No, I'm not. Anybody who's tried in real life as well as online, knows what an impact these factors have, especially height, irritatingly given its arbitrariness in western society.

I spent months trying online, have tried in real life, parties, bars, you name it for years. I am actually pretty good socially. Believe me, this is not for want of trying.

I am not willing to join random clubs to try to meet women, as my prior probability is so low, based on previous experience, that it seems an enormous effort for a tiny probability of success.

What this comes down to is the 'spark' of attraction - women's genetic design means it incorporates certain factors, including those listed above, so if they like you + you don't fulfil the prerequisites you'll end up being their friend, they just 'won't see you that way', etc.

Allow me to tell you how wrong you are.

My roomate is 6'4, broad shoulders, athletic, good looking by any standard, and he is hella funny. People thought for the longest he had plenty girls, but believe me when I say he had his fair share of trouble.

Now, this will sound like a lie, but I have no way to prove this to you unless you decide to make a trip to the city of Atlanta at which point I will introduce you to my other friend. This guy is 5'5 (at the most), skinny, and by no means will you call him handsome. However from my 12 years in America, I have never met anyone who gets hotter girls, or more girls. I always ask him, and I mean always, "What do you do, really?" From my observation and what he tells me here is what works for him,1) talk to as many beautiful girls as you can (interestingly enough, you have more chance with beautiful women, I have no idea why), 2) don't be nice, 3) smell very very good (One Million or Chanel5 or Chrome Azzaro,...), 4) always dress one step above, always (my friend always looks preppy), 5) never depreciate yourself, never, ever, even as a joke, never.

Ugh, that guy sounds gross. I'm sure he's cool in person but if one were to simply follow this strict list of items they could very easily end up turning themselves into a douche bag. Do we have to become someone we hate to attract people we like?

More likely than not there is an element that trumps the others which your friend fails to mention: personally/charisma. Someone who has it just thinks they are "talking" and may not realize the power they have, so they won't mention it in the magic lists. But it seems to be what matters most and is by far the most difficult aspect of oneself to develop, if one doesn't already have a "good" personality naturally.

> "Do we have to become someone we hate to attract people we like?"

What part of the list above is worth hating? All of the qualities listed seem very morally benign. Well dressed, well spoken, to the point, confident, and smells nice.

Any baggage that comes with those descriptors are your own. Nobody is making you buy the jagerbombs and popped collars part.

> "What part of the list above is worth hating?"

On the surface, "don't be nice" appears pretty douchey.

I suppose it's possible the poster just poorly communicated, and there's a reasonable concept (like "don't be 'fake-nice', be genuinely kind") hiding behind that bad phraseology. If so, it's up to the prior poster to clarify.

> On the surface, "don't be nice" appears pretty douchey.

Very true, but I think the broader point is to avoid being the stereotypical "nice guy" towards women. For better or worse, being "overly nice" or eager to please is a low-confidence move, something that does not appear to be valued by many women.

Random thought: In dating terms, "nice guy" seems to equal "doesn't push for sex" and "bad boy" seems to be "is definitely looking for sex". I am wondering if what is intended by "don't be nice" is along the lines of "be up front about the fact that you are interested in sex".

Up front, but do not bother them with more attempts after getting a clear no. Put her into the friend-zone pro-actively, if you like her enough to hang out, or ignore her, if you are not actually interested in non-romantic activities. But move on.

He doesn't actually say "confident" or "well spoken." Those are things of substance, and he left them out.

> Nobody is making you buy the jagerbombs and popped collars part.

This is true. I guess I just cant help the correlation in my head, because it seems to be that prevalent.

Right, but especially given the OP, it does beg the question of if he is actually building committed relationships with any, or just taking various good looking women home.

Please don't buy into the evolutionary psychology BS. Human relationships are mostly defined by cultural norms, not genetics, or else short people would have been selected out millions of years ago. Women incorporate the same things that all of us do, our culture: imaginary (and largely delusional) hollywood fantasies about ideal romances. The truth is both men and women are equally lost in the dating game when individualistic happiness is held to be the highest ideal.

