“Probably Taller Than You”: How Height Filters on Dating Apps Could Be Undermining Real Connections
At 6 feet 5 inches tall, the model often found men eager to chat, but their enthusiasm quickly faded once they discovered just how tall she really was.
“I noticed that most guys were okay with my height — as long as we weren’t out in public,” Burns recalled. “Behind closed doors it was fine. But once it was visible to others, I think it became a little too much for them to handle.”
Despite the reactions, Burns eventually found her match — a man six inches shorter, whom she met on Tinder. But she wonders: If they’d both had the option to filter by height, would they have ever swiped right on each other?
The idea is to help users connect with those whose height ranges align with their personal preferences — or biases.
Shorter Men Push Back
As news of the feature broke, many shorter men were quick to criticize it, arguing it gives women an easy way to exclude them entirely.
Why Height Matters — Perhaps Too Much
There’s no denying that height plays a major role in dating preferences. Studies consistently show that heterosexual women tend to prefer taller men, while men often seek out shorter women. But dating apps may be amplifying that preference in ways we don’t even realize.
According to Dr. Liesel Sharabi, an associate professor at Arizona State University who studies online dating, the availability of filters and the constant visual cues on dating apps make height more prominent than it used to be.
“When people see height listed so prominently — and when they’re given tools to filter for it — it suddenly becomes a major factor,” she explained. “Apps are basically telling you what should matter.”
Sharabi cautions that while knowing what you want in a partner is important, becoming too focused on a checklist — especially one based on superficial traits — can actually narrow your chances of finding a meaningful connection.
The Rise of Hyper-Specific Preferences
Most dating platforms already allow users to fine-tune who they’re looking for. Age, political views, smoking habits, even whether they want something casual or long-term — all of it can be filtered. Height, increasingly, is just another checkbox on that list.
And even before filters existed, height was often front and center in profiles. Sharabi says many users included it by default — either to stand out or to meet what they assumed were societal expectations.
“Some people probably believe their height makes them more attractive, so they highlight it,” she said. “Then others see that and feel like they should be mentioning their height, too. It becomes a cycle.”
Are Filters Making Dating Harder?
The irony of dating apps — tools designed to expand your dating pool — is that filters may actually be shrinking it. When people are encouraged to prioritize traits like height, they might overlook someone who could have been a perfect match in every other way.
Natasha Burns’ story is a perfect example. Had height filters existed when she met her now-husband, they might never have connected. Today, they’re happily married — proof that real love doesn’t always fit neatly within a set of preferences.
“It’s funny to think about,” Burns said. “If we’d filtered each other out because of something like height, I would have missed out on the best relationship of my life.”
In the end, filters can be useful tools — but they also risk turning dating into a numbers game where qualities that truly matter, like kindness, compatibility, and emotional support, take a back seat to arbitrary stats.
As dating apps continue to evolve, the challenge will be helping people find love not just by refining their options — but by encouraging them to expand their horizons.
Are Height Filters on Dating Apps Fueling Dishonesty and Bias?
The fixation on height often pushes users to bend the truth, said Dr. Liesel Sharabi. With the introduction of height filters on apps like Tinder, some singles may feel even more pressure to fudge their stats just to stay visible.
“People start thinking, ‘What’s an extra inch?’” Sharabi explained. “It feels like a small lie — one they believe is necessary to get noticed.”
Even with Tinder’s new feature, which lets paying users set height preferences, shorter users aren’t automatically filtered out. TikTok creator iPadTinderGirl, for instance, set her match range between 6 feet and 7 feet 11 inches — yet the first profile she saw still belonged to someone under six feet tall.
“It’s not a strict exclusion,” Sharabi clarified. “But by setting those preferences, you’re nudging the algorithm to prioritize certain types of people over others.”
Filters and the Bias They Reinforce
While conversations about height and dating can sometimes veer into toxic or misogynistic rhetoric, there’s some truth behind the concerns raised by shorter men. Sharabi pointed out that men of shorter stature are statistically at a disadvantage in online dating.
A 2013 study revealed that heterosexual women place more importance on a partner’s height than men do — though many men also express a preference for shorter women.
“Women can afford to be more discerning because they’re often in higher demand,” Sharabi noted. “And height is one of those traits that tends to get emphasized — sometimes unfairly.”
