anthony
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Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
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Post by anthony on Jul 20, 2018 22:21:51 GMT
It's probably really rare, but has anyone else ever tried using heightism to their advantage, proving it exists?
I have. Here's the quick version of the story:
Late 1990s, my job required me to move to a major metropolitan area in North America. Finding a place to rent was extremely competitive. I found a really nice place. It was a gated complex that was geared towards retirees. Pottery and woodworking shops, a library, the whole bit. I had to be interviewed in person to get in. The interviewers were two women in (I estimate) their late 40s.
It came up during the interview that, being in my late 20s, they were concerned about the "fit". I knew they meant they wanted somebody older (ie. quiet, no parties, loud music, etc.) I played up the fact that I was a computer programmer working long hours, basically a geek with no social life. I totally drew on the stereotypes.
What clinched it was, at one point when the women were both standing, I stood up right in front of them. In heels, they were both about 6" taller than me. They took one look at me, and I saw that look I always see from women. It was the turning point. It was like they thought "of course this short, small guy doesn't 'do' parties, and has no social life. Now I totally believe it."
Two minutes later, I'm signing the rental forms.
It was a bittersweet victory.
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anthony
New Member
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
Posts: 26
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Post by anthony on Jul 21, 2018 4:31:04 GMT
Situation #3:I went with another real estate agent to visit a home where a man was attempting to rent a basement apartment. When I got there the "apartment" did not appear as depicted by the real estate agent. The guy put up a partition in one room and called it two rooms. That put me off immediately. But whenever I asked him a question to his face, he always directed his answer back to the real estate agent - as if I were some non-entity unworthy of even the most basic form of respect. I thought to myself: If he can call a one-room apartment "two rooms", and treat me like this now, what will he do later? I believe all these stories, because I've experienced similar things too. Situation #3 in particular, happens to me all the time. People talk as if I'm not even there, all the time, even if I'm the one who asked the question being answered, or am the guy who's looking to spend his money on something. Actually, #4 made me stop and think too, about being considered a child. When I was in my early 30s, I was working in a university, as a systems administrator. Although I had a uniform and everything, even more than a little grey hair by that point, I still got mistaken for a first year student, almost daily. Hilarity would ensue if somebody working in another department found me fixing something with one of the wireless routers, or other networking gear around campus, because they couldn't quite believe that this "kid" was working in IT, even with the uniform. So yeah, I've seen most of this play out, in one form or another too. The more I think about it, the more I realize it as the reason why these crazy, formerly inexplicable things keep happening to me. I have more and more "forehead smack" moments about it, all the time, as things fall into place and suddenly make sense. |
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anthony
New Member
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
Posts: 26
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Post by anthony on Jul 21, 2018 7:05:09 GMT
The thing about my story that's a twist is that, even though back then (and even after this all happened), I didn't really believe that heightism was affecting me so much, I set out to see if I could prove it, by testing it in an extremely rare situation where it would give me an advantage.
I'm wondering if anyone else has stories like this, where they intentionally pulled a "stunt" that illustrates, or proves to themselves that heightism is real. Something where they suspected that by revealing their height, others' perception of them would change, so they went ahead and did it, and were surprised at how immediate, dramatic, and obvious the reactions were. It was an eye-opener for me. When I did it, I figured it might be a subtle thing worth trying, that may or may not have some small subconscious effect. I didn't figure it would be like snapping my fingers.
As I said, a bittersweet victory, and one of those moments I'm not proud of, but where I caught one of my first glimpses "behind the curtain."
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anthony
New Member
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
Posts: 26
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Post by anthony on Jul 24, 2018 4:01:03 GMT
I'll share another one about proving heightism. This was about a year ago, so I had fully woken up to it by that point. I just did this for my own amusement...
Down town Vancouver (Canada), I decided to walk just a little under half a mile down one of the main streets on my way to work. But I know that the way I walk is always about weaving and dodging people, like an endless obstacle course, so I wanted to see what happened if I didn't. Was it me being overly courteous, or was it really necessary because I had subconsciously "learned" the behavior that short people must always yield to taller people, no matter what?
Here were the rules:
1. Walk in straight, predictable lines.
2. Stay in a clear path, keeping right at all times, and/or where general sidewalk "rules" of conduct would expect me to be.
3. Do not yield to anyone except disabled, injured, elderly, pregnant people, or anyone else with a good reason that they would have any significant difficulty yielding to me.
I lost count of the collisions, at some point in the first 3 minutes. I checked and double checked my behavior. Was I being aggressive to prove a point? Was I forcing collisions? I constantly evaluated myself to make sure I wasn't somehow trying to force some kind of outcome. I just walked.
I had 8 notably spectacular collisions with taller men. Full on body slams. I'm short and small, but I'm fairly sturdy, and I had the advantage of knowing that I should brace for impact, because I wouldn't be moving out of the way, like everyone always expects me to do.
The one that was the most telling was the taller women who slammed right into me. I even slowed my pace a bit, and subtly swung my arms out to my sides a bit, to make sure the extra movement would catch her eye, in case she was distracted by ogling some taller man or something. Gave her all the chance in the world to side step a bit onto the right side of the sidewalk where she was supposed to be. Nope. Blam!
She gave me a pissed off look, and I figured I'd up the ante by smiling and apologizing. She stayed pissed off, muttering something at me about watching where I was going. I couldn't help but think that if I was tall and good looking, it would have been fine, and she would have smiled and apologized back. That's what I normally see when that kind of thing happens.
Speaking of which, you know how it's a stereotype about Canadians, how they all apologize all the time? Well, if a tall man and a short man smash into each other on the street, that stereotype gets instantly shattered. I found that out the hard way.
After I did this, it didn't surprised me at all when I watched the segment of this documentary from around 13:20 to 15:45:
It demonstrated exactly what I had already proved to myself.
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