> Human relationships are mostly defined by cultural norms, not genetics, or else short people would have been selected out millions of years ago.

I think that humans are taller than we were millions of years ago. So yes, in some sense short people are getting selected out. (Though I don't have data. I'm actually more confident that we're taller than we were thousands of years ago, than that we're taller we were pre-agriculture.)

2.5% of people will always be 2σ below the norm.

Sure, and males are taller and stronger than women. But one doesn't have to be the strongest and the tallest. In fact if we observe the variation in today's population the minimum viable height and strength bar seems to be quite low, and since the distribution is approximately normal, it doesn't seem like evolution favors tall people more than short.

Curiously, sexual dimorphism may have something to do with our mating habits

  The sexes differ more in human beings than in monogamous mammals, 
  but much less than in extremely polygamous mammals.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_dimorphism

> In fact if we observe the variation in today's population the minimum viable height and strength bar seems to be quite low, and since the distribution is approximately normal, it doesn't seem like evolution favors tall people more than short.

I don't follow. If a trait is sexually advantageous, that doesn't mean the trait won't be normally distributed at any given time. It just means the trait will tend to increase with time. And I claim that this does in fact happen with height.

I also predict that if you did cross-cultural studies, you would find: in almost every culture, when people are free to choose their mates, taller males have more dating/marriage success, on average, than shorter males.

Of course you don't have to be the tallest and the strongest, but it helps.

Apparently height hasn't changed much since the dawn of man, but it has increased significantly (about 10cm!) in the past 150 years, due to better nutrition, but it's levelling off. It may thus be said that height is not seen as a genetic advantage in itself , but as a signal of better nutrition (although a few centuries is a short time for such a preference to be genetically selected for)

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=why-are-we-...

That's interesting and surprising, thank you. I'm going to need to consider this further.

Humans are taller because of better nutrition, not due to genetics.

I'm not so sure, a woman desiring a strong man to protect them sounds pretty evolutionary. Isn't the whole pick up artist thing based on exploiting such?

Question: how often do you actually ask women on dates? I mean unequivocally ask them on a "date"?

Empirically, I would say you are simply wrong. I know a fair number of short men who are successful with women. It's probably something else you are doing: dress, hygiene, posture/eye contact, lack of confidence (and not in a "you have to change who you are/act cocky" type of way.) I'm not asserting anything specific because I don't know you. Being short can hurt ones chances in the dating world, obviously, but do you really think all short guys just go dateless their whole lives? It's a ridiculous assertion.

Obviously online, I have frequently attempted contact, before reaching a stage where I could ask that, but that was the purpose.

In real life, I have usually not got so far as to ask for a date, as I have been rejected out of hand before getting that far. And the friends who I wanted to go out with, I have asked out and been rejected.

I don't think it's that ridiculous, for one we're talking 2 sigma out of the norm, on the short side, so that's 2.5% of the male population, and of course there are endless ways to compromise. So that leads to another point, I do want to have a relationship with somebody I find attractive, even if marginally so (I really am not all that picky), if I was to remove that restriction then I could probably do quantitively better. Perhaps many of my fellow short cohorts do that.

Additionally, there are other factors, I know some short people who have done well too - good looks, a certain kind of confidence and social standing/success principally.

I am very open to considering whether I'm screwing up elsewhere, however my experience, and that of many other people has been similar, and I also have tall friends who don't dress especially well, poor posture, etc. who have had endless relationships. It's a huge, huge factor.

First, returns on online dating are typically abysmally low, for everyone. Online dating shouldn't be thought of as anything other than a novelty. I think I heard somewhere that being short counts against you online more than in real life because of how easy it is to dismiss someone just based on that number.

Second, as I suspected, you haven't actually asked many girls out (is the number around 2-4?) This is most of the reason you haven't had success.

