It’s easy to conclude that tall people rule the world.
In 2008, a Gallup survey found that tall people are likely to be happier than their shorter counterparts. A well-known paper by Princeton economists Anne Chase and Christina Paxson suggests that tall people, in the main, are more successful because, in the main, they’re smarter.
At Club Maggie’s, a sports bar with low ceilings on the lower level of the Lakewood Country Club, members of the Central Jersey Tall Friends Club questioned such short-sighted generalizations. The group is one of 54 North American chapters of Tall Clubs International, a social organization for tall people.
Over sandwiches, the members offered testimony that life at the top can be hard, even precarious. Imagine, for instance, having to wonder before entering a room if you might be garroted by a ceiling fan. “At the last minute, I remembered that this bar is in a basement,” said club president Karen Brown (5 foot 10), who feared that the tallest of the tall might not fit. In fact, although all safely made it to the table, one person’s head brushed the Guinness bunting that festooned the room, and set it to quivering.
“People assume if you’re tall, you’re self-confident, but that’s not always the case,” said the club’s 6-foot-tall social director, Rita Ann Bliden, a 48-year-old bookkeeper from Manalapan. For the regulars, the 34-member group constitutes a kind of second family—one with a fondness for bowling, ballroom dancing, and luaus. In principle, membership is limited to men and women over 21 who meet the height requirements (women must be at least 5 foot 10 and men 6 foot 2, in stocking feet); a bylaw allows for a small number of honorary members who fall short, so to speak, provided, as Brown makes clear, “they prove their worth” by engaging in club-related good works.
The organization can claim credit for at least five marriages, as well as an unknown number of relationships that were fun while they lasted. Having dated most of the eligible men in the club, Brown now prospects in other chapters. “Height isn’t everything,” she acknowledged, “but it’s hard to shake that I-want- to-be-with-a big-guy feeling.”
Since posting its social calendar on the website Meetup, the club has received inquiries from singles throughout New Jersey. Recently, two young women, perhaps looking for tall boyfriends, contacted Bliden about attending a club dinner. Brown was elsewhere when Bliden sent her a text message from the event. All it said was, “They’re short.”
Laurel Berger reported on the threat to the state’s red oaks in the April issue of New Jersey Monthly.