Dear Diary,
Today, I want to talk about something that has been plaguing womankind since the dawn of time, but has recently reached pandemic levels; short men with the confidence of LeBron James. And before the pitchforks come out, I don’t body shame.
I really don’t. I have a backside flatter than a 75-inch Samsung Flat Screen and I still dare to wear leggings in public. Who am I to judge anyone’s physical mis-proportions? But what I will judge is the audacity. The unearned, unexplained, absolutely bewildering audacity.
Last Thursday, I had one of those days. You know the ones, where your soul is leaving, your patience is drained, and your tired is tayad! I perched at the bar, legs crossed for balance and sanity, ready to sip my whiskey in peace and ponder about why my laundry multiplies faster than my savings.
I wasn’t being picky about company, until Mr. Booster Seat. He was perched at the other end of the bar, legs dangling like a child waiting for his Happy Meal, nursing a tall Nile Special that looked like a skyscraper in his hands. And this man, this tornado of misplaced confidence, looked at me like I’d been specifically marinated for him.
‘What beer can they give you?’ He offered, with the flourish of someone who definitely rehearsed that line in the mirror. ‘Black Label. Four shots. Neat,’ I replied, hoping the whiskey order would communicate the universal signal for Go Away! But no.
‘Madam, no one is buying you that!’
‘You are wrong. I am,’ I quipped.
You would think that would be the end of it. A polite closing of the conversational door. But hell knows no fury like a short man whose beer has been rejected by a whiskey-drinking girl. He shot off his barstool, and I mean literally launched himself, to stand and lecture me about why I should not assume he could not afford my drink.
It took every ounce of my willpower not to pick him up and place him on the bar counter so we could have this argument eye to eye. Here is what really gets me, this man’s confidence did not come from nowhere.
Somewhere, somehow, a kind-hearted woman looked at him and said, ‘You may be short, but it is sort of cute.’ She meant well. She was probably having her own moment of looks are not everything, let me give love a chance. She nurtured him. She suffered for it.
And then she launched him onto the rest of us.
Because now, every time we politely decline, every time we say ‘no thank you,’ every time we choose our whiskey over his beer, we get the speech.
‘You don’t know what you’re missing. Clearly you’ve never been with a real man.’ Sir, the only thing I’m missing out on is a quiet evening and my four shots of Black Label.
Short Kings, and yes, I’m talking to the ones we ditch our six-inch heels for so we don’t look like giraffes holding hands with a garden gnome: you already have so many shortcomings. Don’t add attitude to the cocktail.
Every time you see a 5’2′ man strutting around like a Greek god, chest puffed out, head tilted back as if he’s surveying his kingdom, just know; there’s a beautiful woman somewhere who accidentally created that monster and is now in therapy. She will never make that mistake again.
But the damage is done.
He is out here. Confident. Unshakeable. Delusional.
Next Thursday, I am drinking at home.