Your Toxic Friends Are the Reason You Hate Being Tall | How Jealousy Causes Body Dysmorphia

[00:00:00] Every tall girl understands the feeling of being the odd one out, especially in a friend group. In fact, I'm sure you were that one tall girl among your friends, classmates, teammates, or peers. You'd be a head taller than them to the point where other people would assume you were the older sibling. Or maybe that was just my situation. Who knows?

[00:00:17] Your friends were able to share clothes with each other, but you can't because your friend's clothes will not fit you. People may treat you differently from them. Sometimes your own friends may make fun of you for being the tall one in the group, making you feel even more insecure about your height. Well, what if I told you that some of your friends may be doing that last part on purpose? Okay, I didn't mean to sound that intense or sad, but this is real life.

[00:00:44] Anyways, today we're going to be talking about how some of our shorter friends may have made us insecure about our height, whether they meant to or not. So let's get into it.

[00:00:57] Good morning, everybody. You are currently listening to a tall girl's podcast hosted by a tall girl named India. I hope everyone who is tuning in today is doing super fantastic. Before I get into this episode, I do want to say make sure you're following me on my socials at a tall girl's podcast on Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest so that you can stay up to date on all of the latest podcast episodes.

[00:01:16] And catch a glimpse of my everyday life. Also, feel free to leave me a review and let me know how tall you are. I'm genuinely curious. I also have a monthly newsletter. Make sure you subscribe to that. Everything is going to be linked in the description. Also, by the way, I apologize in advance for this episode because it is quite literally 90 degrees and my room does not have an AC. And honestly, even if I did have an AC in here, it would be super loud. So I would still have to turn it off.

[00:01:41] But I have my big window open right now. So if you hear car alarms, ambulances, pigeons, birds, crows, whatever is going on outside, people yelling at each other outside, if you hear any of that, just don't mind it, okay? I need to keep my window open so I can make it through this episode. All right. After that intro, I don't want you thinking that your friends hate you or are purposely making you feel insecure about your height or this and that and the other.

[00:02:07] I don't want you thinking that. I just think that this is something to be very aware of, especially when you're in your friend groups in your teen years and even in your 20s. Not every single situation is going to be like this, but there are some situations out there that are like this. And if you're feeling this way, if you're feeling insecure about your height, if your friends are making you insecure about your height, whether they're outright doing it, which we're going to talk about a little bit later, or if it's even indirectly making you feel insecure about your height,

[00:02:36] I just want you to know that your feelings are valid and you are not stupid or weird for thinking that way. Listen, as a tall girl, when you're making friends, some, many, probably most of them are going to be shorter than you. Every tall girl has at least five short friends, at least, like bare minimum. It's practically inevitable. Low key, how tall is your shortest friend? At one point in time, I had a friend who was literally a foot shorter than me.

[00:03:04] If you're a tall girly, at some point in time, you were probably the tallest friend in your friend group. And it'll be so obvious, like you'll be towering over everyone in group photos. As I said earlier in the intro, people may assume that you're like the older sibling in the group or something, or like one of their older siblings, or one of the older friends. You even stick out like a sore thumb in social events. First of all, literally there was no hiding. Like if you wanted to hide from someone, where are you going to go?

[00:03:32] They're going to find you. But there was no hiding your height. You are always going to be the visible, the noticeable one. Let's just hear an example from a tall girl and what it felt like being the tall girl in the friend group. I don't like doing group photos with my friends. You want to know why? Because they're all five foot one, five foot two, and I'm a normal human size. So someone shouts out piggybacks. Guess who's tearing them all? Little Charlie Chocolate Factory. They're my Opa Loompas. We're doing a pyramid. Guess who's the base?

[00:04:02] And that honestly reminded me of this trend that was going around on TikTok a while ago. And the sound was like, oh, I'm fat. I'm a fatty or something along those lines. And the text on the screen is how I feel as a tall girl because everyone around me is short. Now, personally, I don't think that they took that sound super literally. Like when it said, I'm fat, I'm a fatty, blah, blah, blah.

[00:04:24] I think in a sense what they really meant was that they just felt big or huge or large in comparison to their shorter friends because of their height. But then on top of that, if you have height, let's say you have more of an athletic build. If you had broad shoulders, if you have thicker bones and so forth, then that kind of contributes to that feeling, if that makes sense. And I probably should have said this earlier, but without talking about like your shorter friends and having that height difference in the friend group,

[00:04:53] I mean like a good four, five, six inches at least in between you and your friends. But I mean, one of the biggest reasons that tall women ultimately dislike their height is because they feel like the odd one out. They always stick out. They always stand out whenever they're in a crowd, whenever they're with their friends, their peers. Because I mean, you want to be similar to your friends, not to say that you want to be like an exact carbon copy of them or whatever.

