The Short Truth

I think it’s pretty much a foregone conclusion that women along with wider society prefer taller men when it comes to nearly every aspect of life. Countless research studies have proved taller men to be perceived as being more confident, powerful, competent and displaying more leadership qualities than their shorter counterparts. 

Naturally, a lot of the dating advice for shorter men out there tends to focus on developing confidence, intelligence and a strong personality which are all without a doubt, very important. This is because women also have quite an obvious preference for men who are more intelligent than them, and this is one of the best ways to satisfy their biological need to (generally) seek partners that have more status, power and/or wealth than themselves. 

To have an extensive and varied knowledge base, quick witted humour and a sharp mind would make a woman want to look up to you (figuratively speaking) and admire you. It also exemplifies that you’re going to be a good provider and a good father to any potential children which furthermore makes you desirable in her eyes. 

A personable and intelligent man is one who would be expected to be capable of easily making social bonds, outwitting enemies, problem solving in tricky situations and making himself valuable in any group he finds himself in. However, being a provider is only one side of the coin because a woman is not only going to be attracted to you because of a beautiful mind, but you have to have a beautiful body as well.

If you’re an intelligent man, a woman logically knows that she would want to pursue a romantic relationship with you because that’s advantageous to her and her survival prospects, but intelligence in isolation is not enough to stimulate genuine sexual attraction because sexuality is not quite cognitive but more emotional and sensual.

She may admire you and tell herself that she should be attracted to you, but ultimately, may be drawn to a man who is far less intelligent but more physically attractive or perhaps even taller. So if you’re looking to really maximise your chances in terms of attracting women, you really have to consider your own relationship with your body. 

Now, I’m personally a big fan of weightlifting, less so for the physical benefits but more so for the emotional and mental benefits it provides me. It makes me feel strong, agile, capable of dealing with both physically and mentally stressful situations and helps me feel good about myself. But I’m not going to lie, it’s nice walking out of the shower after a particular long stretch of eating right and training hard and seeing a pretty chiseled physique in the mirror. 

But I’m not going to tell you to simply start visiting your closest iron temple, slapping those plates on your Bench Press, Squat and Deadlift and to then down whey protein shakes that make you excessively flatulent. That would be far too simplistic. 

The truth is that women’s relationship with the male body is a lot more complex and nuanced than that. Some women do love that tall, bodybuilder, Chris Hemsworth look, but there are women that are also attracted to relatively skinny guys or guys who are shorter than them. On the whole, the research does show that women prefer taller men with muscles (although you can go too far with it) but life does not always mimic this. Put down your phone and laptop and walk outside and you’ll notice that there are plenty short and skinny men with wives and girlfriends. 

What I would invite you to consider is not just your physical appearance, but your relationship with your body, specifically, how confident you are in your skin. That is one factor that is absolutely universally attractive to women. Women want a man who has a really positive and confident relationship with his body. What women will not tolerate from short guys, tall guys, skinny guys or ripped guys is a man who is awkward and uncomfortable in his own body. 

Do you remember that kid back in your High School gym class that just did not seem coordinated and it seemed that there was a blatant disconnect between his mind and body that just caused him to look odd in his body? That’s what I’m talking about. Even if you aren’t 5 Foot 10 and above or have a body that easily packs on muscle, you can still work on your relationship with your body and develop a body confidence that women are going to find more attractive. 

Having that positive relationship with your body involves trust and ensuring you trust your body and are confident that it is going to do what you want it to do and perform under circumstances you find yourself in. When a woman sees a man who is body confident, confident in the way he moves and the way he interacts with the world around him and it is apparent that his body is just a perfect expression of his mind – she interprets that behaviour and body confidence as indicative of him being a good lover. 

Why is this important? This should be obvious to say, but sex is not a cognitive exercise. If you think that reading an online sex guide on how often to thrust into a woman and change sex positions and following these instructions fastidiously is going to make you a good lover, then you’re dead wrong. Performing well in bed as a lover is largely about trusting your body, letting go and surrendering to your instincts so that your mind is not involved and it is just a physical bodily experience. 

Just in case I haven’t made myself clear enough, what I’m stressing is improving your relationship with you body and body confidence in general will have a direct positive correlation with enhanced love making skills. So if you want to have better performance in the bedroom your work starts long before you even get there – you need to be working NOW on your relationship with your body. 

So what are you going to do? I’ve listed below a number of recommendations that aren’t so much geared towards improving the appearance of your body (although you’ll find that this comes naturally) but if implemented properly, should develop that body trust and confidence that I’m talking about. 

1. Martial Arts – Taking up a type of martial art will not only have the benefit of improving the muscular profile of your body but martial arts also tend to have an explicit focus on quieting the mind and getting you in touch with your body. It is both a physical and a spiritual discipline that has the consequence of improving your trust with your body. This corresponds to very real life changes of how you carry yourself when you’re talking to other men, women or just walking down the street. Knowing that your body has the capacity to inflict harm (even if you still eventually lose a fight against an opponent/aggressor) and can defend yourself is going to be a massive boost to your confidence. It helps you have an intimate respect for your body knowing that it is a weapon and that you can use it to keep you safe. It is difficult to overstate just how drastic the transformation can be after a man (or woman) takes up a type of martial art and furthermore, the more time and energy you devote to that art, the better that body connection will become. So I invite you to pick from Boxing, MMA, Krav Maga and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu among many others. However, BJJ is a personal favourite given the longevity aspect of your training. 

