Seriously, Guys...Rashomon?!?!
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I’m 5’9”. More accurately, I’m the height of the average man. This means if I’m not wearing sneakers, I’m probably taller than the majority of men I see on any given day. Since I tend to favor heels over bare feet when I go out, I’m left with slim pickings. As a result, I firmly believe that women should not date out of their height range: i.e., if you’re 5’2”, date someone who is 5’6”. If you’re 5’6”, go for any man of average height. If you are 4’11” and date someone who’s over six feet tall, I hate you. If you’re 5’9” and find yourself surrounded by men who are at least two inches shorter than you, I feel your pain.
Now, to be fair, I have met and liked longitudinally-challenged men. But my last two experiences with their kind have more than left something to be desired—they left a dear friend and me running for our lives.
A few weeks ago, one of my friends came into town to celebrate her birthday. We decided to make this a four-day celebration. On our first night out, we went to Old City, and eventually landed at Plough and the Stars, where we quickly ended up talking to a group of Irish guys. We hung out with them for a few hours, and other than the fact that the one I was talking to told me a few times I reminded him of “a naughty country bumpkin,” we were having a great time. They were funny, attractive, and, well, let’s be honest: accents are generally a plus.
The bar started to get crowded, and when the table next to us was knocked over by a drunken booty shaker for the third time, sending glasses and alcohol flying everywhere, we decided to go somewhere else. Up until this point, my friend and I had been standing up, and the two members of the group we’d ended up talking to had mostly been sitting on high bar stools. When they stood up to join us, we saw that her man, “Colin,” was well over six feet tall. And mine was clearly a runaway leprechaun. I will call him “Paddy.”
In my drunken stupor, I figured he would have been my height if I hadn’t been wearing heels. My friend disagreed. But, shortness aside, I still thought he was cute and funny, so I figured, “What the hell? I’m not actually going to try and bolt now, saying ‘It’s not you. It’s me. I’m too tall for you!’”
Into the cab we climbed, and in about two seconds, our happy little group fell apart. Colin was sitting in the front seat, and my friend, Paddy and I were in the back. A block away from Plough and the Stars, Paddy asked us if we’d ever been to Ireland. My friend said that she went when she was in high school, and spent a lot of time in the Aran Islands. Someone pointed out that they speak Gaelic there, and she said, “I know. I remember trying to order a bowl of soup and I couldn’t understand what anyone was saying. It’s a very click-y language.” And then all hell broke loose.
More after the jump...
“Do you like it?” Paddy said.
“Huh?” she replied.
“DO YOU LIKE BEING SO FUCKING STUPID? WHAT, YOU THINK YOU CAN PISS ALL OVER US JUST BECAUSE WE’RE IRISH?”
“Um, we’re sorry?”
“I’m not talking to you,” he screamed at my friend, “I’m talking to YOU!”
Awesome. I love it when drunk men tell me how “fucking stupid” I am for no apparent reason.
At this point, the cab was stopped at a light. My friend started yelling back at Paddy, telling him to “get the hell out of the cab.”
“I ALREADY DID,” he shouted back.
We looked over, and sure enough, he was actually standing in the street and yelling through the open cab door. We just hadn’t noticed, because he wasn’t really bending over, and the top of his head was barely obstructed by the roof of the car.
Paddy slammed his door, and walked away from the cab, heading south on 6th Street, with both middle fingers raised over his head, screaming, “FUCK YOU.” When he had gotten about a block away, Colin turned around, grinned sheepishly, and said, “Well, I’d still like to spend some more time…”
He didn’t say a word during Paddy’s attack. We kicked him out of the cab, and headed home, not fully able to process what had just happened.
The following weekend, my friend and I ended up back at Plough and the Stars, joined by another friend. We found a table where we could see most of the atrocious dancing to bad music that was taking place (grinding to Bon Jovi? No thank you), and sat down to enjoy my favorite spectator sport (White Men Dancing). “Small Town Girl” began to play, and we realized the only way we could survive it would be jokingly singing to each other, as everyone around us meaningfully pumped their fists in the air while bellowing out, “DON’T STOP BELIEVING! HOLD ON TO THAT FEELING!”