[00:05:21] But one of the big reasons why you're friends with their friends is because you have some type of commonality or a lot of similarities. And so when you're with a group of people, I think that's just human nature overall. You want to be able to relate to your community. You want to be able to relate to the people that you're around and you want them to be able to relate to you. But they can't because they're not tall. And so when you're talking about your struggles or you're feeling some type of way about it,

[00:05:49] they may not necessarily be able to, I don't want to say feel empathy because I feel like they could, but they just don't truly 110% understand the feeling, you know. And then on top of that, you know, not being able to relate to them in some ways and them not always being able to relate to you in some ways. You know, sometimes you want to wear the heels, but then you're with your friend group. You're already so much taller than them without heels. You're going to be even taller than them with the heels on.

[00:06:16] And then you may not want to do that because you're going to feel self-conscious about it. And something else is that, you know, sometimes you may often compare yourself, compare your body, compare your tendencies to them. Let's chat. Could I pull you for a chat? Yeah. I am insecure. And what may I, what am I insecure about? Well, the list goes on and on. But specifically right now, I'm insecure about my height. That is like the root of my insecurities because I am 5'11", right?

[00:06:44] The average female is like, I think it's 5'6". And the average male, by the way, I think it's 5'9". So I'm even taller than the average male height. Point is, is when I meet somebody, they are always like right here on me. So I can't help but feel like this giant monster. I hate it. I hate it because I am the odd one out. I have a completely different body shape and structure from majority of other women that I have met.

[00:07:14] They all just have smaller features, daintier features because they're shorter people. I don't look like that. And I want to. I wish I did because that's what I see. I'm proud of what I've accomplished and stuff in my body. But yet I still compare myself. I am not petite. I am not petite. My body is not shaped like that. I will never be that because I'm 5'11". Why do I still feel this way?

[00:07:41] Like I'm just so much more human because I literally physically am. I can reach the top shelf. But at what cost? Self-comparison is the thief of joy for tall girls. Well, really everyone. Everyone. But this is a tall girls podcast comparing how much you eat to your shorter friends, how much you weigh, how clothes may fit you, how people may treat you. And honestly, and I know that this can be hard to remember at times, but there's really no point because your bodies are just so different.

[00:08:08] Now I feel like that was the more indirect way that your friends can make you insecure about your head. They're not outright saying anything to you about it. But you know, just being around them often and seeing their tendencies and the clothes that they're wearing and so forth and just comparing it to yours, that can make you insecure. Now on the flip side, we have some people, some friends. Well, they're not real true friends.

[00:08:32] But for the purpose of this episode, friends in quotation marks, you have people or quote unquote friends who outright make you feel insecure about your height. Oh, I'd hate to be your height. It must suck finding clothes. You make me feel so small. If your friends are saying any of these things to you, you need to drop them like yesterday. But anyways, it could be anything from backhanded compliments like, Oh, I wish I were as tall as you, but just not that tall.

[00:08:57] Or wow, you are so confident for someone your size to certain looks and how they may treat you to outright insults about your height. The comments, the compliments, the looks, the way they treat you, it can all add up over time and it could cause insecurities and self-comparison and even body or height dysmorphia. Let's take a listen to this really quickly. 5'8 really isn't that tall in my opinion. Like it's above average, obviously, but like people treated me like I had some type of

[00:09:27] like pituitary gland disorder or something. Like I was yalming. In hindsight, what I think it also was, was that I had a lot of friends and like, if you're my friend right now, I'm not talking about you, but I had a lot of friends in the past who were pick me's and they love to bring up like how big I was in comparison to their small to petite bodies. And they especially love to do this. Like when we were around other guys and like, if you do that, you are, you're a loser. Like I'm going to tell you right now, you're lame.

[00:09:54] But that's like where I got this like mentality that like I was so big, but like, I'm really not. But moral of the story is that some of our friends are actually haters and they love to make you feel like you have flaws that don't even exist. I've been tall like my whole life. Like I hit puberty at 12. Like I was 5'8 like in middle school. And maybe this is also shocking to me because my whole life, people have always over exaggerated how tall I actually am. Like I said, I'm 5'8 but like my whole life people would call me Amazon or like you're a

[00:10:23] giant like you're so tall, you're so tall. Oh my God, are you 6'1"? And I think that made me like have like a little bit of like height dysmorphia and think that I'm like way bigger than I actually am. And you know, it can make you feel bad and feel alone and left out. And like there's even something wrong with you or your height. And yes, all you want to do is feel accepted by your friends and you want them to you know make you feel good and hype you up and make you feel confident. But there are some people out there who just can't let us have that moment.

[00:10:53] Why do some people from strangers all the way to your own friends and yes, your own friends make you feel bad or insecure about your height? Well, there can be plenty of reasons but two very possible ones are A, they can be jealous of your height or B, they can be insecure about their own height. Which honestly can tie into the first one. But yeah, your friends can be insecure about their height. They could be insecure about their own bodies. They could even be jealous of your height or jealous of your body.

