If I Said What You Said

  “I wonder if he has a girlfriend,” the barista said as the customer left the coffee shop.

  “I know, like I want to ask him,” said the second.

  “You know, he’s in the military!” the third chimed in.

  “I know, but not just in the military, he’s in like psychology too!”

  The baristas continued their praise of the oblivious customer as he crossed the road.

  As the man crossed, Alex glanced up to see what had attracted them to not only ogle as he left but actively pull him into their conversation. After all, he had been coming here for about six months now and had never been pulled into their conversations the way this man, or others they found attractive, had been. In fact, any conversations he had had were initiated by him.

  He watched as the man crossed. Red hair parted on the left and swooped to the right, a neatly trimmed short beard, broad shoulders, simple jeans with a long-sleeved blue shirt–simple, but stylish.

  It was like looking in a mirror… well, almost. The only difference that Alex could see was that this man was about 5'10" to 6'0" tall, as opposed to his 5'3". Oppression hit Alex in the chest, weighing his heart to sit on his diaphragm.

  This wasn’t the first time this kind of thing had happened. It had only been a few weeks ago that the baristas had begun making similar conversation about another attractive customer.

  “I just prefer guys that are tall,” the one barista had said. “Like, it’s whatever if you’re short, but I’m just not attracted if they’re not like 6'0".”

  That comment had screwed up his morning and caused him to leave the shop hours before he normally would have. It’s not like he was uncomfortable with his height, quite the opposite in fact. But him being okay with his height didn’t change the way it affected his life or how he was perceived by others. Or how, despite the many great qualities he did have, he would never get the opportunity to showcase them before being outright rejected from the get-go.

  He sat, staring blankly at his screen as he tried to push the event away, but he could feel the hurt and anger eating away at him. He could feel it, simmering underneath, threatening to boil over. He rolled his eyes and closed his laptop, collecting its cord and packing everything up.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  He grabbed his things and walked to the counter. He paused, heart thudding in his ears. He knew he would likely regret speaking up, but the hypocrisy had become too much to bear.

  “You know,” he began, forcing a laugh, “I was swiping on this dating app the other day and was so upset that it was only showing me fat girls. I only get so many matches a day, and half of them were being taken up by these women. I tried to look in my preferences setting, but I couldn’t find anything about having them filter out overweight women.”

  The baristas all looked at him with shock and disgust.

  “That’s pretty rude,” said one of the larger ones. “You should be more tolerant of women’s bodies, you know. That’s super shallow.” She rolled her eyes. “Ugh, fatphobia is such a problem nowadays.”

  “I know,” scoffed the second.

  He shrugged and smiled to himself. He had them.

  “Yeah, I guess it is pretty shallow to judge someone based on those kinds of things, huh? Although, it’s funny that wanting someone who takes care of themselves is ‘fatphobic,’ and yet it’s perfectly fine to openly talk about how you’re only attracted to tall guys.”

  He threw the hypocrisy in their face and watched as it slid off like a kid on a water slide.

  “Um, that’s just our personal preference,” the third said. “Some women struggle their whole life with their weight, you know, and it’s guys like you who push those unrealistic expectations on them to stay small and skinny.”

  “Right,” he responded, anger flaring. “It’s unreasonable for me to have preferences based on weight–a factor that can be largely controlled by the individual–but your preference for my height, something I can’t change regardless of anything I do, is perfectly acceptable. I mean, not even getting into all of the health problems that are associated with obesity–"

  “Well, there are plenty of health problems related to anorexia,” the larger one retorted.

  “Who said anything about anorexia?!” he scoffed. “Hell, I’m honestly not even saying they have to be thin. If anything, I prefer some meat on them. All I said was I didn’t like fat women, and that, for some reason, is a problem.”

  “Because you’re being–”

  “Because I’m being discriminatory about a preference that can be controlled and yet you’re not?” He paused and took a deep breath, for all the good it did for his heart rate. “Look, all I’m saying is, I know people have preferences, but just be aware that openly sharing them the way you were, especially about things they can’t control, can affect others. It hurts being told openly that something you can’t control is undesirable. You don’t consider it acceptable for me to talk about not liking fat women. It wouldn’t be acceptable if I talked about how I wasn’t attracted to a certain race of women. Why is height somehow different?”

  With that, he turned and stormed out. As he walked away, anger cooling into a dull headache, he knew nothing had really changed. He’d said his piece, but it probably wouldn’t matter. The double standard would remain, and he'd always be the villain in their version of the story.