When Michel Legrand opened a dating app in his early 20s, he realized his height had become a liability. At 5’3”, he was competing in a digital marketplace where women’s preferences were made brutally clear — and dating a short guy wasn’t one of them.
“Using dating apps is already very difficult, so imagine that extra layer of difficulty when you’re a short guy like myself,” he tells Yahoo. “It’s a huge deal breaker for some women.”
The 32-year-old Montreal native joined Tinder before height was something that users were required to display on their profiles. But height was a topic that often popped up early in his conversations with matches — and something that often shut those budding flirtations down. So he put it in his bio “to get it over with,” he says. “The reality is some people are completely not going to be OK with it.”
Not all women have an issue with dating someone shorter (see: Zendaya and fiancé Tom Holland, or “wee” Great British Baking Show contestant Iain, revealing he met his much-taller girlfriend while they were both sitting down). But the bias toward finding a taller male partner and associations linking height to dominance, social status and even intellect have been studied at length. And while that preference has always played a hand in dating, the impact on short men is becoming more apparent as dating apps introduce features that allow users to filter potential matches by height. Tinder is the latest to do so.
“A lot of men think that if you’re short, it’s done. You’re not going to be able to date any women. It’s a wrap there,” says Legrand. But it’s not hopeless, he adds, pointing to the fact that he met his now-fiancée on Tinder five years ago. “It was without the height filter, though, so maybe I got lucky.”
Here, other self-proclaimed short kings weigh in from the dating trenches.
The difficulty of dating as a short man
Mark Robinson, 35, wasn’t always concerned about his height. “I’ve been insecure about so many other things, like the highness of my voice. I thought I was ugly at one point. I’ve been rejected,” he tells Yahoo. But being 5’5” wasn’t on his list of insecurities until he got serious about swiping.
“Online dating is not something that works in my favor, and I honestly believe that’s because of [my height],” says Robinson, who admits that using apps is a very different landscape from meeting people in real life. He likens it to in-person vs. online shopping. “When you went to the store, you thought, I’ll know what I came for when I see it. Now, you could go online and say, ‘I’m looking for a blue shirt with this type of collar with this type of fabric,’ and that’s what [women on dating apps are] doing.”
A snap from Mark Robinson’s Hinge dating profile where his 5’5″ height is displayed. (Photo courtesy of Mark Robinson)
Being 5’5” has always come up in conversation with his online matches. “I did have one girl say, ‘I hope your height is an error.’ And I said, ‘No, that’s the height I am.’ Next thing I know, she just unmatched me,” he recalls. Now that users can use filters to weed out anyone who doesn’t meet their height standards, matches are few and far between. “There’s not even a lot of room for conversation because they’re probably not even seeing my profile.”
At 5’4”, Brandon Herrera feels the same way. He’s currently using Tinder and Hinge. “It’s been a few months and I’ve only got one match,” the 37-year-old living in Austin, Texas, tells Yahoo. “And that was someone from Norway.”
Herrera could use filters to hone in on singles who live closer. But with his options already being so limited, he is trying not to be choosy. “But I’m not going to Norway,” he jokes.
Herrera considers how lying about his stature would put him in front of more potential matches, but he’s not willing to do that. He has, however, (unsuccessfully) tried to hide his height from his profile.
Michael Swerdloff, 64, noticed how omitting his height from his dating profiles impacted his game.
“As soon as I stopped including it, I would get more likes. And it’s just so offensive to me,” Swerdloff tells Yahoo. He has a unique perspective after experiencing height loss from tumor-induced osteomalacia — a medical condition that causes softening of the bones. “I was a 5’10” athletically built person, and now I’m 5’3”.” The difference has drastically changed the way that women interact with him, he says.
He recalls having an easier time meeting people out in the wild before his body changed, and ultimately joined dating apps in hopes of finding more success there. But he continues to face challenges in the online dating scene.
Michael Swerdloff is still getting used to his new stature and hoping to gain back self-confidence. (Photo courtesy of Michael Swerdloff)
“It’s not unusual for a woman to ask me my height, and I write back and tell her, and then she just never replies again. I’m not on the apps really at all right now for that reason,” Swerdloff says. Still, he has enough confidence and life experience being in his 60s to recognize that his activity on dating apps doesn’t determine his worth.
“I am going to guess that somebody in their 20s and 30s would be more impacted because everybody’s more concerned with everything to do with their physical appearance. … Your whole [reputation] really is your looks,” he says. “I have a whole body of work, of life, so this changes my confidence in one area, but I still know who I am.”
Overcompensating in other ways
The value placed on height makes Herrera feel that no positive attribute could possibly outweigh the negative perception associated with him being 5’4”. “I feel like anytime I read a profile of someone I find really attractive, I check all the boxes that they’re looking for, except for that one thing that I can’t change,” he says. “Because I’m not 6’, I have to be better at everything else just to even maybe get my foot in the door. And that’s a big maybe.”
But Legrand suggests that it’s less about shorter men being better and more about them feeling better about themselves, which is something he preaches on his social media channels under the handle @ShortKingLifestyle. “It’s more of a mindset thing,” he says. “I had to let go of something that I had no control over. So instead of focusing on my height, I started focusing on other things that I can absolutely work on and improve, which meant working on things internally.”
He puts an emphasis on self-improvement and coping with insecurities, in addition to teaching men how to present themselves in a way that is less about looks and more about embracing hobbies and highlighting personality and confidence. “There’s a lot more that goes [into dating] than just the physical. And that’s what I think a lot of guys seem to forget,” says Legrand.
And for the sake of avoiding solely surface-level judgment, Legrand encourages fellow short kings to get offline and into the world. “The reality is you have to put yourself out there, even if it’s potentially speed dating or blind dates, whatever events are available. If you go out, you do activities, you find hobbies, that’s where you put yourself out there, and you’re able to interact and communicate with people,” he says. “It’s going to be more difficult, but it is absolutely possible.”