The struggles of being a tall girl

All friendship circles have their token roles. There’s the pretty one, the one with the glasses, the clever one and the short one. At 5ft 10, I am most definitely the tall one.

There are many good things about being a tall woman but there’s also the downsides.

Here are some of the dilemmas all tall girls struggle with every day.

Taking pictures with your friends is a nightmare

She’s shorter than most, but you get the point

I can’t be the only tall girl that  laughs at her own photos sometimes because the height difference between her short friends is just so great. Next to them, you may as well be called “Little and Large”. In fact, you begin to wonder if they came into your life just to make you look taller.

For profile pictures it’s always best to get pictures on your own, with other tall friends or from a high camera angle.

People always tell me I shouldn’t wear heels

Tall girls can wear heels too

I’m not the spokesperson for all tall women, but kitten heels are not cool. They are otherworldly, and belong on the scrapheap.

In spite of this, people assume tall girls gravitate towards them in an attempt to look dressed up but not appear “too tall”. Heels are supposed to give you height, we know this and we’re okay with that. If we want to wear them we should be able to without you commenting on how much taller they make us.

So many guys obsess about height

Tall guys pride themselves on their height. For many, it’s as if surpassing six foot is a lifetime achievement. But when it comes to girls, men can be divided into two camps: those who don’t care at all about height and those that won’t let you hear the end of it.

I did an experiment on Tinder where I singled out those shorter than me and tested whether they were put off by my height. For quality control I put “no hook-ups” in my bio, as technically he won’t care how tall you are if he’s only interested when you’re lying down.

With the matches I flirted, went through the 21 questions and then dropped it in.

Sure enough, I found those who don’t care at all:

But I also found a few obsessives. They think they’re being complementary, but they get so into it you start to wonder if they’re looking for a seven foot Amazonian woman.

One compliment too many

It’s the worst thing when someone says “You’d be fitter if you were shorter”

Telling a tall girl that she’d be “perfect” if she were shorter is never a compliment. She can’t adjust her kneecaps and so there is literally nothing she can do with this revelation. Height is one of a few things you can’t change about your body, so you should probably keep this one out of your conversations.

People assume I need special clothes made for me

“How do you find trousers?” people ask me all the time. The answer is quite easily: I go to the shop and buy them. You wouldn’t walk up to a size 22 stranger and ask them how they buy clothes on the high-street, but people feel it’s okay to ask tall girls.

I wear the same clothes as everyone else. But if you must know, Topshop and American Apparel do pretty well.