In general, men are usually taller than women, but there are quite a few exceptions to this rule.

What would you do if you were a tall woman, and you had a male friend who was slightly shorter than you? Would you do nothing, or would you go out of your way to try to make him feel like he was taller than you?

The tall woman in this story thinks she might’ve messed up her friendship with a shorter friend.

Let’s see what happened.

AITA for treating my shorter friend differently

I (24F) am relatively tall for a girl (5’11 or 181 cm).

Personally, I love it, and I feel confident about it. However, some guys feel insecure when they are around taller girls, including my (21M) friend who I met a few months ago.

I’ve noticed since the first time we met that he was constantly looking at the top of my head like he was trying to compare our height, and he was making excuses to stop a lot just to straighten his back and correct his posture.

I believe he did this to appear taller next to me. He didn’t feel confident at all.

He’s almost as tall as she is.

The problem is he’s like 5’10 (Never asked him because I suspected he wouldn’t be comfortable answering based on his previous behavior), so he is not even short, and even if he was, there is literally nothing wrong with it.

Plus, I couldn’t even tell that I’m taller until we took a picture.

You’re not less masculine when you’re walking with a taller girl. You don’t have to view it as a competition. I’m not trying to intimidate you.

I really don’t get why some guys think height is the most important thing.

She decided to do something to make him more comfortable around her.

I’m more of a “people pleaser,” so I usually compromise my own comfort to make people feel better.

With that being said, the second time we went out together, I started to slouch when standing next to him to make myself voluntarily shorter relative to him.

Surprisingly, this made a big change in his behavior. He started to laugh a lot more, his humor was a lot better, and he was overall more confident.

After awhile, he noticed what she was doing.

Unfortunately, after a while, he noticed while we were walking that I was making my posture intentionally bad.

He then told me, “Are you making fun of my height?”

I didn’t want to tell him the truth because I didn’t want him to think that I was going out with him out of pity, and that I didn’t view him as a real friend, which is not true.

It’s exactly the opposite actually.

He took it completely wrong.

His personality was great, and he was fun to be around, so I responded, “No, why do you think that?”

He then said, “I think it’s quite clear, you’re trying to show that even when you’re slouching, you’re still taller and superior.”

I have no idea why he jumped to that conclusion.

I kind of feel bad.

She’s not sure how to fix their friendship.

Maybe I’m the jerk. I shouldn’t have done something that could be interpreted as mocking.

Maybe he didn’t even care, and I was imagining things because surely 1-inch difference can’t cause this much of a problem.

I felt awkward and made an excuse to leave.

We haven’t texted or talked since then (1 week ago). I’m planning to make it up to him, but I don’t know how. Any advice? And AITA?

It sounds like he’s sensitive about his height. It might be better not to be around him.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

She shouldn’t apologize.

She might be better off without him as a friend.

She wasn’t mocking him.

She shouldn’t compromise who she is just because he’s insecure.

She definitely shouldn’t slouch anymore.

She needs to stand tall and stop worrying about his insecurities.

If you liked that story, check out this post about a group of employees who got together and why working from home was a good financial decision.