Thursday 7 November 2013

Sideswiped again

What is it with people commenting on how tall you are. Even after all this time it still shocks me that people seem perfectly OK commenting on your height.

Out to lunch with a group of people I know slightly. Lovely lunch, lots of chat. We get up to leave and a man says 'lovely to meet you, shame you're so tall'????

Is there any other physical characteristic that people feel able to comment loudly upon for no reason?

OMG but you're short, fat, bald, skinny???

10 comments:

  1. And what a pity he had to speak up....you might have been in doubt as to his intelligence level until then...

    I cannot conceive of a situation where one would comment on another's physical characteristics....once the juvenile stage of shouting of 'four eyes' at people wearing spectacles is behind young idiots.

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  2. Weird isn't it. In a way it matters not at all but it surprises me every time.

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  4. My 6ft sister and her even taller daughter get this all the time and yes, it's so rude, Rosie. I'm a mere 5'7" nowadays, but even I tower over the average Norman woman of my age, though I've never heard an audible comment about this. :-)

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    1. In France, there is an assumption that I am Dutch, but generally it is just added to the list of other oddities they see!

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  5. There is a movie which has Chevy Chase and his wife are leaving the city and moving to the country... I can't remember the name just now.... I'll google it later... In that movie there is a scene where she smacks him right between the eyes. He stands there stunned and she simply says 'Mosquito…..' as explanation and then walks away. I think this is an appropriate time to do this. It’s better than the slap across the cheeks or the grabbing-of-the-collar-shaking-of-the-head I want to give!
    I'm still surprised when people say it to me. Of course I simply smile and say 'Yes". And I'm only 5'10"! But I grew up in an age when most of the kids in school were an undernourished 5'4" in high school! In addition, because I now live in Australia it seems it’s perfectly acceptable for all and sundry to converse with me in a mimic of my Yorkshire accent! Mostly they sound like Lancashire folk in doing so but please .... Its tiresome.!
    Etiquette and manners were there for a reason. Just because we live in liberal and free times doesn’t mean we have to no absolutely no boundaries in public!

    Oh, I googled…. the Chevy Chase movie is Funny Farm!

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    1. We all just smile and look down on the speaker in a sort of bemused way.
      Oh the temptation of 'mosquito'. Love it, thank you.

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  6. One man - is it always men??- managed to get both me and the 5 ft lady I was standing next to in one swipe. 'The long and the short of it'. MOSQUITO

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