Height tall men have it easy

I'm Dr. Orion Teraban, and this is Psych Hacks, Better Living Through Psychology, and the topic of today's short talk is height. More specifically, I'm going to be examining how height exerts an influence on the sexual marketplace. Let's get into this long-requested episode. Look, height is a thing. Any guy who's not at least six feet tall knows this to be true, so there's no point in trying to pretend that it isn't. Not only does height matter in women's sexual selection, it matters a lot more than it probably should. There is a profound halo effect associated with men's heights. Men who are tall and imposing are often also presumed to be competent and confident leaders, whether they actually possess those qualities or not. This can help explain why, although only 14% of American men are over six feet tall, roughly half of all Fortune 500 CEOs are that height. Now, over the course of a lifetime, many tall men do become aligned with these projections and cultivate these qualities in themselves. But maybe just as often, many tall men don't. Still, their stature gives them an enormous advantage in the social milieu, which is probably a big part of why height is correlated with increased life satisfaction in men. It's not their height that does this per se, it's all the opportunities created out of the perception of others. And this halo effect clearly extends into the sexual marketplace. I've talked to multiple women, I ---- you not, who have literally told me that they often can't tell whether a man is cute or if he's just tall. Like, that's how much height fucks with the female perception. The man could be as ugly as sin, but if he's 6'4", there are going to be women who will line up to sleep with him because they can't ******* tell the difference. That's how much height short circuits the female brain. Now, and this is important because I think that we have a grossly distorted view of averages in this case. The average man in America is 5'9", which is already significantly above the global male average of 5'6", and the average American woman is around 5'3". But perhaps you've heard that roughly half, 49% of all women on dating apps set their height filters to 6' tall. As already mentioned, only 14% of American men are that tall, and only 25% of men over 30 are single. Taken together, this means that a great deal of women in the U.S. are attempting to date the same very small percentage of men. And this, of course, both radically increases those women's intrasexual competition and those men's optionality, driving down the likelihood that any of those men will commit to any of those women. It can be tedious to listen to men complain about the unfair advantages enjoyed by their taller competitors, but it really does distort the entire sexual marketplace, so much so that men who are average height, not short, not short, just average, are increasingly functionally invisible to a growing majority of women. Like women. Imagine you were just average attractive, which, spoiler alert, you probably are, and having 90% of men just ignore you. You could be charming or smart or funny or rich, but because you were just average looking, not ugly, mind you, just average, the vast majority of men would just never give you a shot. That would be tough, wouldn't it? And there just isn't much a guy can do about his height. Short of getting stilts implanted in his shins, which I would not recommend, he is the height that he is. It might mean that he is at an unfair advantage in life, and in the sexual marketplace in particular, but them's the breaks. On some level, he will need to make peace with this fact lest he be consumed with envy or despair. And of course, there are things that he can change about himself that will help to even the odds. First and foremost, if you're short, you gotta take care of your body. Like, one of the silver linings associated with being on the shorter side is that you can build muscle and see definition more quickly. It's hard to get big when you're tall, but at like 5'7", you can see some significant changes in just a few months. Work on your physique, maintain a low body fat percentage, and put in the effort to build a muscular frame proportional to your stature. Being well-dressed, as in wearing clothes that accentuate that physique, doesn't hurt either. The links are in the description. Next, make ******* money. There's no way around this. If you're short, then you gotta take care of your finances. Yes, a short man might not ever inspire the kind of dumb, stupid attraction in a woman that a tall man can, but money is a huge equalizer here. Wealthy men can and do beat out their taller competitors in the game of mating and dating all the time. In fact, I read an interesting study recently that attempted to quantify the monetary value of height in the sexual marketplace. The idea was to identify the amount of additional money a man would need to earn every year to be perceived by women as equally desirable as a man who is 5'11.5 inches tall and earns $100,000 a year. The results were fascinating. For example, the study found that a man who is 5'8 would have to earn an additional $138,000 a year to be seen by women as equally desirable. That's a total of $238,000 a year. Only 5% of individual earners in the US make that much to put that in perspective. The incredible thing is