As any straight woman will tell you, it’s not unusual to see some version of “6’1”, if it matters” in men’s dating app bios. The phrase has become something of a cliché, with offenders often ridiculed on social media for being so prickly about their height. But in fairness, these kinds of bios – while gratingly passive-aggressive in tone – are responding to an undoubtedly real phenomenon where growing numbers of women are seeking men of above average height.

One viral graph, attributed to Bumble, suggests that of all the women who use height filters on the app, 60 per cent are seeking a man over 6’0”, with only 15 per cent open to dating men shorter than 5’8”. While some have cast doubt on whether this graph was ever actually published by Bumble, a former Bumble product manager confirmed to the Wall Street Journal in 2022 that the majority of women on the platform do “tend to set a floor of 6 feet for men”. Anecdotally, some men have reported accruing more matches on dating apps after lying about their height and broaching the 6’0” threshold.

“It’s common to see girls on Hinge choose the ‘biggest fear’ prompt and put ‘men under 6’0” as their answer,” says 22-year-old Connor, who is 5’9”. He adds that he believes some girls “definitely wouldn’t” be interested in him on account of his height alone. “It’s a little disheartening, but I’m mature enough to know that everyone has their own idea of what’s ‘attractive’.”

21-year-old Tom, who also stands at 5’9”, has had a similar experience. He says that the issue of height comes up “all the time” on dating apps like Hinge. “Profiles say things like ‘you should leave a comment if: you’re over 6ft’,” he says. “I know people have their preferences, but it’s almost every other profile.” He adds that he’s had dates express disappointment about his height to his face before. “It instantly makes you feel a bit shitty.”

This all chimes with 28-year-old Kyle, who is 5’8½” (“I’m quite specific, because if I said I was 5’8” I’d be downplaying it, but saying I’m 5’9” feels like I’m doing the classic thing of rounding it up”). He’s often suspected that many women on dating apps have set their filters to only show them profiles from taller men. “It’s kind of bizarre that you can choose to filter out profiles based on physical things,” he says.

Short men have long been regarded as less ‘desirable’ than tall men, according to multiple studies which found that women generally prefer a sizable height difference between themselves and their male partners. It’s worth acknowledging too that it’s unsurprising that women largely prefer taller partners, given that we’ve been socialised to associate being ‘small’ with femininity and desirability, while the patriarchy has insisted that the man’s role in a relationship (and society) is to be the ‘protector’ and physically larger. But neither Tom, Connor nor Kyle are even short. They’re perfectly average: according to NHS data, the average height of a UK man is 5’9”.

When people meet in real life, they realise that being hung up about someone’s height is kind of shallow and doesn’t mean anything

It’s fair to say that the pressure for men to be over 6’0” specifically has ramped up in recent years. It’s likely that expectations for how tall men should be began careening out of control with the advent of dating apps, thanks to their overemphasis on physical appearance and measurable categorisation. “Dating apps are reshaping the way we perceive and evaluate potential partners,” says Dr James Jackson, a reader in Psychology at Leeds Trinity University. “In app-based dating environments, people are presented not as living people but as profiles, flattened down into images, statistics – height, job title, location – and curated blurbs. Faced with hundreds of potential matches, people will quickly find ways of reducing this to a more manageable size. This is understandable as we have limitations on how many things we can consider at once, but leads to shallow decision-making.”

While tall men do evidently have a slight advantage in the dating pool, the situation is not quite as bad as some people (read: ‘heightpilled’ incels who feel compelled to undergo dangerous leg-lengthening surgery) would suggest. It’s pretty obvious that you aren’t literally barred from the dating pool if you’re under 6’0” – Tom Holland (5’7”) is dating Zendaya, after all. Many modern sex symbols are also well below the 6’0” threshold, from Jeremy Allen White (5’7”) to Zac Efron (5’8”). Timothée Chalamet and Walton Goggins are reportedly both 5’10”. See also: the recent rebranding of small guys as ‘short kings’.

Connor is sceptical of whether women who express a preference for tall men even mean it. “I think the whole ‘I love tall guys’ thing is a bit forced,” he says. “I don’t think it’s really a dealbreaker for as many girls as it seems.” He adds that he’s “definitely” had a better experience when approaching women in real life. “Online there’s this mindset that being 6’0” is a must – but in person you can’t tell the difference between 5’11” and 6’0”.”

This chimes with Kyle. “When people meet in real life, they realise that being hung up about someone’s height is kind of shallow and doesn’t mean anything,” he says. He adds that he met his girlfriend through mutual friends and – unsurprisingly – his height was never an issue. “[Shallow preconceptions] kind of go out the window when you meet in real life,” he says. “You don’t really notice things like height when you’re caught up in the excitement of everything.”

Plus, there’s often a gap between people’s self-reported preferences and their actual desires. Or, in other words, there’s a difference between what people say they want on dating apps and what really attracts them in real life. “Dating apps encourage trait-based decisions: users rely on profile details and photos, making choices based on abstract concepts. By contrast, offline attraction is holistic and dynamic, involving nonverbal cues, synchrony, and how someone makes you feel,” Dr Jackson explains.

“In real life, we’re drawn to things like how someone moves, how they listen or make us laugh, their energy, presence, and charisma,” he continues. “These are what we call ‘affective cues’ – these cues play a big role in forming real-world attraction, but they’re almost entirely absent online, where we judge people from a few photos. In person, we also tend to become more forgiving and open once we’ve formed a sense of someone’s warmth, humour, or kindness.” He adds that research shows physical appearance matters less and less over time in ongoing relationships, once deeper emotional bonds have begun to form.

This is one of the myriad issues with online dating: apps inhibit our ability to be curious and imaginative about what we might want. They expect us to possess an unrealistic level of self-knowledge about all of our desires, as if desire is fixed and immutable rather than fluid and ever-changing. But we don’t have to play by apps’ rules – disengaging from rigid ideas about physical ‘types’ and fostering open-mindedness remains our best bet when it comes to finding lasting love.