I stopped shopping for clothes with my friends many years ago. I think it was the day, as I scanned a display of jeans hoping to find that one pair of "talls" in a haystack of "shorts" and "averages" and my 5'8" friend complained, "I have the hardest time finding pants that fit."
Let me tell you something: If what you're looking for is an average length in pants...baby, you have no idea how good you have it.
I've never minded being tall and I hit my 6'0" stature early in life, way before the boys did. I come by it naturally, on both sides of the family, and usually the only reason I have to look up at someone is if I'm at a reunion. I'm constantly asked to look for people in crowds and grab things off the top shelf at the grocery store.
I've come to the conclusion, being the wise and seasoned adult that I am, that the reason why men will always have more power is because their pants always detail the specific waist size and length. They can quickly flip through a rack and determine in two minutes whether or not there is something there that will fit them. And if they're really tall, they have the advantage of stopping by one of the many "Big & Tall" shops to find what they're looking for.
As a 6' tall woman living in a country that apparently thinks that all females should either be 5'7" or we should just cut our feet off...that has me a little jealous.
You wouldn't know it from my closet because it's actually stocked with pants. The problem is that most of them don't fit right on other areas of my body. But when I find that rare "Tall" on a rack, I feel like Columbus discovering the New World and they have to be mine. It's quite possible that they're too tight in the thigh, highlight my muffin top, or, if I'm not wearing the right shirt could show (as my friend calls it) "Krakatoa"...but if the bottoms at least hit the tops of my feet, I'm getting them.
My sister taught me a shopping shortcut years ago. She and I are the same height, but she has the same inseam as my dad who is 6'4". This is great when you're looking at bathing suits and I've often cursed her when I see her walking into the room in a cute little dress I could never pull off. But when it comes to shopping for pants, she has a harder time than I do.
"Don't even take them into the dressing room if they don't pool at your feet when you hold them up against you in the store," she advised me years ago. "It's just a waste of time."
My younger self did not realize that this was going to be a life-long battle because when I was in the process of reaching my full height, I had the advantage of growing up during the era of tight-rolled jeans. While this trend was wildly unattractive, I'm betting it saved my parents a fortune in pants because it really didn't matter what length they bought them in. As long as I could peg them at the bottom, making my lower half look like an upside-down triangle...we were good to go.
But then the late 80s/early 90s happened and the styles changed drastically and any woman over 5'9" was going to have a major problem. You guessed it.
Stirrup pants.
I'll never forget it. I'd been asked to model some "junior apparel" on the local news right around the time I turned 16-years-old. Now, I hadn't worn junior sizes since I was about 11-years-old because after that, I shot up 5 inches in the space of a year. But I'd gotten away with it before that because I was usually assigned long skirts while the other "cute as a button" girls got the pants.
That day, I showed up to the studio late, out of breath, and sweaty from trying to parallel park my non-power steering car downtown. As I ran into the studio, I thought I couldn't possibly look any worse. And then I was handed my outfit and was sent to the dressing room to begin living my worst nightmare.
Wearing junior-sized stirrup pants. On TV.
I pulled them on, and sure enough - with the straps around my feet and the pants pulled up as high as they could go, the pants didn't even come close to hitting my waist. I scrambled to find the assigned shirt and was relieved to see that it was over-sized enough to cover the uncovered area and they were even nice enough to throw in a sweatshirt to tie around my waist. I quickly pulled it and took a look at myself in the mirror before I was rushed to the camera.
And that's how I ended up on TV at 16-years-old, sweaty and disheveled - in stirrup pants that were too short and a gigantic Mickey Mouse t-shirt.
I gave myself a pep-talk on the way home that day, reasoning that none of my friends watched the news. No one would see this. So, imagine my surprise when I walked into my first period class the next morning and was greeted with, "Hey! We saw you on TV last night!"
Not my proudest moment.
I've always been the taller one in any serious relationship I've had because most men 6'5" and up prefer women who barely reach 5'. And I don't mean to be rude to my gender, but I consider that a huge waste. If you are short and dating a tall man, you should have the decency to break-up with him and just say, "I can't, in good conscious, date you. Please go find a woman who is only three inches shorter than you are. They need you so they can wear heels and not dance with someone in their cleavage."
But being taller than my significant other does have it's advantages. I don't mind always getting the aisle seat on a plane because someone else can more comfortably sit in the middle. I don't mind having a better reach across the pool table date. And I don't mind staring someone down in an argument.
The problem is that it doesn't matter who wears the pants in the family if the pants are always an inch too short.
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