2. Competitive Sports – second on the list would be a sport that uses the full body and requires agility and quick thinking. A sport like table tennis would be better than nothing but doesn’t quite engage your whole body as much as hockey or basketball. Choose a sport that requires a high level of fitness and try and pursue it at some competitive level to force your body to react to making split second decisions, e.g. catch a ball, kick a ball, make a pass, etc. and this gives a massive boost to your body confidence. 

3. The Gym (i.e. strength and cardiovascular training) – this is another good option and unlike why most people go to the gym, it does not have to be solely about appearances and looking good. Yes, women are attracted to strength so if you’ve got washboard abs and 19 inch biceps, women are going to find that sexy. But it goes much deeper than that because putting in those hours and building up your strength and endurance makes you confident in a way that you weren’t before and knowing that you can lift and move things and that your body can exert its will on the world around you in away that you couldn’t before is a marvellous turning point for your body confidence. Being that well built guy will give you a whole new level of confidence that women will pick up on as you go about your daily life.

4. Surfing/Skateboarding/Snowboarding – these sports are different from the ones mentioned in point 2. as it is less about competing with others but more about using your body to create movements that are graceful and beautiful. I can remember this time when I used to live in Devon and travel down to Cornwall for weekends and work. I would often go down to the beachers with friends and stay at this place that would attract international surfers at the tail end of summer and these guys that were walking around had fantastic body confidence. It was dangerous. Doing what they did was dangerous as they could smash into the rocks and seriously hurt themselves if they weren’t paying attention on a wave. When you are confronted with that sort of danger, you tap into a deep intuition with your body that helps you operate in these situations. Plus, you have the added benefit of these being fun and getting you in the outdoors! It’s the same case with Skiing, Skateboarding, Windsurfing and Wakeboarding. 

5. Yoga – Let me address any reservations you have from the outset as I know there are some guys reading this who think that doing sun salutations in stretchy pants is not masculine. If that’s your perspective then it’s your loss because few people realise that yoga was originally created for warriors – military and spiritual – to strengthen and support their bodies during periods of intense growth and challenge. If you don’t believe me, check out this article on how US Navy SEALs among other US military units have added Yoga to their military training with a retired Navy SEAL Commander setting up his own Yoga school. Yoga not only would help improve your body confidence through increased flexibility, muscle strength and tone but also helps increase your ‘happy’ hormones, makes you more self aware and what is probably of significant importance to my readers, it can improve your posture to make you seem taller and prevent shrinking with age. 

So the above are the basic suggestions I wanted to postulate. I’m definitely not suggesting that you do all of them, rather, I’d suggest you pick the one or two options that suit your personality and interests the most. What is of primary importance, is that you don’t neglect this aspect of your life and just focus on your wealth, intelligence and personality. 

Take it from someone like myself who spends the vast majority of his time in his head either for my job or other intellectual pursuits – your body is a massive part of physical attraction and your existence on this planet. It’s important not to get discouraged because you’re short or if you don’t have a well coordinated or physically strong body, there is a lot you can do to give yourself an advantage. Women want to see you with trust and confidence in your body and I want you to love your body in a manner where physical expression comes effortlessly to you. 

 I’ve tried online dating since 2017 when I broke up with my ex-girlfriend and discovered it to be an exceedingly soul-destroying, self esteem battering, dispiriting and superficial process.

The worst part about it was that for a guy who had invested years into self development and personal growth to basically turn myself ‘oblivious’ to my vertical challenge and live a pretty confident life, my insecurity about my height started to slowly resurface and rear its ugly head.

It was somewhere at this point when I lost all hope that I decided I would delete all my apps and take my dating offline. I work in Finance which translates into long working hours and the inability to have an ordinary social life so it really left me with one viable option – cold approaching women.

Why cold approach women in the first place?

I know. It’s pretty strange to walk out of your front door and onto the streets of your city with the specific aim of flirting with multiple women.

The short answer: I hate online dating and I don’t have time to maintain and create the social circles needed to meet the kind of women I want to meet with the hours I work.

Slightly longer answer: It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to appreciate that short men find it much harder in the general dating world. Then you multiply that by how average looking men in general are severely disadvantaged in online dating. Put those two together and you’d paint a picture of how laborious and statistically improbable it is to get a decent date from an app on your phone being a guy of my stature.

What I learnt from doing nearly 200 approaches:

I haven’t been intentionally keeping count but I’d estimate having done around 170-180 cold approaches in London, Bristol, Prague and Los Angeles since I started doing this in 2017. Here is what I learnt:

1. My height and looks are a limiting belief and they are just that:

Going into cold approaching having already had my self esteem lowered from online dating and the unrealistic height standards of it, one of the first things I was pleasantly surprised about was my height didn’t seem to matter as much.