that the standard of comparison in this study, the guy who would only have to earn 100K would still be ignored by half of women because at 5'11.5 inches tall, he was under 6 feet. The lesson here is that if you can't be in the top 14% by height, you better be in the top 5% by earning. Now, making an additional $138,000 a year is no small thing, but it might be smaller than growing an additional 3.5 inches as an adult. Fortunately, earning money just makes your life better overall. And it's something you should do, irrespective of your success in the sexual marketplace. Don't be misled by those who make a virtue out of a necessity. Being rich is way better than being poor. So if you're short, then be short and jacked and rich. Your physique and your finances are things that you actually have control over, which brings me to point number three. As previously mentioned, it's essential that you make peace with your height, that is, with that which you cannot control. And one way to facilitate this is to have a sort of dignified contempt for that which resides outside your domain of control. I am 5'11, and I have a little joke about my height, namely that God didn't make me 6 feet, so there would be some women for the rest of you guys. Like, God had to handicap me a bit, otherwise I would just be unstoppable. Is that a cope? Yes. Is it entirely true? No. But is it psychologically healthy? Yeah. Kinda. Like, there is nothing I can do about being 5'11. It is what it is. So I found a humorous way to reframe that which resides outside of my domain of control to my overall advantage, in that not being inherently unstoppable has absolutely forced me to get better in other respects. Like, if I were 6'3, would I have become a doctor? Maybe not. My dudes, there is such a Guys who are tall and genetically attractive, that is, guys who enjoy a lot of early success in the sexual marketplace, are often not very ambitious. And on some level, why would they be? Especially considering that the end goal of most ambition is to enjoy better sexual optionality. If you can get that optionality directly, then there is no need to arrive there indirectly through extensive effort. Right? So there might be something to being handicapped. Like, my life is way better than it was when I was younger. And it could very well be that some of those early experiences motivated me to become who I am today. I like who I am today. As I discuss in my episode, The Force of Revenge, these experiences are rocket fuel for personal and professional development if utilized properly. Whether we like it or not, handicaps force us to get better, at least if we have any hope of a decent life. And that's the attitude that I'd like shorter guys to consider adopting. Namely, I can still win. Even with this real disadvantage, I can still win. I can get the girl. I can get the money. I can get the strength and the status and the success. It's kind of like bragging that you could win even with one hand tied behind your back, which is convenient because at like five, eight, you kind of do have one hand tied behind your back. That's the right attitude. Is it a cope? Yes. Is it entirely true? No. However, is it useful and healthy and true to some extent? Abso-*******-lutely. Because what's the alternative? Complaining about it ain't going to work. Like no one is going to have any sympathy for you, my guys. So unless you want to just check out of it all and wallow in hopelessness, which I would not recommend, you got to do what you can do to improve your situation. Focus on what is within your domain of control, your friends, your physique, your finances, your mindset, and remind yourself that the other ---- doesn't really ******* matter until you believe it. Because you know what? That's actually kind of true. The rest is just an accident of birth. It has nothing to do with the man himself, like the person inside the body. Remind yourself that effortless success might be a kind of liability. This is a psychological adaptation that will protect you from becoming cynical or hopeless and that will support you in cultivating a positive self-image. That's why you ******* do it. Use your circumstances to become even better than you otherwise would be and revel in your success when you achieve it. What do you think? Does this fit with your own experience? Let me know in the comments below. Please send this episode to someone who you think might benefit from its message. I know you know some short kings out there who need to hear this. Send it to them because it's word of mouth referrals like this that really help to make the channel grow. Other value propositions. Anyone looking to join my free weekly newsletter for which I write original content, no AI, or anyone looking to book a paid one-on-one consultation with yours truly can learn more on my website. There's also my books, The Value of Others, in which I explore my economic model of relationships, and Starry Night, my novel which explores the final weeks of painter Vincent van Gogh's life, and my private member community, The Captain's Quarters, where, among other things, I host bi-monthly group consultation calls with a wonderful group of people. Check these resources out. There's a lot of great value there. Links to everything are in the description below. And as always, I appreciate your support, and thank you for listening.