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The quiet pain of being rejected for your height · Lightbearer's Library

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Hello, dear soul.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_01: This journal entry is dedicated to men who have been rejected because of their physical height.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_01: Because I have heard from many of you in the comments over the last number of months who have had this experience of being rejected by a woman because of your height.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: And this is near to my own heart because my husband has also had this experience.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: So we'll get into that a little bit more.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: But I want to say that the height is a common, common feature that comes up.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: But if you're a man who has other physical traits that have been rejected by women, things that you cannot change, then this conversation is for you too, because it it's something that I think is maybe not talked about enough.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: And it's it can be really, really painful to go through that experience once or more than once.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: And because I think the experience of being rejected for something physical without even someone knowing about what's happened in your internal world, you know, who you are as a soul, as a as a unique individual man, it's it it it can feel quite quite offensive, emasculating, I'm sure my husband has has said.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, it's it's painful, and I I honor that feeling.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I was thinking perhaps perhaps when you were younger you thought and you had the hope that if a woman were to get to know you more, know the inside, know your your wonderful deep thinking, deep feeling self, then maybe the height wouldn't matter.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: They'd, you know, they'd be able to see your your true self shining through.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: However, I know there are many of you who have had the experience of being known but rejected for your height anyway.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: And this is was my husband's experience.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think for men who are the deep feelers and the deep thinkers, this kind of rejection can can cut the soul.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: Because I think we're, you know, as whatever label we want to put on it, you know, perhaps if you're into personality types, the INFJs, the INFPs, my husband's and my husband is an INFJ, and I'm an INFP.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: So we can take it to our core and and uh take it to heart as something that's wrong with us, something that's wrong with you.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, when I was thinking about this topic, when it comes up in the comments when I read it, it's just it's like this is so unfair.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like why why are why is this happening?
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's so stupid that like height should be a thing that en masse it seems to be the case for women wanting taller men.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: And but I I think that it's something that is programmed into us through media, through the culture, that you know that men that that women prefer taller men.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: And so young women girls grow up with the movies and the TV portraying that.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I I have kind of wondered if over the last maybe 50, 60 years, there has been an increase in the height difference between men and women in the movies.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you're maybe older and can remember this or have thoughts about if you if you've seen that shift over the over time, but it seems like maybe that's something that that has shifted to to bigger height differences.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't know if you have any, if you've maybe noticed anything to that extent, but that would be interesting to think about.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: So my husband's story is that he grew up in South Africa in the 80s and 90s, and rugby was the national sport.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: So I think he played rugby once, maybe in school when he was forced to, but he liked individual sports.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: But, you know, so so the men were short and stocky, like appreciated.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: Men in the culture were appreciated that you know, short and stocky.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: That wasn't an issue or problem.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_01: So for my husband, that was it, he never noticed his height being short or tall.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: And um, so it it wasn't it wasn't an issue for him, you know.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: And then he moved to de to England.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: And in the decade he lived in England, this was in the early 2000s, he never felt like height was an issue with with him.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, it could be that that has changed in the UK now due to, you know, American, North American style TV.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: And perhaps you can let me know if you're older in England, if you've seen that shift, or if you're a young man in the UK, and you definitely noticed that women are not that don't prefer short men.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: But he didn't kind of ever feel like height was an issue.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: But when he moved to Canada to be with someone he met through a mutual friend, he so he'd never met her, he was shocked to hear that she was disappointed with his height, even though he was a bit taller than her.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_01: And he found that in Canada women are taught to prefer taller men.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: And while the woman acknowledged that it was shallow and meaningless, the the height thing, she couldn't overcome that programming.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: And so, yeah, for my husband, that was a very shocking, confusing, kind of um emasculating experience, because then he would try and make himself feel taller, like, you know, by standing as tall as he could.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: So it's it's just like pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty horrible, you know.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I was thinking about this as like it'd be something like, you know, say there was a country where people had bigger noses and you had a big nose, and everyone and nobody, you know, on TV there was big noses, and it's like, but then you go and you go to a different country and it's like no issue.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: But then all of a sudden you go to a third country and all of a sudden they're commenting on your big nose, and everyone's saying, Oh, look at his big nose, and it becomes an issue.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: So for him, it was quite a he didn't grow up in the culture of that, and it was it was quite different.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: So it's all to say that different cultures have different ways of of seeing what is what is attractive.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, if you think about, say, my husband talks about the Bushmen who are the San Bushmen from South Africa and the Southern Africa, you know, they're very short and they're very slim and slight.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, there's just different different types of of human bodies, but this culture we live in kind of has one particular type that it wants.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it's I have many words for it that I maybe won't share here.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: But um, and I don't know how I I don't know how I got around that programming, but I I wonder if it's perhaps because I am an INFP and I've always been interested in the heart and the soul of of a human, kind of what's underneath, and it's the essence of people that I appreciate first and foremost.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: But to me, my husband's height was never, never an issue for me.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't, I didn't even I didn't even think about it or see it.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: He's he we're like the same height, and we have the same shoe size, and that's never been something that's bothered me at all.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: Like I find it, I find it quite quite a beautiful, a beautiful space to engage because we're, you know, we're eye to eye, we're eye-level.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_01: And so when we talk, we're always on on the same eye level.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: And that makes me feel that makes me feel loved and connected to him at all times.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, it made me think about maybe there's some good programming out there that and the more we talk about it with with each other and with you know, how do we change this?
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's changing, I guess, the programming for for children and what they grow up with.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but my husband was laughing.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_01: He's like, Lord of the Rings is probably good programming with the hobbits, you know.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so there's that.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: And we just finished watching Gilmore Girls.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: We'd never watched that before, and so it's a really great, as a side note, really great psychology to watch in that show, the unfolding of it.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: And um, but but in that in that program, there's a couple, Paris and oh, what's his name?
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um, Doyle.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: And they get together, and I think she's slightly she's even tall, like taller than him, and it's just a really love loving relationship that they have.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's one of the funny ones.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: So, but it's like this couple that's yeah, the height difference doesn't r really matter.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: They see each other past that.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_01: So I guess what I'd like is you know, for you to comment down below with any thoughts, feelings, observations about the culture that we live in.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe if you're living in a different place in the world that doesn't have this height thing or you've noticed a shift over time, I'd love to have a conversation about that.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I just want to honor honor that that deep pain that I I can't I I can't know what that's like.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: But it's um Yeah, it it really is a I I I don't I can't even imagine to just be rejected outright for your height because I know a lot of online dating platforms and stuff, it's all about height, and you just like get canceled basically for for something that you didn't choose.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, I wish you so many blessings.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: Signing off for today, XOXO Kate.