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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Lifestyle
Leah Harper

The shorter man’s search for love: ‘One woman cried when I told her how tall I am’

‘Oh God. They added a height filter’
‘Oh God. They added a height filter.’ Composite: Guardian Design; Prathamesh Dixit/Getty Images

Height is often seen as a dealbreaker when it comes to romance, particularly within heterosexual relationships. But when Tinder recently said that it was trialling a feature that allows some premium users to filter potential matches by height, it quickly proved controversial. “Oh God. They added a height filter,” lamented one Reddit thread, while an X user claimed: “It’s over for short men.”

“I’ve experimented with not putting my height on my dating profile, or lying about it just to see, and the number of likes I get shoots up massively,” says Stuart, who is in his 50s and from the Midlands. “I know I get screened out by the majority of women from the off.” At 5ft 7in (170cm), Stuart is just two inches below the UK and US male average height of 5ft 9in, but a height filter would probably prevent him from receiving as many matches.

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