correct term.