Yes, being at a height disadvantage means that overall it will be harder to get dates that you find appealing. This fact is what you are noticing, not that you can't. You said it yourself, there are short men who can get dates they like. Good looks help, but not a requirement. What are they actually doing you're not? Do you actually have to be highly successful to appear so? No. Just looking highly presentable, fit, well dressed in ones style, and yes, confident (in your own way, not a particular type of cockiness), is enough. Even those things aren't really necessary, but they help. Then it's just a matter of actually asking women you are attracted to on dates, enough women until one says 'yes', which will happen eventually. The only real impediment is that you haven't committed yourself to dating and figuring out what works, which is a typical problem with various excuses.

Sure, the numbers are always v. low in online dating, but 0/150 is way below even that low average, and I had a friend do it at the same time and score more like ~ 1/15. That has to say something no?

Well you're inferring that number, the real number is probably closer to 12 over the past year or two, which I guess you could argue is still pretty low. Mostly they have rejected even speaking to me out of turn to the extent I couldn't ask for a date even if I wanted.

I wish I could believe you on the numbers count, but yet again my experience has been wholesale rejection. And there is a cost for each rejection, after being made to feel worthless + unloveable for the 20th time, you begin to wonder is this worth it?

Additionally I feel like this all requires me to be somebody I'm not - try to act confident, because I am a skeptic and humble in what I do, I don't ever feel like I'm special or able to speak out confidently. I feel like faking that would be betraying myself in a way that I'm not willing to do just for a relationship. So perhaps this is partly a choice, I am not willing to sell myself to score dates.

The short people I know who do better are either v. good looking (nothing I can do about that) or especially confident in a cocky way.

If I'd had a hint of iterative success in anything I'd try I'd be willing to go along with this, but I've not, nothing. There has to be a point where constant 100% failure causes you to think 'is it worthwhile spending my limited years of life pursuing this?'

I see where you are coming from but there's only so much confidence/boldness can make up for physical attributes.

You say there are loads of short/ugly/challenged guys who get what they want and yet, what I see on my Facebook/streets of SF/NY are totally different. I've only seen a handful of shorter guys get taller women. Most women prefer taller guys and guys of certain races (interracial stats and surveys definitely show Caucasian guys have a significant advantage over say Asian guys). It's nice to say you can make up for shortcomings but the reality is that it's extremely rare to meet a woman who looks past certain physical attributes that are glamorized in culture.

I think it's a matter of prerequisites. Women will look at you as a friend instead of a potential partner if you don't fit them. That's when all the nice-guy stuff of kindness, etc. that many women claim to be what they're looking for (and they are being truthful, only missing a rather vital predicate) is unimportant if you can't fulfil the pre-reqs.

My experience on the street is exactly the same. I've basically never seen contradictions, after years living in London, a city of 7M people.

I think people wish these things to be true. But they're not.

That being said, a small percentage of guys I know have occasionally bucked the trend.

One guy is crazy fun, short (5'5 - 5'6), Asian, and yet hasn't had trouble attracting women in NYC (arguably one of the harder places to find someone due to the number of good looking and stylish people).

Another guy I know had the exact same traits (except maybe one inch taller) and attracted extremely beautiful taller women. In his case though, he's never attracted to Caucasian women so even though he could've bucked the trend he chose not to.

I believe they had two advantages: one is a extroverted fun personality that makes women comfortable with approaching them, and the second is going out often as to have an incredibly large social circle to choose from.

London, wow. I always pictured the UK and European females as being more cultured/advanced when it came to dealing with men than their American counterparts. Is there the same typical meathead/jock worship in high school as well over there by females?

Great post. Being a short yet confident man is way much more appealing to a woman than to be the 6' average joe.

Citation required? Women might say this, but in my experience it's simply not true. Like the whole 'love yourself so others can love you' line. Which is just B.S. in my experience.