But it’s not just shorter men who are at a disadvantage. Tall women, too, might find themselves sidelined by the very same filters. If many users are filtering for someone shorter or of a specific height range, tall women could also experience fewer matches, Sharabi said.
In the end, dating app filters may feel like a convenient way to find someone who fits your preferences. But they can also reinforce unconscious biases, encourage misrepresentation, and limit real opportunities for connection. After all, love isn’t always about the numbers — sometimes, it’s found when you least expect it, standing a few inches outside your ideal.
“I don’t understand why being ‘feminine’ has to mean being small,” Natasha Burns said.
Burns challenges a common societal narrative: that femininity is tied to petite frames. And she’s not alone. According to Dr. Liesel Sharabi, there’s nothing inherently wrong with being drawn to tall men or preferring a certain height dynamic in a relationship. But those preferences aren’t formed in a vacuum.
“Our likes are shaped, at least in part, by cultural expectations,” Sharabi explained. “We associate height with power, dominance, and status — and those ideas often come from deeply rooted gender norms that expect men to be protectors and women to be delicate.”
It’s when these assumptions go unchecked — especially in digital spaces — that they start to shape our dating behavior. In real life, people might connect based on chemistry, shared experiences, or unexpected sparks. But when filters come into play, those spontaneous connections can get lost.
“Meeting someone in person allows room for surprise and compatibility beyond the surface,” Sharabi said. “But with filters, we often eliminate potential matches before they even have a chance. We’re narrowing the field based on preconceived ideas.”
In other words, dating apps may be making it easier to stick to biases we might not even realize we have — and making it harder for meaningful, serendipitous connections to happen.
Before online dating became the norm, dating apps were envisioned as great equalizers — tools meant to help people in less active dating scenes connect with a vast pool of potential partners, said Dr. Liesel Sharabi.
But over time, the design has shifted. With filters now front and center, users can narrow their search down to highly specific criteria — an ideal match crafted almost like a checklist. Ironically, though, the more precise the search, the harder it becomes to actually find someone who ticks every box.
“And at a certain point, it starts to resemble online shopping more than dating.”
That wishlist mentality sparked controversy recently when Twitch streamer Charlie Schroeder took to X (formerly Twitter) to comment on the height discourse. Her post, aimed at women who set sky-high height expectations, quickly drew backlash:
“Not to side with the men here,” she wrote, “but why do women 5’3” and under have such strong preferences for men 6ft+? You are a hobbit. 5’8” is tall enough.
The post lit up the timeline, with some defending the right to personal preferences and others criticizing the way dating expectations have become exaggerated and unrealistic — especially on apps designed to foster genuine connections, not just checkboxes.
Hobbit jokes aside, Twitch streamer Charlie Schroeder has noticed that the obsession with the “6-foot benchmark” has only grown stronger — a trend she attributes to the widespread influence of dating apps.
“People on these platforms start to feel more like data points than actual humans,” Schroeder told CNN. “You’re swiping through profiles trying to decide if you’re attracted to someone based on a set of stats. Somewhere along the way, six feet tall became this magic number — shorthand for attractiveness, masculinity, whatever people think it represents.”
But Schroeder believes that this fixation can actually work against users, potentially cutting them off from meaningful relationships.
“Height doesn’t tell you anything about someone’s personality or ability to connect with you on a deeper level,” she said. “It’s just a number.”
Both Schroeder and model Natasha Burns have learned this firsthand. Schroeder, who has long since abandoned Tinder, said she often ends up dating men shorter than her and women who are taller — purely by coincidence. Burns, meanwhile, is happily married to a man several inches shorter than she is, and neither of them sees the height gap as an issue.
While dating apps often encourage hyper-specific filtering — and in many cases that can help users avoid clashing values or incompatible lifestyles — that same precision can sometimes backfire. Focusing too much on things like height might cause someone to overlook a truly compatible match.
“If you’re using height as a dealbreaker,” said Dr. Liesel Sharabi, “you could be ruling out people who would otherwise make wonderful partners — people you might actually click with if you met them in person.”
The bottom line? If you’re serious about finding someone kind, funny, and genuinely compatible, it may be time to loosen your grip on the ruler.