Whenever bullying comes up, I think about how genuinely lucky I feel to have dodged, somehow, the childhood horror of being pushed around.<\/p>\n
The only reason I even know what bullying is has a lot to do with the fact that I\u2019ve always been partial to Nick-at-Nite and its vast assortment of semi-antiquated family sitcoms. I\u2019ve never experienced full-on white bigotry, but I did watch a lot of All in the Family<\/em>; and I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever been an unwed Jewish woman, but The<\/em> Nanny<\/em> certainly taught me my share of Yiddish.<\/p>\n And so was the case for the topic of being bullied; I\u2019d just never experienced it first-hand. By the time my peers and I entered the treacherous grounds of puberty, I realized that would no longer be the case.<\/p>\n I was cursed, like anyone, with the acne that always seemed to fail in its timing and blessed with my lack of need for silicone implants, so in these respects, peers could only relate and not torment.<\/p>\n But the one personal feature of mine that differed most prominently from all my friends, the one thing my pituitary gland wasn\u2019t addressing was: my height; a fact that the joke-makers in my life have always regurgitated. To my complete annoyance, it\u2019s been a prime cause of double-takes over the years.<\/p>\n Most interact ions centering around my height usually go like this:<\/p>\n Double-takers: \u201cWow, you\u2019re so short!\u201d<\/p>\n Me: \u201cAnd you are very observant.\u201d<\/p>\n I was 4\u201910\u201d in the 6th grade. Eight years later, the only difference is the diminished hope I have of it ever increasing. And that\u2019s just fine with me.<\/p>\n Even in college, it comes up quite a bit. Depending on my mood and amount of hours slept, some days it\u2019s insulting, but most of the time, it\u2019s just a good measure of how often I encounter a person that wouldn\u2019t know politeness if it slapped them on the face and then pointed and laughed for the remainder of the day.<\/p>\n Every other pair of pants I\u2019ve owned in my life does a good job of reminding me; every group photo I\u2019ve ever been in, every hug I\u2019ve ever given. My height takes a stab at the most ordinary daily activities. No one needs to point it out to me (honest).<\/p>\n And yet for some reason, people, as if following a guidebook that everyone above 4\u201911\u201d has received, blurt it out as if I\u2019ll be caught unaware of the information.<\/p>\n The worst part is that I don\u2019t spend my day surrounded by giants. At least if I lived in a place where the average height was crazy tall, the comments would not go unwarranted, for then I truly would be an interesting sight.<\/p>\n But in Miami, where the average height, at a staggering 5\u20195\u201d, is only half a foot taller than mine, I have to continually ask myself why people are so obnoxious.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t misunderstand, however. The flip side comes with several key advantages. Navigating the crowd at a concert is extremely easy when you can slip through people and especially if onlookers think you\u2019re a child. Hiding things in the fridge is easiest when I\u2019m the only one with my vantage point. And flirting with the opposite sex is facilitated when men are reminded that I will never be taller than them (even with heels on, even with multiple pairs of heels on).<\/p>\n Sure I have to pull off nothing short of professional acrobatics just to be able to reach the damn spice cabinet and stand on my tiptoes if I want Subway employees to pay attention to me, but I\u2019m just like you. I\u2019m happy with the knowledge that bigger is not always better, except where men are concerned (I\u2019m referring to the naturally high amounts of testosterone in males, of course).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Whenever bullying comes up, I think about how genuinely lucky I feel to have dodged, somehow, the childhood horror of being pushed around. The only reason I even know what bullying is has a lot to do with the fact that I\u2019ve always been partial to Nick-at-Nite and its vast assortment of semi-antiquated family sitcoms. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":372,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-7570","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-forum"},"yoast_head":"\n