Finding love through online dating apps comes with its fair share of battles – but it appears some singletons only add to the difficulty with the strict criteria they thrust upon potential partners.
One disgruntled Mumsnet user anonymously took to the British website in April to moan about one of her dating gripes – women who only seek out partners six feet tall and above.
The user claimed that many women were closed off to dating a man shorter than the supposedly preferred height.
With the average British man measuring at 5ft 10in, she also spoke of the statistical inevitability of not finding love if people are so fussy, as so few tall men exist for the amount of women who look for them.
However, the Mumsnet user was slammed for her ‘weird post’, with most commenters arguing that they’d never met a woman only going for 6ft tall men.
One disgruntled Mumsnet user anonymously took to the British website in April to moan about one of her dating gripes – women who only seek out partners six feet tall and above. Stock image used
Her post read: ‘Thinking that women would benefit if they were more open minded about height in a potential partner and not write off the majority of men who are under 6 foot (85 per cent)’.
‘Women seem to be fighting for a small proportion of men – with the disappointment that will inevitably bring to the many who inevitably won’t succeed. Of course, it’s even c****** for the good, but short, men out there.’
However, she was quick to clarify: ‘Of course, we all fancy who we fancy, and I’m not saying we should date shorter (or even average!) men out of pity or a “sense of fairness.”
‘But how much of women’s desire to bag a tall guy is actually societal, and down to how they think other women will view them?’
More than 800 responses poured in from fellow users who were left sceptical by the post, with a poll revealing that 67 per cent of respondents thought her opinion was ‘unreasonable,’ with the remaining agreeing that she presented a valid argument.
One user penned: ‘I don’t know anyone who will only date someone over 6ft. In fact out of all of my friends and family I can only think of 1 couple with the DH [dear husband] being over 6ft’.
Another wrote: ‘I wouldn’t date someone shorter than me. It’s none of my business if others choose to. Bit of a weird post OP.’
For another, it was more than mere anecdotes she didn’t trust, she demanded access to real data.
One woman felt bad that other women allegedly routinely dismissed men shorter than 6 foot tall
Mumsnet users mostly slammed this woman for her observation they didn’t quite believe was backed by facts, although one did experience something similar with a friend
She wrote: ‘Who are these women? Do we have statistics to support your statement that all women (or even the majority) write off guys under 6 foot? I am tall-ish at 5’7 my partner is nowhere near 6’. In fact, I don’t particularly fancy tall men on average.
But some ran to the poster’s defence, with one person writing: ‘I’d never date anyone under 5’11, luckily now my husband is 6’4.
‘Short men don’t do it for me at all. I think it’s related to feeling smaller beside them and not like an elephant?’
Another said: ‘I wouldn’t have ruled someone out for height, but pushing 6ft myself, I wouldn’t like a partner who was significantly shorter than me.’
A third reminisced: ‘I’m 5ft 1 and I remember a woman once telling me I was selfish for marrying my 6ft 3 husband as it meant the “pool” was smaller for women her height. I laughed and I still don’t know to this day if she was being serious.’
It comes after a study revealed last year that tall men typically prefer petite women for short-term relationships, while women always prefer taller men.
Gravitating toward shorter women for romantic flings is more than just personal preference — it is based on biology and psychology, according to researchers at universities in Cuba, Canada, Norway, and the United States.
A preference for height is widely accepted, especially in Western countries, where an increase in height from the 25th percentile to the 75th — about five inches — is likely to earn a person about nine to 15 percent more in annual salary.
The team’s findings suggested that men, on average, preferred women with heights of about five feet three inches to five feet five inches when looking for more casual, short-term relationships.
The classic female descriptor for a good-looking man – tall, dark, and handsome – held true in the study as well, which found that shorter women prefer men taller than them for shorter and longer term relationships.
The researchers behind the study recruited people from their general populations and included 536 people, 333 of whom were women. The vast majority of them, about 93 percent, described themselves as heterosexual.
It comes after a study revealed last year that tall men typically prefer petite women for short-term relationships , while women always prefer taller men. Stock image used
On average, the men measured 178 cm in height, or about five feet 10 inches, while the women’s average height was 165 cm, or five feet five inches.
Female participants were shown two sheets of paper that contained five different minimalistic drawings of men from the back measuring different heights ranging from five-foot-five to six-foot-one.
Men received similar sheets showing drawings of women from the back measuring heights from five feet to five-foot-eight. Each drawing was labeled with a height measurement.
Asked their ideal height in a woman for ‘uncommitted’ short-term relationships, men typically chose women shorter than them, ranging from about 164 to 167 cm.
But men tended to gravitate toward women who more closely measured to their own heights for long-term relationships such as marriage, which the researchers said was indicative of ‘assortative mating preferences’.
Assortative mating is a form of sexual selection based on certain observable criteria that more closely mirror theirs, including relative height, social status, personality, and risk of passing along diseases to offspring.
This means that tall men are more likely to marry or remain in committed relationships with taller women.
The authors of the study, published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology, said: ‘Our results further corroborate a positive relationship between participants’ own heights and their mate height preferences, that is, positive assortative preferences for height.
‘However, assortative height preferences were qualified by relationship-context… Taller men preferred relatively shorter women for short-term relationships than for long-term relationships.’