I know dating is hard for everyone. I strongly suspect that anyone who finds it easy or genuinely a completely enjoyable experience is probably a sociopath. Add in how things have been warped by over a decade of dating apps and, well, these trenches are bleak my friends. As Pat Benatar declared, Love is a Battlefield, and all of us soldiers have the things that make us feel vulnerable. The things we may perceive as making the warfare all the more difficult. For me, that is my height.

At 6ft tall (thank you to the Long Covid Clinic nurse who confirmed this in 2021, after spending my adult life declaring, as a form of self-flagellation, that I was ‘only’ 5ft 11 and 3/4 in…). As the average height of a women in the UK is 5ft 3in, I am 9in above average. I’ve always been something of an overachiever in many aspects of my life, but that it some achievement – albeit one totally at the hands of genetics.

I wasn’t always tall, or at the very least the tallest. The way I remember it, I finished year 8 of school at a totally average height. Maybe on the taller end, but not noticeably so. Then, I returned in year 9, Godzilla-style. The tallest person in my year. And I went to a mixed gender school, so this was significant and extremely noticeable.

Add in the fact I’ve never been model skinny (that aforementioned Long Covid Clinic Nurse I praised earlier praised me, in the same sentence for ‘not looking’ [insert number] stone and for ‘carrying it off well’ – so we can hold back the applause for her) and I have bright red hair (we’ll talk about ‘ginger’ another day). Then add in the fact that in year 9 I got glasses and braces. I was a quadruple threat.

Phwoar. My allure and appeal with regards the opposite sex was undoubtedly profound*.

*non-existent.

Let’s breeze over the, pretty much, unrequited crushes and what we could now label situationships that occur over the following few years. How often I tried to make myself smaller and more appealing, trying to fit in so I could feel wanted. And let me tell you about the defining moment that so much of my dating angst hinges on.

We’re talking the university era. David (not his real name) and I had been friends for nearly a year. I really liked him. It’s probably the first time I’d been friends with someone had started to fancy them, in that distinct order. We always sat next to each other in seminars, text occasionally and our friendship groups occasionally overlapped. On the last night out of uni, before we all departed, I decided to ask David out. Before it was too late and uni was over. Finally, I would tell him how I felt and that I would like for something more between us. And that’s what I do. How did he respond?

He tells me that I’m too tall for him and it couldn’t work out at all between us. He even illustrates his points by gesturing and emphasising our few inches height difference, before returning to his friends.

Nearly 12 years on, as I write this, I still feel the prickly echoes of the total humiliation that immediately flooded my body. I felt monstrous. Overlarge. Too big for this world and unwanted because of it.

Prior to that, it’s not something I had really noticed before or taken too much into consideration. It certainty hadn’t been a filter for how I viewed prospective partners. Instead, as a result, David’s comment became a chink in my armour. My kryptonite. A vulnerability that must be protected at all costs.

Not only did my height mean I would never be able to buy a pair of jeans in High Street retailer, and that I would be asked to reach for things on high shelves on a – minimal – bi-monthly basis. It would also impact my prospects of finding love? How had I been so naive?!?

In the years that have passed, I have unpicked much of this. It is still a raw point. I don’t respond well at all to the fetishization my height receives on dating apps or in person. I’m not going to give those comments any volume by repeating them here, but I’ll just say they are icky. And, as much as I hate to admit it, it’s still something I feel so so conscious off when it comes to dating. Whilst I do not regard myself as a rollercoaster (there’s no height restriction to go on this ride…) it still feels like it’s a big deal. A disclaimer I must provide, a something to declare to any prospective partners. A thing to check they’re ‘okay’ with.

Writing this is triggered by the fact I’m going to a big dating event tomorrow, a social of hundreds of people, and I couldn’t work out why the strand of nervousness I felt was so distinctive. It was recalling 21-year old me facing that rejection, even if my height had been just an excuse, it’s being said in this context, by someone I had cared about and thought cared about me (even on a platonic level) manifested into a toxic train of thought that remains in rotation to this day – hitting key stations of self-doubt and vulnerability.

Going to this event tomorrow is the epitome of submersion therapy, exposing myself up to endless, unpredictable possibilities that I could never even possibility prepare for. It makes me want to fold away and hide, make myself smaller and more palatable, apologise for the extra cells and space I occupy.

Which, really, is exactly why I have to do it.

That’s what these #Project52 Adventures are about, facing my fears and conquering them. It just happens to be that number 25 is the one that has been the most triggering so far.