Aged 15, I was taken to visit an elderly Irish relative I hadn’t met before.
Looking up and down the not-inconsiderable distance between my head and my toes, she gasped.
‘Jesus Christ! You’re the biggest, longest girl I’ve ever seen. We should have you out in the fields digging.’
Just another day in the life when, like me, you shot up to the majestic height of 5ft 10 when you were just 13 years old.
For despite being celebrated on the catwalk and red carpet – Taylor Swift, Zendaya and Kendall Jenner are the same height as me — out in the wild tall women are treated like zoo animals, enduring conversations like this routinely.
I’ve made my peace with my character-building stature and, if I may speak directly, I wish you all would too.
So, before you ask me how the weather is up here, what tall women like me want you – men and women – to know…
Standing at 5ft 11, Olivia Dean gives her two cents on what the average-sized person should know about tall women
Don’t attempt to ‘reassure’ me
At 5ft 11, there’s no point telling me I’m ‘not that tall’. I am. The average British woman is 5ft 4, while Mr Joe Average is 5ft 9.
As for reassuring me that at least I’m not 6ft – as if surpassing this height would make me some King Kong-woman crossbreed – don’t bother. I’m 6ft as soon as I put shoes on.
Not only are these platitudes factually incorrect, they’re insulting – the implication being that shorter equals better. Sorry, me and my great legs disagree.
Small girls need to step away
There’s a special place in hell for the pint-sized girls who use their lanky female counterparts for their own romantic gain.
You know the sort I mean. The tiny girls who make me stand next to them, loudly exclaiming with faux-dismay from my stomach-level ‘Oh wow, I’m so tiny compared to you…’ while batting their eyelids cutely in the direction of any surrounding men.
The worst offenders will ask my shoe size for the benefit of the group, clearly hoping their dainty tootsies will be thrown into maximum relief by my great flapping flippers. I have fond memories of one simpering fool giving me this treatment, only to discover my size sixes were smaller than hers.
Girls, you’ll probably call me jealous, but having regularly played this role in your strange mating ritual, I can guarantee that no man has ever boasted about his girlfriend’s tiny hands (yes, I’m asked to compare those too). Give it up.
I’m not insecure around short men
By virtue of my size, I’ve seen some choice examples of ‘short man syndrome’.
I want to caveat this by saying I think the discourse around men’s height is equally damaging. Just as I’d like to live my tall life in peace, a man whose height starts with a dreaded ‘5ft…’ should be able to exist in comfortable confidence without women crowing they’d never date a ‘short king’.
However, I’ve found that rather than grinning and bearing it, many shorter men develop an anger towards the women they believe will reject them because of their size.
Award-winning singer Taylor Swift is around the 5ft 10 mark
Men talking at my shoulder will insist, straight-faced, that they are 6 foot, so I must be ‘like, 6ft 3 or something crazy’. To cover their own insecurity, they attempt to make me feel like the freak.
Sorry boys, but you being smaller does not make me feel lesser. There’s no need to get nasty about it.
The same applies to other women. You don’t need to sit me down in group photos ‘just so you don’t look too massive’.
That being said, if you’re not a vertically-blessed man and I’m wearing heels, I might not stand next to you. Feminism can only go so far.
Don’t make assumptions about my dating life
For an adult woman, I receive a disproportionate amount of invitations to join netball teams. Ditto, many people treat it as fact that I wouldn’t deign to wear any shoe other than a paper-thin ballet pump.
And a special mention goes to the teacher at school who assumed, aged 16, I’d never had a boyfriend because I was ‘so much bigger than the boys’.
In fact, of the many (many) incorrect assumptions people make about me based on my height, this is by far the most common: that I’d only be interested in men taller than me – or vice versa.
This is both reductive and patronising. Just look at my height-mate Zendaya, who is happily engaged to Tom Holland, 5ft7. I may not be as brave as her in my attitude to height gaps, but as long as you can look me in the eye, that’s fine by me.
Actors Zendaya and Tom Holland are engaged with a height difference of about three inches
So, just as you wouldn’t boldly make presumptions to the faces of those who struggle with their weight about their life choices, don’t kid yourself that you automatically know things about me because of my height.
… and there are some perks
Yes, there are drawbacks to being lofty. Trousers never fit, my posture is awful when talking to other women (I have to slump or squat to hear them) and it’s taken a lot of Pilates to stop me looking like the inflatable tube man outside a car wash.
But for every inconvenience there are plenty of benefits, and I don’t just mean being able to reach high shelves. There’s evidence that tall women are more respected in the workplace – probably because male colleagues have to look us in the eye, rather than looking down on us literally and metaphorically.
And I’ll stay looking younger for longer than my shorter peers, as even with a bit of age-related shrinking I won’t turn into a dumpy old crone once I hit 80.
Even better, I’m often told clothes do look better on taller women; there’s a reason supermodels are all beanpoles. If only this would translate into more readily available trousers with a 34-inch leg.