A friend of mine, Christine, blogged about the online dating height thing recently (Link: Katabasis), and I couldn't help but chime in, considering my own obsession with height and online dating.
So, average heights for men in the US are estimated to be between 5'9" and 5'10". The average height for women ranges between 5'3.5" and 5'4". As compared to 100 years ago, however, the average height of men was between 5'5" and 5'6", women 5'2" to 5'3". The differential is part of sexual dimorphism, or the physical, non-reproductive differences between males and females of a species (e.g. the differences in plumage between male and female birds).
The thing to note is the increase from an average 3" in difference to 6" in difference between human males and females. This means a lot. For example, for me, it means that, if potential mates insist on that differential, I can date women who are 5'2" or shorter, instead of 5'5" or shorter. My friend Christine, who is 5'7" would have to have a man 6'1" instead of 5'10" to maintain the differential.
The challenge is that height falls in a normal distribution: half of the population is shorter than the average, half is taller. The mean deviation is also extremely narrrow, about 3" for men, meaning that 68% of men are between 5'6" and 6'0". In otherwords, a mere 16% of men are 6'1" or taller.
Yet, some women demand greater than that 6" differential. I have
seen huge numbers of online dating profiles for women who are 5'2" and
shorter that state the requirement that potential dates must be 5'11"
or taller.
I think it's for the same reason that, as I've gotten older and have started looking at women not just as lovers and companions, but as potential mothers, I've become more attracted to women who are just an inch or two shorter than me. Now, this isn't conscious, I'm just trying to rationalize what I've noticed: So, height is partly determined by genetics, and maybe in my subconscious, I don't want any potential sons or daughters of mine to face the same dating and professional challenges faced by people like me who are shorter than average. There is a direct correlation, by the way, between height/beauty and income/career track for both men and women. Short and ugly is a huge liability.
OK, but what does this mean for Christine (and for me). Take a look at the graph below that I shamelessly stole from this statistics course. The area in red represents men who are 5'11" and taller.
The second graph is a bad approximation of a normal distribution of height for women. The area in blue is a wild approximation (from my perspective) of the women who insist on dating a man who is 5'11" or taller.
There's a supply/demaind imbalance, obviously, and this would be likely to impact the behavior of men in both the red and grey areas. The men in the red area know they are a hot commodity, and are likely to act accordingly. Men in the grey areas, likewise, know they are not in demand.
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Posted by: BrovkinPEtrO | 13 January 2008 at 05:25 AM