I walked away from a date because the girl said ''you're attractive despite being short'' Long story short: I'm 30, I'm an Italian man and I'm 5'9. I moved to America a few years ago, I found a job here after University. I think Americans are friendly, cool people and the country undoubtedly has a lot of beautiful places, but the height obsession in this country is simply absurd from the point of view of an outsider, and I do not want to date anyone any woman here anymore, I think I want to fly back to Europe and that's a shame because I actually like everything else in America, but not the dating game. I went on a date with this girl, the date was going well and we were having fun, at some point though she said ''you're very attractive despite being a little short'', I walked away after she said that, immediately. She tried to apologize, but that was absolutely a deal breaker for me, then she tried to text me and apologize, she said ''you're good-looking and you have other qualities that are more important than your height'' and I was like ''no madam, I do not want to feel like I need other qualities to compensate for my lack of height, because my height isn't a flaw'' The average man in Italy is 5'9 - 5'10, which means that even in my country I'm not considered tall (but 5'9 is average and totally acceptable in Italy), the main difference is that women and most people just do not care about height. False modesty aside, I'm not ugly at all, and I lost the count of how many times in Italy I was the shortest guy in a room or at a party, yet I was the one being stared at or hit on, but this isn't just Italian women, this is most southern Europeans, I went on a dinner with a few Spanish and Southern American friends some time ago, I hadn't moved to America yet, there were taller guys at the table, but the girls were just paying attention to me and ignoring the other guys because they evidently thought I was the most attractive one despite not being the tallest. ​ I think that this heightism is just a cultural thing in the US/Canada and Southern European countries, but to me it's a very shallow metric to measure someone's attractiveness, I see a lot of dudes walking around with a perfect posture all the time because they want to show off their height and as an Italian I look at them and think ''dude what the heck relax, you're standing straight like a soldier'' I'm not looking for advice, things just are the way they are and I can't expect to change America's culture, I'm just venting, I'll move back to my country and this problem will be solved lol. -throwaway