[00:11:19] I'm not saying it's 110% for sure that your friends are going to be jealous of your height or insecure about their bodies, etc. But it could be a possibility. And you know, there are some people out there that literally keep their quote unquote friends around or just keep people around to constantly keep bringing them down to boost their own egos. And as weird as that sounds, it happens, okay? It happens. It's a possibility.

[00:11:46] And listen, it's very human to feel these emotions. It's human to feel jealous. It's human to feel insecure. We've all felt it. There's quite literally no escaping it. It's just how you handle those feelings. You know what I mean? Some people just internalize it and maybe it makes them feel worse about themselves. Or maybe hopefully they seek help or maybe they work on it. And others often project that onto other people.

[00:12:13] And they feel the need to keep other people who are often insecure about themselves too. They feel the need to keep those people close but keep bringing them down to make them feel better about themselves. To boost their own ego. Or to kind of have like this sense of control over other people's emotions. And then that, I don't know. And then that, listen, I am not a therapist or psychologist. Please don't come for me. But I personally think, in my personal opinion, they do all of that as a way to just, you know,

[00:12:42] make them feel better about themselves or their lives. And listen, I'm not saying that your friends definitely hate you because of your height and so forth or are trying to do those types of things to you or whatever. But it's just something to be aware of because this can happen. I am not saying that all of your shorter friends are like this or are doing this, okay? There are amazing people out there who are shorter than you who will make you feel appreciated

[00:13:10] and make you feel accepted and make you feel beautiful and confident and hype you up and so forth will support you and all of that. Like, there are amazing people out there, no matter their height, that will accept you for who you are and not try to make you feel down about yourself or your body. And I think that there's also this appreciation from like a tall girl's perspective to have another tall girl as a friend. Like an appreciation for tall girl friendships.

[00:13:37] Like there are no awkward side eyes when you put heels on, no weird energy in group photos, and really no need to shrink yourself to make somebody feel better about themselves or just no need to shrink yourself at all. And see, this is why tall girls need to be friends with tall girls because you know we're going to hype each other up, make each other feel confident and beautiful. Okay, no one is allowed to hate their height here. Low key, tag your tall bestie in the comments. I asked you guys in another poll on Instagram,

[00:14:03] do you think having tall friends makes or made you confident in your height? 84% said, oh yes, 110%. And 16% said, eh, not really. I'm going to have to go with the oh yes, 110% because as I said earlier, a lot of us feel bad about our height or even hate our height because of how much we stick out in comparison to our friends or to people around us or to other women.

[00:14:30] So that was more so how I felt when I was younger. I just really, I didn't like my height because wow, in comparison to other people, I was like, wow, I'm like so much bigger than them. I stick out. Like there has to be something wrong with me and something of that sort. But I think that once I started, well, once I started this podcast for sure and started connecting with a lot of you guys, a lot of tall women online, I was like, oh, like there's more of us out there.

[00:14:59] Like, you know, being tall isn't so bad. Like there's a whole community out there. And I started meeting you guys in person and actually started getting friends that were a little bit closer to my height. I didn't feel so bad about it because I didn't feel like the odd one out anymore. I was like, okay, these are my people. I can relate to them. So I'm definitely with the 84% of people who say that, you know, having tall friends made them love their height more because honestly,

[00:15:25] that's how I started loving my height by surrounding myself with other tall girlies or at least connecting with other tall girlies. And also shout out to the Tall and Fabulous community over on Facebook. I joined them who knows how long ago, but I've been with them for like a couple months. I know that because I've been on like what two get togethers through that community. I'll probably link it below, but it's more so for like the tall girlies in like the New York, New Jersey area. I think also Pennsylvania.

[00:15:52] I'm not too sure, but I'll link it below so you could take a look at that because it's just an amazing community of tall women on there that we just get together and we just vibe and love being tall. It's like, I went to the past two, amazing, beautiful, stunning, and I would do it again and again. Hopefully there's another one before the summer's out. I'm going to talk to one of the hosts about that. Anyways, I'm going to end the episode here. It's getting hot in my room and I really want to turn my fan back on, but y'all are not going

[00:16:22] to hear me properly. So I'm going to conclude now. Thank you for tuning in. I really appreciate it and I appreciate you. Of course, as always, feel free to hit me up on my socials at a Tall Girls Podcast and let me know your thoughts on this episode. Do you feel like, you know, some shorter friends who may be insecure about their height or may be jealous of tall women's height? Do you think that they feel the need to make the tall girlies or the tall girls in their friend group feel bad about their height and give these like backhanded compliments and

[00:16:51] just give these insults or weird looks or whatever in order to make them feel better about themselves or at least make the tall girl feel bad about her height. So it's like, oh, we're both miserable at the same time. Do you agree? Or do you disagree? Do you have amazing short friends? Let me know. I'm down to chat. And until then, I'll catch y'all in the next one. Good night and goodbye.