She's so teeny you could pick her up with one arm.
It’s around this time every term, when you’re straddling the terrifying abyss between weeks five and six, that your self esteem is at rock bottom. This is when you begin to loathe anyone who looks thinner/more alert/happier than you. My hatred is aimed solely, however, at Petite Girl.
In Boy World, Petite Girl is Dream Girl. She has such teeny hands that yours appear Huge and Manly in comparison. She doesn’t eat much, so you always feel macho when you compare meals with her at Hall. Perhaps her best attribute is her pitifully low alcohol tolerance – she’s a complete lightweight, so she never puts you to shame.
Petite Girl is so perfectly obliging that she can be photo-shopped in to any vaguely romantic moment, since her minute proportions make her the obvious choice for the role of ‘weak, ailing woman’ versus ‘strong, strapping man’. Swinging her off her feet and holding her above your head for requisite mutual stare of adoration as you frolic in the winter snow on the Backs of Trinity? Check. Carrying her in your arms as you head for home after a particularly exhausting dancing sesh in Fez? Check. Sitting her on your knee as she gives up her seat on a crowded Friday night in The Eagle to the nearest Bigger, Taller girl? Check Check Check.
Petite Girl is dainty, graceful and lithe. She is Audrey Hepburn burning her soufflé in ‘Sabrina’. She is Natalie Portman facing the Jedi Council in ‘Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace’. People stop to help her pick up the shopping she has dropped on the pavement, because she is so helpless. Dinner ladies give her extra portions in the canteen, because she clearly needs fattening up. Club bouncers check her ID with amused expressions. Old ladies smile at her, young children gaze at her.
But let’s not get too starry-eyed. Let’s bring Petite Girl back down to earth, and imagine what she represents for the L.A.D.s in College: an endless source of banter. Her feet are size 4, for Christ’s sake! Her clothes are child-size, her handbags drown her, and when she wears her gown to Formal, she looks like Hermione Granger, circa 2001. Just look at that cute little chin you can cup in your hand! Behold, that charming little waist you can span with your hands! Consider the infinite amusement that can be had when you mimic her high-pitched laugh! She is the favourite prey of every torso in the College Bar because she is the Platonic Idea of femininity – with a girl this tiny, what more could you want?!
But shed some thought, my dear readers, for Tall Gangly Girl. Too heavy to occupy the knees of any male friend, she is doomed to a fate of standing about in pubs, clubs and other social hubs, waiting for some guilty onlooker to finally acknowledge that despite being Tall, she is still just as weary as any other girl. Tall Gangly Girl is slightly hapless and occasionally clumsy – but if she drops her file, you won’t be helping her retrieve all those lecture notes that have been lodged in various shrubs littering the Fellows’ Garden. With legs that long, she should be able to run after those A4 pages herself.
And woe betide Tall Gangly Girl when she pops on a pair of heels. She won’t be getting any chat in the College Bar, oh no. Because when Tall Gangly Girl is suddenly a foot taller than you, there is no way in hell that you will ever approach her to have a friendly natter about the rising prices of a G-and-T. You definitely won’t challenge her to a straw-pedo, because she will definitely beat you, and you won’t casually drop into conversation the stunning goal you scored in the College Mixed Lacrosse match earlier that day, because she plays two Blues sports. Maybe if you just ignore her, you can also ignore that assault on your masculinity that her height poses.
So, revellers, the next time you are out and about and Tall Gangly Girl is chasing after her Sainsbury’s-Be-Good-to-Yourself tangerines, which have rolled into the gutter as a result of a split in her woefully inadequate plastic bag, please stand guard by the rest of her shopping until she comes back. If you see her looking lonely as she towers over the masses at the bar, invite her to sit down (emphasis on the action of ‘sitting’) with the rest of your posse so you can view her at eye-level, rather than staring straight into her chest.
And maybe, if you’re feeling really kind, you could even utter those immortal words that Tall Gangly Girl has been waiting to hear for the majority of her life so far: “I prefer tall girls.”
i'm just a gangly girl wanting to be loved…
She doesn't just make my hands appear huge and manly in comparison…
Pipe down Tall Gangly Pithers.
How ironic it is that all 'petite girl' craves is to have limbs long and elegant like 'tall gangy girl' and how inferior she feels compared to the latter's supermodel stature.
Spare a thought for the girl who is tall but, rather than gangly, instead built like a linebacker.
i am 5ft 1 and hate it, i wish i was more like 5ft 5
What about girl who is 5'2" but could never be described as petite? More appropriate words being squat, short, stumpy or "buxom". Spare a thought for her as drunken males, seeing her hight, try and pick her up to show their masculinity and end up with 2 slipped discs.
as long as they're hot, it's all good
can i get the girl in the picture's number? please? she fine
petites make me starry eyed
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmvI98s2jno
Girls girls girls, you all need to stop worrying about how you look, because in this day and age you can fix any physical defects with surgery. So for the time being just work on that Cambridge degree so that you can one day afford that much needed repair.
I dont think thats very funny Ken. Women all over cambridge have body issues and you think its a good idea to make jokes about that???
From your picture you dont look particularly dashing anyway.
Oh, I thought that was my best picture
. I guess I have had a taste of my own medicine. Let this be a lesson to everyone: be careful what you write in the comments section, someone's feelings might get hurt 
.
I apologise to all those that have been affected by my tasteless remarks. I did not stop to think that the topic was not well suited to humour. Doing some of my own research, I found out that 50% of women suffer from P.E., while another 25% said they probably would if they were tall. This statistic shocked me so much that I'm going to use all my power to not joke about it anymore, and instead go back to rape jokes.
marcus. i don't like you tone
[...] Inventive Insults. In Rates purely because of their inventiveness and sheer deadpan execution. I salute the ‘offenders’ in question. The illustrious and lovely president of my drinking society: “You know, Eyes Wide Shut, the one with Tim Cruise and Nicole Kidman and the guys in cloaks and orgies and the weird sex cult? Phoebe, you must have seen it.” All eyes on Phoebe. I am obviously the sort who looks as though they may have the results of the Google search for ‘weird sex cults that partake in cloaked orgies’ in my ‘Favourites’. (Is it the bob? The over-long arms that are definitely out of proportion with the rest of my body?) My mother: “You’ve given up drinking for Lent? Oh darling, you must be losing so much weight!” Er. Thanks Mum. Obviously this was enough to send me straight back to the bottle (see Slates). “Nah. I wouldn’t want to marry Phoebe. She’s too tall.” I was wearing heels. I’m not even that tall. Of all the things to select, pick something that genetics decided for me and annihilate my already dented self-image (thanks Mum). Woe is me. [...]
It's good to see that the 'comments section' of The Tab hasn't descended into a vehicle to express the insecurities of it's chief editor, perhaps as some form of catharsis. Thanks to Ms.Pithers we can all really connect with the plight of the world's apparently most hard done by character: the tall woman.
Pfft give me a break, short guys have it way tougher.