In none of the interactions was it ever explicitly mentioned that I was too short to date the woman despite me almost consistently flirting with women taller than me (not hard when you’re 5’3”, really).

However, to be pragmatic, it almost certainly was a factor in a some of the interactions I had, i.e., the woman may have just said she’s not interested, lied about having a boyfriend, or gave me her number only to not reply because she didn’t want to be rude.

The point here is that previously my short stature would govern all actions I took. For example, my thought pattern would very much be “I’m short. The vast majority of women seem to have a preference for taller than average men. Hence, I shouldn’t even try as no women out there would like me”.

This was WRONG. The majority of women I ended up dating (or even sleeping with) were taller than me and seemed to be OK with my height. I never brought it up, not because I’m insecure about it, but because I just don’t think it’s worth bringing up.

2. It took me about 50 approaches to sleep with a woman and another 50 to sleep with a woman “out of my league”

The above are ballpark figures as I’ve done my approaches over the course of 3 years and I’ve only taken it seriously in the past 6 months (off which I’ve only spent 3 months actually approaching due to the COVID-19 pandemic).

While I hate putting these matters in numbers and statistics because it may dehumanise the process, I think a scientific approach takes precedence for my and your educational purposes.

The first 50 approaches gave me about 5 numbers and 2 dates (with different women), leading to me sleeping with 1 woman. I must emphasise here, that I have since learnt that this is earlier than average progress and will likely be different for you (see Point 5).

The following 50 led to about 15-20 numbers, 3 dates (with different women) leading to me sleeping with 1 of these women.

The final 70 lead 40 numbers, 4 dates (with different women) and me sleeping with one of these women.

The above is just what my progress looked like. Yours might be different. But it also reflects how time consuming this can be at the early stages and that you must learn to manage your own expectations. But that’s just dating in general. It’s a pretty important decision to find someone you’re (I’m assuming) intending to spend your life with. You better make sure you take your time and get it right.

3. It can be an emotionally draining experience if you’re not careful:

I’ve chosen to place this point right below the above, as you can tell from the very roughly drafted statistics that this is quite a time intensive operation. It’s difficult to not take an emotional blow when you come across someone who does not even explicitly reject you or acknowledge your existence but just looks down at you in disgust and carries on their way when you spent 10 minutes summoning the courage to go talk to them and tell them that you think they’re beautiful.

But for every 1 of those aforementioned nasty reactions, there’s a woman who will laugh and thank you profusely for complimenting her because she was having a bad day. Better still, if you stick with it, there will be interactions where you actually end up dating an amazing woman.

4. It is significantly better for my self esteem than any other form of dating:

OK. I should come clean and say I’ve only ever tried 3 types of dating: 1. Social Circle 2. Online Dating and obviously 3. Cold Approach. I’ve never gone down the speed dating or blind dating routes (except this one time that I actually got set up on one by a woman I cold approached).

If I’m honest, I found Option 3 to be, hands down, the best for my mental health and self esteem. As someone who suffers from Generalised Anxiety Disorder, I would go as far as saying that doing this was a form of therapy for me. The days I went out intentionally talking to women, I came home feeling like I squeezed every bit of the lemons life had given me that day and that even if I was rejected 20 times, that I at least tried and didn’t have to suffer the pain of regret.

That pain of regret when you’re mundanely walking down your street after a horrible day at work on a cold winter’s day and see this tall angelic brunette woman with big brown eyes smile at you as she passes you by and you wish. You wish with all your might that you had the courage and the prowess to be able to strike up a conversation with her but you don’t know how, so you keep walking along, your steps getting heavier and heavier. Later, when you’re in bed alone that night you let your mind drift to her and you think ‘what if?’. My life has now become about minimising that kind of regret.

5. It is not an exact science (it is sometimes not possible to tell if the girl actually likes you):

While I’m happy to share my experience, I want you to know that yours will likely be different. Theoretically, you might just speak to one woman who may turn out to be the love of your life, marry her, have 5 kids, build a house together and die in her arms. Alternatively, it might take you months before you get your first date. What’s important is that you keep trying.

You are your own person with your individual strengths, weaknesses and circumstances. Mine are having some natural charisma, life experience, humour and social intelligence but being a balding short guy with eye bags and ears large enough to give Dumbo a run for his money. You might be better or worse looking than I, or even ballsier and intelligent. Similarly, the women you will speak to are very unique people, with their own circumstances, trauma, prejudices and preferences. So it’s important to keep in mind that while you can follow certain techniques, methods and structures to talking to women, that these may not work and that it’s not your fault (and neither is it theirs in almost all cases).

You can have some of the most amazing interactions you’ve ever had where you feel the stars have aligned and you have this instant chemistry with this stunning woman that you just met aaaaaaannnnnnddddd she doesn’t respond to your text.

Alternatively, you may have some painfully awkward conversation with a girl at bus stop and hurriedly ask her for her number after a brief conversation before she gets on the bus – and she actually agrees to come on a date with you.

Remember, as much as you can form a general method to doing this, it isn’t a science. You’re dealing with people after all, not widgets and every person is different in their circumstances. Don’t take it personally.

TO BE CONTINUED