"is she your girlfriend?"

2 people so far have asked me that question. and i hardly even know the girl. all i did was sit next to her for lectures or walked with her to a bus stop. i've sat with other girls for lectures before (erm..NUS is a mixed school you know..) and walked with girls to bus stops before (yes! people actually board buses from the same bus stop! isn't it amazing? ) Yet, somehow people only ask "is she your gf?" when i'm with her.

there may be other reasons but i suspect this is the main reason: this is the first time the girl's shorter than me.

i think it's kinda sad that we all have this stereotype that the boyfriend has to be taller than the girlfriend. in any commercial or poster, you always see a tall hunky guy with a shorter pretty girl, whether they are promoting wedding rings, clothes or the beach. it makes humans sound so stiff and rigid about what the definition of "beauty" is.

yet, even i agree that it's weird for a girl to have a boyfriend that's shorter than her. i've seen couples holding hands on the street where the girl is pretty tall and the guy just not as tall. to me, i dun think it looks weird but i suspect that if i was the girl it would feel weird to me.

I have met one guy who is shorter than me. He is about 2 years older than me so I am pretty sure this is going to be his permanent height. He isn't a midget but he is indeed very short, about say 1.55m? And I can't help but think he's super cute. His mannerism helps add to that image but his stature (or rather the lack of it) certainly plays a large role in this perception of mine. He looks like a human teddy bear to me. If I was a girl, I would like to talk to him just because he is cute (heck, as a guy I already find him cute) but I think it'd be weird to have him as a boyfriend because I would have to look down at him. already as a guy, i find it weird to look down at a fellow guy when i'm so used to looking up to all my guy friends. so maybe that's how girls feel too. it's not that they feel short guys are ugly. it's just that they are not used to being the taller person for the 1st time.

and the truth is that i'm not that much taller than him.

Yet i feel it's perfectly fine if my girlfriend was 1.68m tall. in fact, that's my fantasy. haha. ok lah , maybe 1.62 is more realistic. the truth is: i find it hard to like girls who are shorter than me because i'm already so short haha..

everybody is superficial to a certain extent. for a guy who is himself short, it may sound like i'm being so hypocritical to think that a lack of height is a potential turn off. but i'm not a hypocrite. cos just as i might reject shorter gals, i totally understand and empathise with the girl if she rejects me just because i'm too short.

some people may think that i must have a low self esteem to "complain" about this publicly but i disagree. i'm not complaining at all. in fact, i think it only shows how confident i am of myself to discuss this issue publicly without shame or emberrassment. i'm not ashamed of my height. and i am not ashamed to admit that, everything else being equal, short people just aren't as attractive as tall people. but i still belive that any girl should be happy to have me. cos i know i would treat her well and love her with all my heart.

why am i so sure that i would love her so much? cos i know that i will never get together with someone just because she's the best i can get or her height complements mine or she treats me well. i would love her just because i do, because i'm confident enough in myself to know i only need to care about who i like, not who could like me or who is "within my range". i would love her because i want to love her, not because i want to satisfy my ego that i can get a taller girlfriend or because i'm frightened she'd leave me for "someone taller".

but the most important reason is that, if i can get that girl i really like, i would think i'm the luckiest man in the world. so i'd probably love her well enough to make her think she's really lucky too.