I am five foot four and my former dating life from the time I was 22-36 wasn’t anything to write home about (with one failed marriage in between).

I got friend zoned more than I wish to admit. I started dating my now wife at 36 and I’m now 49.

I wasn’t unattractive - I was in peak physical shape by any metric as a part time fitness instructor, runner, muscular, 10% body fat. I was outgoing, decently successful financially etc.

But I am short.

It got better after my divorce At 32. Maturity - maybe? The nature of competition changed - probably? I was single, no kids, intelligent, still in above average shape. But I would have still failed miserably on dating apps I think. I met my now wife at work and the women I dated before then were mostly through teaching classes at gyms.

They were more willing to let their guard down with me as an instructor than just some random dude trying to hit on them at the gym

Dating apps are pretty much worthless for men under 5'11" or so.

My 5' 2" wife freely admits I would have never passed her height filters (we met at a bar).

It's sad - for my age group, I'm roughly average (slightly below) height at 5' 8".

Most women I've talked to (my wife included) set their height filters at 5' 11" or above.

When you take weight into account, they're all looking at the same 15-20% of guys - and then complain that all the guys they meet online are jerks.

I wish the online platforms would include population demographics in those filters - I don't think most people understand how many potential partners they're missing out on by setting filters that they don't really care about.

> It's sad - for my age group, I'm roughly average (slightly below) height at 5' 8".

This is not the average for men in certain socioeconomic classes/age groups/ethnicities. For a non malnutritioned young man, 5ft8in or 172cm is probably going to be on the lower end depending on ethnicity.

This is not to make any judgment on which heights woman should or should not be “filtering”.

That's absolutely correct - but 5' 8" is nearly average in my age group (50ish male).

Sorry, I completely glossed over you writing “my age group” in your original comment.

This is fascinating to me. I'm a 5'9 American guy who got married in my early 20s to a girl who I met in college the old-fashioned way (in-person through an extracurricular activity) before the iPhone existed. So I was just never aware at all that height is such a big deal for women until I started reading about it in discussions of these online dating services. I'm wondering:

1. Knowing this, don't guys just lie about their height in their profile?

2. Are most women really able to look at a guy in-person and know that he's 5'10 vs. 6'0? Or is it mostly abstract and only becomes an issue because height is explicitly listed in online profiles?

There is a huge difference between being 5-9 and 5-4. Again, I’m just stating the obvious, I’m happily married and have been for 13 years.

I also started dating my now wife at 35 and she was a single mother of a then 9 and 14 year holding her own and we met at work. She was looking for something different than women in their 20s.

Yes, I can imagine that. At 5'4 I think you're close to the average for women and that will stand out. What's fascinating to me is this apparently strong preference for 6'0+ and not a hair under that.

This is mostly a rhetorical question. But why does the man have to be taller?

My only two long term relationships (and marriages) were with short women. I have never gone after taller women and I only had any type of romantic chemistry with one person that was taller than I was. We were in the same friend group at the gym I taught at and she was going through a divorce. By the time things finalized and the opportunity made itself available, I was dating my now wife.

But was that romantic or rebound?

There is in fact an entire small meme culture of "five feet eleven and a half inches vs six feet" based on the absurdity of this, yes. you can probably get away with being 5'10 or especially 5'11 and lie to say 6' without issue unless you are in fact dating a taller than average woman. But if you get to the point of meetting up that probably won't matter.

You can only lie to some extent, though. hard to pass off 5'8 as 6'.

I wonder if this also relates to the choice of people in "visible" positions such as politicians and business executives. The men are selected for tallness first, and the women for competency.

Yes, this is unquestionably a fact. I am 6'1" so not exactly complaining but it's definitely the reality we live in.

On some apps where height is not part of the profile, you find taller women only mentioning their height and nothing else. That's telling.

Interesting, what is third? System design?

Choice of Emacs or vi.

I'm 5'8" on a good day, and my dating app experience is pretty meh. But in real life, my height never seems to matter. Literally last night I was approached by a woman over 6'.

It's wild how people's real-world preferences can be completely different than their more superficial online ones (I'm not excluding myself from this, or is this aimed at any gender/group in general).

This was my question elsewhere, but I'll put it here too because I'm really curious: Are most women really able to look at a guy in-person and know that he's 5'10 vs. 6'0? Or is it mostly abstract and only becomes an issue because height is explicitly listed in online profiles? I suspect the latter, and I think you're saying the same.

When dating in Korea women would guess my height to 2 cm higher than I am tall. Which was very eerie, because I correct my gait with 1.5 cm high insoles. I would estimate most women there have an accuracy of +/- 1 cm, and the worst were +/- 2.5 cm.

I did not go too deep into what I mean by social status. I actually do not think women rate men on attributes like education/car/wealth that are typically associated with social status, but more with dominance, and height is one proxy attribute for dominance -- lack of above-average height is a good indicator that men is likely not very dominant.