> This reads like pure cope from a short guy. I don't see how one can dictate to others what they should find attractive. That's not how it works.
No one is dictating anything about attractiveness, and you really shouldn't be trying to marginalize my arguments on the ground that I might be short. It really has no relevancy here. I wasn't talking about dating and people's dating preferences. I was referring specially to the person receiving a derogatory comment about his stature, that was in the context of normal socializing. Again, it is not socially or morally acceptable to deride someone for their skin color, and my point is that it's equally unacceptable to do so on another genetic trait such as height. Just because that random man did not find the height adjusted man to be attractive or not has no bearing on whether he has the right to express derision about his height in such a nonchalant manner. I mean, it shouldn't be made illegal, but it shouldn't be socially acceptable either assuming all parties are not toxic and want to be part of well-intenioned society.
However, if we want to shift the topic to dating/attractiveness, your statement applies to people's "preferences" on race as well. OK Cupid published these preferences against black woman (and also Asian men) on their site. We can use this as an example because it's been more in the spotlight than the topic of stature, and easier to see my point.
My opinion on this is that if you are short/Black/Asian and dating then just skip to the next person who can't see past superficial physical qualities. Usually it's a sign of dating inexperience anyways. It's a free market, and the winners will be those that are able to make a decision beyond superficial factors. Many people can't see past the superficial qualities as trivial as a candidate being a woman instead of a man, and the same thing applies here. It's their loss. Societal trends will always lag reality. We can't force people to get up to speed, nor should we (and I never advocated for this). The best thing to do is to simply reward those who are prescient.
>the winners will be those that are able to make a decision beyond superficial factors
You're just inverting reality now. "The winners of dating are those that pick partners with the least desirable physical traits".
If there's two men with identical personalities, but one is 6'5 and muscular and the other is 4'2 and 300lbs what exactly would a woman be "winning" by going with the second man?
To be charitable to the GP, you could imagine that physical indicators that correlated/anticorrelated with success in the ancestral environment no longer did today, such that if you were picking between the 6'5 and 4'2 guys, the 4'2 guy has a highler likelihood of being a tech millionaire/programmer and resistant to microplastic-based infertility, and thus can provide/reproduce better than the 6'5 guy. I.e. the average woman's attractions aren't calibrated to the modern environment, much how most other instincts aren't calibrated to the modern environment.
So, over time, the rare woman who prefers short obese kings would outcompete the rest. I don't think this particular example is the case, but I do think something like this dynamic is happening.
(In the other direction, actually.)
