Let me ask you this: What's it like being exceptionally tall?
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Your support makes all the difference.I can give some obvious drawbacks. For instance, flights where you aren't in an exit or bulkhead row are insane, and not just for you, but for the person in front of you. The last time I wasn't able to get a good seat the guy in front ended up switching with me. Sure, he was a nice guy, but quite literally the force of my knees on his seat was tilting him, and any time I adjusted (because I was in pain, for crying out loud) it meant a severe jostling.
On the plus side. No one messes with me. Seriously, ever. It took me a while to realise this because of the late growth spurt. In retrospect it's pretty funny to think about me as an overgrown kid treading cautiously down a dark street oblivious of the fact that everyone else was seeing me and getting out of the way.
It's a very nice feeling to have when you can make people you care about feel safer just by being next to you.
Matt Johnson, 6'9"
Being an exceptionally tall woman is at times difficult. Emotionally draining, even. You can't help being the height that you are, and it hurts when people say things to you about your height without really thinking it over in their head first, like: "You have a pretty face – it's too bad you're so tall."
There are many pros and cons to being a tall woman and on the days when I'm feeling exceptionally low about my height, I try to remember that it's not a life-threatening disease or a case of abnormal medical phenomena. Physically different, but extremely healthy.
Abigail Harbour, 6'4"
The buttons along the side of cash-machine screens, where you press the button that corresponds to £10, £20, £40, and so on – do not in any way line up if you are tall. I have to bend down to ensure I am withdrawing £50 and not £100. Similarly, with cinema-ticket collection desks, I basically have to kneel.
Peter Clark, 6'3"
Living in Mexico, I saw a doctor who did a scan on me and determined the organ she scanned was much larger than it should be. This made me panic for a few days until the results came back normal. No, it wasn't an abnormally large organ. It was just abnormally large compared with women who are a foot shorter than me. This happened to Arianne Cohen, author of The Tall Book, when she was incorrectly diagnosed with pancreatic cancer while in Cambodia.
Katie Bremer, 6"
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