I'm a tall girl who hates being called "big". Can anyone else relate?

You are waaaay overthinking this. Someone calls you “big”, and you know that they mean “tall” and it upsets you? If you were 15 I could see it, but I’m guessing you’re not.
To answer the Q, no. I’ve always been a very short person, and people would say “how can you be so angry, you’re so little?” or they would pat my head and call me Gidget. It stopped upsetting me that people would comment about my height when I was in my early 20s. This is in no way something you should concern yourself with, you are causing yourself undue distress.

No girl or woman enjoys being called “big.” If someone has a valid reason for referring to your height – clearly, it was unnecessary for your coworker to describe any physical attribute – that person should say “tall.” If you’d been a man of short stature, I’m guessing that your colleague wouldn’t have said, “Yeah, a little guy too.”

I’m 5’7” and 125 lbs. I’m not big by anyone’s reckoning. A generation or two ago, I might have been tall; now I’m about average. Still, I occasionally get called “big,” and it always stings.

@Love_my_doggie

Thanks, I’m glad I’m not the only one.

This is what I currently look like. Clearly I’m not dainty but I don’t think I’m “big”, either. It’s a crappy word and rude one at that.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B56JLWgJ_XcbcFRlaFdSV3Rlams/view

I’m tall (5’10’’) and not willowy either. I absolutely hate it when I get called big. Tall is fine but big implies fat. No-one wants to be called fat.

I have had short hair in the past, which actually suits me but I can’t stand the fact that short hair combined with being tall makes people mistake me for a man. I know how enraged this makes me feel is out of all proportion but I cannot get away from the feeling that they are insulting me with the biggest insult ever.

So yes. I can relate!

I have never had the word “big” applied to me (I’m not that tall), but I would hate it. Perhaps marginally less than being called a “girl”, though.

In combination, the phrase “big girl” is exactly what one would (either dismissively or encouragingly) call a child, and so I imagine it’s even more infuriating. I sympathize; you have every right to be annoyed by it. If it were said by someone I know, I would likely comment on it. There’s little to be gained by commenting to a stranger, though.

No one can tell you how to feel about anything, but I would bet that the woman meant big as in height.
I do think you over reacted by the name calling in a professional environment. You weren’t out on the street or in a bar.
I can relate to this in the opposite direction as I’m short and have heard every short joke there is. On top of that, I’m blonde, so I get those jokes too.
You need a thicker skin to make it through life, so that’s something I suggest you work on.

@LeavesNoTrace No, you’re not the only one. Not at all.

I was once working Saturday in an place that was closed during weekends; people could enter the building’s lobby, but they couldn’t use the elevator without a passkey. I found an old man stuck in the lobby, trying to get to my office. I graciously offered to help and said that I could take him upstairs. He made some comment about the two of us being alone in the elevator, then he said, “A big girl like you shouldn’t be afraid of anything.” Those words were offensive, inappropriate, and hurtful. This old man was maybe 5’2”; if I’d been a nastier person, I might have responded, “I guess a little, tiny guy like you must often fear for his life.”

@chyna To be fair, I don’t think I’ll ever see her again. It’s a big co-working space and we don’t know each other.

Yeah, I know not the best reaction, but TBH I don’t regret it.

@Love_my_doggie, That is so inappropriate and CREEPY!

Why should anyone comment about another person’s physical attributes? Doing so is perfectly fine if one’s trying to describe and identify someone; “John can help you with that. His office is three doors to the left, and he’s very tall, has dark hair, and wears eyeglasses.” That isn’t offensive. But, if John walks in and someone says, “Here’s beanpole now!” or “Hi, Four Eyes!,” that’s rude and unsettling.

I want to preface my response with an observation that is peripheral to your situation, but wholly pertinent to the State of Connecticut, and specifically the University of Connecticut, whose mascot is a Husky Dog, and whose students are known collectively as “huskies”. You can surely see where this is going. Please bear with me.