In the midst of our swaying, a guy at the table next to ours slid over and said, “Isn’t this song great?,” and then mentioned that we looked like we had “some sort of Sex and the City-style evening going on.” I knew this wasn’t going anywhere good.
He asked if we wanted to go get a shot, and we all stood up. I was up first, and he got up behind me. All 5’5” of him. A friend of his followed our group over to the bar. He was maybe pushing 5’6”. My friends are both shorter than me, and I was more than happy to see them couple off. Short people sticking to their own! Hurray!
As closing time approached, Mr. Journey-Lover asked the friend of mine he had been talking to to go hang out in the friend’s apartment they were all staying in (these fine young men were visiting Philadelphia from North Jersey—natch). She said she wouldn’t go unless I came. I had to work in the morning and wanted my bed, but when I said this, Journey Man told me that I “work too hard,” “don’t know how to have fun,” and “lead a meaningless life.” This didn’t make me feel any better about joining them, but I also didn’t want to leave her alone with him.
It turned out his friend lived around the corner from me, so I said I’d go and stay for no more than a half hour. We got to his friend’s building before the friend (the other short one, who’d ended up walking my second friend home, wrongly thinking that she would invite him up), and as we stood in front of it, he announced that he regularly uses various racial, gender and sexuality-related slurs, and that I was narrow minded for saying I was entirely NOT okay with that.
When we finally got into the apartment, he morphed into a bull before my very eyes, charged one of his friends (who was over six feet tall) and threw him at a wall. This both ripped his friend’s shirt and left a big man-sized hole in the sheetrock.
That was enough for me. I found my friend and told her I was going home. As many drunk (and sometimes sober girls) are apt to do, she failed to notice his foul behavior, because he was being incredibly sweet and kind to her. She wanted to stay. About three minutes after I got home, she called to tell me she was leaving. Turns out the friend who owned the apartment (who, as I suspected, wasn’t staying overnight at my other friend’s) discovered the hole in the wall and they had started punching each other. Thus ended my willingness to spend time around angry shorties.
Now, I’m not assuming that all short men are evil and violent. This would make my initial suggestion that tiny ladies go after them quite cruel. But if the atrocities of those evenings taught me anything (and I believe they were so horrific there MUST be a lesson in there), it’s that munchkins do not a good time make. That, or I should never meet men at Plough and the Stars again. And if there’s any lesson in here for you, darling, wonderful, fabulous readers, it’s that if you know nice, tall, single men, you should send them my way.
Image via: Library of Congress.
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Forget about any issues with short or Irish men: I want to know what kind of friend leaves her friend at an apartment with men whom she just met--men who have just put a hole in a wall during an argument? WTF?
Okay, I should have explained how I ended up leaving a bit better. Trust me, it wasn't something I did without thinking or feeling badly about it- I'd been trying to get my friend to leave with me since we had gotten there. I didn't want either of us there, but she wasn't listening to anything I said, and was refusing to leave under any circumstances. I didn't feel safe at all, so, for myself (and after trying everything I could think of to get her to leave with me), I went home. I knew where she was, I knew the building and apartment number she was in (it was corporate housing), and I sat up, nervous as hell (and calling her every other minute), with my phone glued to my side until she told me she was on her way home. Leaving wasn't something I felt good about doing, but keeping myself in a dangerous situation with someone who was refusing to listen to my concerns wasn't something I was okay with either.
Hmmmm. No instead of asking the question what woman stays there you question the one who left. BEcause the bonds of sisterhood demand that both women stay even if they have plans of escape ,put together a logical way for her to leave , AND SHE STILL SAYS no. but does ensure safe and easy ways to track each other down.
Because yes leaving when one is patently uncomfortable is less of a problem than asking someone who is uncomfortable and says so to stay.
She wants questionable ass she can have it you did your best.