Although being tall is awesome and comes with many advantages and associated benefits, it also brings with it some problems. Outlined below are what I believe to be the 5 most common problems faced by tall people daily.
1. People always ask you the same height related questions
If I had a dollar every time someone asked me:
- “wow, you’re so tall, how tall are you?”
- “do you play basketball?”
- “how’s the weather up there?”
- “can I have some of your height?”
I would be rich beyond my wildest dreams!
These questions find me daily and will continue to find me indefinitely. It’s understandable why tall people get asked these questions – standing tall, above the average height of the people in the country where you live, piques peoples curiosity and interest. It’s not every day people see someone significantly taller than themselves. When I was younger these tall questions would get on my nerves but now I just go with it and turn them into an opportunity to practice witty comebacks. I’ve listed some of my favourite responses to these questions in previous blog posts. They can be found here, here and here.
2. Getting stuck behind slow walking people
One of my biggest frustrations as a tall person is being stuck behind slow walking people. I have long legs, a long stride and I’ll be damned if I can’t make use of it when I’m walking. It seems that whenever I’m in a legitimate hurry to get somewhere the number of slow walking people magically multiplies in that moment! Sometimes I even get temporarily trapped among a group of slow walking people and feel like a character from The Walking Dead, trying to fight my way out of a group of zombies. You can read about strategies for dealing with slowing walking people here.
3. Hitting your head on doorways and shins on low lying tables and ornaments.
The words ‘hitting your head’ and ‘tall person’ go together as well as salt and pepper. Why? The world is simply not built with tall people in mind. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve hit my head on a doorway or low hanging lamp. I wrote an article exclusively about this issue; you can read it here.
As with the problem of hitting your head, you simply cannot avoid hitting your shins on low lying tables. My shins, for the most part, are always bruised; I look like a Muay Thai fighter. The cause of this problem is that as a tall person I strive to stand with good posture and strong body language which means that automatically I look straight ahead and not down at my feet as I walk. Consequently I’m less likely to notice low lying tables or ornaments which means that sometimes my shins will suffer. Around the house this happens less frequently as I know where all my furniture is but when I’m out and about, I tend to walk into things.
4. Not being able to hear shorter people in social situations
You are out with a group of friends at a bar or a party, there is music playing in the background and everyone is talking and having a great time. Everyone except for you, because you are too tall to hear the conversations below. Instead, you are standing there looking around, smiling and nodding politely as you frantically try to hear what is being said. I’ve covered this topic in detail in a previous blog post and outline a number of helpful strategies to deal with this situation. If you haven’t seen that article yet you can find it here.
5. Clothes shopping
Ask any tall person what is one of their biggest frustrations about being tall and I guarantee they’ll mention clothes shopping. Whether it’s finding a pair of pants long enough for your legs, a shirt with long sleeves but tapered in the waist or a normal length dress that doesn’t look like a mini-dress when you try it on, shopping as a tall person can be a nightmare! Thankfully, an increasing number of clothing brands are realising that a) tall people want to dress well and b) there is a relatively untapped market for tall people clothing. This means more choice in clothing for the tall. Give it a few more years and you’ll see a “tall” section is most clothing stores.
Do you agree with these 5 points or do you think there are even worse problems that I haven’t included? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.
Stand tall and be proud.
- Image credit for ‘Tall People Problems’ (cover image): generated using Recite website
