One of my biggest pet peeves related to tallness is that whenever I mention the fact that I'm tall online, I'm suddenly inundated with messages from men who are complete strangers and "like tall girls" and "want to be friends."
All of a sudden today I started getting lots of friend requests on Facebook from men I'm positive I don't know and their profiles are extremely limited in personal info (which is incredibly sketchy to me). I was scratching my head trying to figure out what could have sparked this surge in messages. My facebook profile is private and I haven't posted links to it anywhere. Suddenly it dawned on me -- I joined two tall girl communities on Facebook today. Now, I will probably go back and remove myself from those communities, solely because I hate getting an inbox full of requests from men who just want to be my friend because I'm tall. This is probably too dramatic, but it makes me feel dirty.
I think it's nice that there are men out there who like tall women--even short men who like tall women. I know many tall girls who are dating or married to short men. But when someone instantly friends me because I happened to join a tall community, and wants to be my friend on a site I consider meant for REAL friends, not complete strangers who I've never even talked to before, I find that really creepy. That seems a lot more like a fetish than just a general interest.
This has been something I've always struggled with, and in fact I've considered making a tall girl community in the past but feared doing so because I knew it would be a magnet for men with tall fetishes. I want someone to want to be my friend because they've actually TALKED to me and liked my personality. And although I'm currently unavailable, I want someone to find me attractive as a whole package, not just for my height statistic.
I know it sounds harsh, but I think it's just plain WEIRD to go online stalking out tall chicks and trying to add them all to your online profile. For anyone who thinks that is somehow flattering to a tall female ("Oh, some people do actually want to be my friend and do find tall women attractive? I'm so shocked and honored! Of course I'll be your friend!"), it's not true. At least not for me.
Maybe I'm just a jerk... and I really LOVE being tall, but there is more to me than my height. I love to talk about height online because I think it helps as a tall female to share our experiences because most often in person the other tall girls are few and far between and our tall male friends or other girl friends just can't truly comprehend what it is like to be a female in such a tall package. But I do not want to be turned into some kind of object. I am not another form of a school girl, a sex kitten, or a scantily-clad amazon woman. I'm a tall female, and I want to be respected and befriended for who I am, not how tall I am.
I'd love some insight on this. From tall females only, please. Do other tall girls feel the way I do, or do you appreciate this type of attention?
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4 comments:
I totally understand what you mean. For me I get it from two different areas... 1) for being tall and 2) because I'm "plus-sized", yadda yadda yadda... so I have to deal with creepy guys obsessed with BBW's. Besides all of that, it's just weird to me to have a complete and total random stranger friend you like that. Especially when it's based on factors like height and size, etc. etc.
Mmm, I once got an email from a foot fetishist who apparently liked large feet on tall women after commenting on a blog post. Bit creepy, and they shouldn't do it but that's the danger of 'social networking' sites. Many people have ranted at me about how facebook is a wonderful stalking tool.
It seems to only be bad on the internet. Out in public, I suppose the guys with the tall or foot fetishes are as few and far between as tall females are.... but online I run into so many! If I wanted to meet short men who liked tall women, I'm sure there is a community out there for those types of people. But I haven't joined such a community so I wish they'd leave me alone!
I don't traffic much online with people I don't know, but I've had enough real-life encounters to say, I think it depends on the manner of the interaction. You know, it's one think if a guy is flirting and in the course of that, says something complimentary about my height; it's another thing entirely if the guy is all "huhhuh, you're like, tall, huhhuh" as he's staring at my chest.
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