When he started coaching the women’s basketball team at UConn, Geno Auriemma was a nobody. That was appropriate, because he was coaching a women’s basketball team at a backwater college in a sleepy town in a rural corner of a tiny white-bread state at a time when no one even cared about women’s college basketball and UConn had never won a single championship. Most people couldn’t find UConn with a map. I often think about what an amazing salesman he must have been in those early days, recruiting athletic and talented young women to go to this Podunk school (well, almost literally a Podunk school, because Podunk, Massachusetts – a real place – is an easy half-hour’s drive from the campus) in sleepy Eastern Connecticut to play for a school and a coach whom no one had ever heard of before… and be afterward forever known as a “Husky Woman”. These were high-school age female basketball players; they were already larger and taller young women, and now – and forever after – they’d be known as “Huskies”. And still, he recruited them, started a winning program, and now few people think of those early days any more.

You may not be a basketball player. Indeed, you may not be athletic in any way. It hardly matters. You’re a big girl, so accept it: own it, take it as part of your truth, whether you like it or not. While people frequently and unthinkingly comment – sometimes rudely – about our physical characteristics both in front of us and behind our backs, it’s not often meant maliciously. But it could be…

If people discover that you’re in any way sensitive about your height, then it becomes a tool in their arsenal against you if they do want to be malicious. I would advise you against handling out weapons to potential enemies. Worse, taking offense where none was meant, creating an enemy, and then handing them a weapon. Who would knowingly do that?

I can’t tell you the number of times in my life that I’ve been derisively called “a smart guy”. I’m not always that bright, but I have been smart enough to shut up and not remind the speaker/s that:
– I’m smarter than you even imagine or could possibly dream about.
– I’m smarter than people much smarter than you even read about.
– I’m smarter than you and a million other monkeys could write about on a million typewriters.

And so forth. In other words, just smart enough, sometimes, to STFU. I’m not telling you to STFU. I’m just saying that when the sun is shining and the sky is blue and people comment that “you get to enjoy it before everyone else” or whatever other idiotic thing that people will say to you from time to time – it’s true. So accept it, ignore it if you can (it gets easier with practice, if you work on considering that it’s almost never personal) and move on. Taking offense, getting angry and snapping back is going to make you enemies that you probably don’t need – and give them the first weapon.

That’s not smart. Be smart.

I’m going to plead the Four Seasons (Big Girls Don’t Cry)

@CWOTUS “I can’t tell you the number of times in my life that I’ve been derisively called “a smart guy”.”

What I think a lot of men don’t understand is that the male equivalent of “girl” is not “guy”. The male equivalent of “girl” is “boy”.

Has anyone ever told you that you’re a smart boy? Would your reaction to that be different?

@CWOTUS You do know that UConn’s mascot is a Siberian dog and not a hefty person?

It’s garbage behavior to make unwanted comments about people’s bodies. Full stop.

I live in a city of 8 million people and see people of all shapes and sizes every day. Somehow I manage to STFU and keep my opinions to myself.

I think it’s good for me to know that big might really hurt when used in lieu of tall, but I would say to you if they (whoever they are) are truly using big and tall synonymously then they are not calling you fat. Not in their minds. That was not their intention. It doesn’t mean they should not be more careful, but I think the intention counts. They aren’t trying to be malicious.

Interesting, I always pause before I point out someone is short, because most short people seem to be really hung up about it. When I hit 5’5” I wanted to stop growing! I’m 5’6”. I don’t like to tower over other women, and it happens more often than you might think even at my height. Possibly, and I might be projecting, both being called big or tall bothers you. You’re not comfortable with your height either, so any reference to your “size” is unnerving. I’m guessing there.

I don’t use the word big I don’t think referencing height, except for children, but for children it’s used more in reference to age. A big girl means a child who is getting older.

Big is an incensative word to use to describe a woman, there is no question, but I can see it being used to describe a woman your size without malice. You’re “bigger” than average. A tall woman is not expected to have a 26” waste. Everything gets bigger proportionately. When I’m in parts of the Midwest I notice all the tall people, men and women. German and Viking genes up there.