Having said that, I agree confidence makes a huge difference. However, the kind of confidence women like is in my opinion an unpleasant cocky kind. And should I attempt to completely change who I am, become somebody I dislike just to fulfil that? Would that lead to a relationship that would work? I don't even think it's feasible to be honest.

If you're sure that women will not like you on a sexual way, they won't. As sure as if you don't belive your startup to succeed, it won't. You've made a bad image of yourself that think he can't attract women and you find lame excuses in order to not try to change. Because trying to change and to be a better version of yourself is admitting that until now you were wrong and it is exposing yourself to failure. Do you realy think that your true self is the one that believe he can't atract woman ? If true, that's fine, but I don't think it's really your true self.

Sure, and the fact that many, MANY people have experienced this height-bias, and women openly admit to preferring it is entirely my imagination.

I think this 'think positively and it will be' stuff is more than a little wishful thinking.

It reminds me of the 'love yourself and then they will love you' bullshit. I know somebody who has a great job, is good looking and tall, but utterly depressed so clearly doesn't love himself, yet he constantly pulls a stream of model-quality beautiful women. Shall we neglect that case?

I am happy to admit I'm wrong. But are you? I especially recommend this video:-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LwRe6tyqY8

Don't tell me, they were finding excuses not to change into the better version of themselves? Give me a break.

Nobody has denied the height bias. We all admit it exists. The difference is that we treat it as a handicap, and not even a particularly game-ending one. You're the one falling upon absolutes.

In reality being short is like having 9 fingers. You will never out-type a 10-fingered person, but you can type plenty fast.

I read the grandparent as suggesting that it was attitude rather than a real factor. I suggest that he was denying the bias, or at least the severity of it.

My experience has been that it's a huge factor. What frustrates me about this kind of response is that I have worked very hard, lost > 55lb in weight, asked women out in real life, ~150 online, etc. with a positive attitude and got nothing in return, and yet suggestions like that suggest it's all my fault and I'm simply afraid of admitting failure.

I wish I could believe there were things I could do to overcome this, but I don't. I have friends who are short yet a little bit taller than me who are perfectly positive yet experience exactly the same thing. It doesn't bode well - at what point do you think 'this handicap is just too much'?

I work for a startup by the way, so this is not an attitude I take to everything in life :-) however, if all evidence points one way, wouldn't it be mad to somehow have faith that the fact isn't so?

But the fact is that it really is not as severe as you seem to think.

Let me put it this way: I'm willing to bet that, whatever deficiencies you have, I have worse. I'm an overweight, short-ish, East Asian, culturally western, engineer, dating in NYC. The only way to get it worse than me is to be all of the above, except Black or Latino. According to popular perception of my demographic I am a creepy, misogynistic, effeminate loser whose redeeming quality is mathematics.

My demographic is among the least replied-to on OKCupid, according to OKTrends.

But yet I do ok for myself. I've gone on dates with about a dozen people in the last year, all of which originated online.

This isn't about which one of us has it worse. It's about the fact that all handicaps in the dating arena are correctable to a large degree. You may never be a Brad Pitt, but you sure as hell can have a good time.

No doubt you've tried to improve your situation. If you aren't having luck with it, may I suggest that it's because you're not doing the right things, rather than you being a hopelessly lost cause? It is after all not about working hard, and all about working smart.

BTW, if you are in a place where you have serious self esteem problems re:dating, dont't go online. Online dating is an extremely low yield, spammy game where everyone (both female and male) are 10x pickier than they are IRL. Until you're in a place where you can take hundreds of rejections in a row without hitting your ego, keep it IRL.

You are dating in NYC - that's an advantage for a man. Bay Area would be significantly worse.

Of course crippled person would be in even worse position.

I agree with your overall point though.

I lived in SF until a few months ago. My dating performance there was only marginally worse than NYC.

NYC has more females than males, but I'm also not in finance, nor do I ascribe to the young professional set. The typical NYC "scene" does me no favors.

But yes, a severely handicapped person would probably have it much worse.