My MIL once called my husband “ancho” which means wide. He is a very average stature. 5’10” and wears a 42 jacket and 32 pant. Sometimes he is an inch bigger in both when he gains weight. Relative to her, and her people, he is “big.” Everything is relative. She certainly didn’t mean any malice, she just used the word ancho when she was telling I made mistake only getting a queen size bed for my condo.

I was called a skinny long necker in grade school.

I am tall, athletic and naturally large framed (large head, large shoulders, broad ribs, very large pelvis, thick wrists and ankles), so yes I do understand. I often joke that I am average in size… for a guy. Other people take it negatively, as well. As women it is most desirable in our culture to be small, petite, dainty, delicate, so being the opposite of those things can feel like an automatic negative. When I refer to myself as “big” other people also frequently assume that I’m insulting myself.

Even though I realistically know that I have a proportionate, healthy figure and a good waist/hip ratio, I have struggled all of my life with feeling unfeminine. I used to slouch or try to shrink down into myself in order to appear smaller, but it just made me look sloppy with poor posture. I have also struggled with excessive dieting and the constant battle to attempt to shrink myself, but even if I were underweight I would still be a lot bigger than your typical woman. Part of the problem is really that we associate “big” with weight and in our culture being called “fat” is generally seen as incredibly insulting. Even if a person is fat, it’s seen as an insulting word, because “fat” has many negative connotations in our society. It’s not just a descriptor in many cases, it is meant as an insult with a much deeper meaning than an observation on a person’s BMI. Pile that on top of being a woman who is not the ideal, small in stature, it’s easy to develop a complex. Especially when you’re shopping. Clothing is not meant to fit a variety of body types or shapes, let alone heights and frames. Long pants are easier to find, but tall shirts? Tall jackets? I also happen to be busty on top of tall, so I need more room in the chest and shoulders, but not in the waist or hips, which means that I am always on the brink of hulking out of structured tops or have to buy everything in potato sack size. It is accurate to call myself big and it is accurate for other people to call me big, as well. I’m not insulting myself, and neither are other people who describe me as “big,” I AM big.

But, commiserating aside, the truth is that I’m pretty sure that although it isn’t something that sounds good on paper or just because it isn’t the conventional ideal, I still don’t think it’s as glaring of a “flaw” as we might think it is. I think that other people might say things without thinking and it’s not because they mean to be insulting, it’s just a descriptor like “brown hair” or “short.” Taking it as an insult is probably an internalized reaction that says more about our experience growing up in our skin than it does about the people who use them. Barring examples where people are being insulting, in which case, I say call them a jackass and move on.

I’m 5’9’’ and I couldn’t tell you how many times both men and women put me down, in one way or another, because of it. “I would never want to be that tall” coming from women and “I could never date a tall woman” from guys – who I wasn’t even remotely interested in, in the first place. They just offered their unsolicited opinions, randomly, when height wasn’t even a topic of discussion. So yes… I know how it feels to be constantly called out for your height.

Honestly, I think there’s a 50/50 chance that the woman was being genuinely mean. There’s no way to tell or not from what you’ve written. And like I said, people are rude about it so often that I think it could really go either way. The fact is, though, that other people don’t determine how you feel about yourself. Assholes are assholes and they’ll always exist. Only you can determine your self-worth, and I can tell you right now, it doesn’t exist in your dress size, your height, or any other arbitrary number. However, I know how hard it can be. You genuinely just have to work on loving yourself, as cheesy as it sounds.

I would never call a woman “big”.
I think it’s rude. “Tall”, perhaps, but never “big”.

Do you hear “big” more from men or women, @LeavesNoTrace?
I’m betting women?

I know it may be hard at times but simply ignore and stay away from people who judges you or makes unpleasant comments for the things about yourself that are not your choice, like your height, your skin color, your origin, your gender, (put anything here that are given to you without you making a choice).