The more that I think about it, the more I think I am wanting to focus this on the male friendship circle. I think the part about the short jokes has me thinking about bullying and pecking order. Then I think about the fact that short people feel as though they have to compensate in other ways in corporate America.

Here's my new theory: Men have some sick desire to establish a pecking order, and to be as high as possible on that pecking order. Even those at the bottom crave to be higher. Call it competitive spirit, but that's just a nice way of putting it. A few will ignore the pecking order all together and just find inner peace. I really feel like I have done that in my life. But now, my son is going through what all I went through as a kid, and it is stirring up those old competitive feelings again. (I have another thread on bullying around here somewhere). And these feelings are making me take notice that I really don't have much of a social life, which makes no sense to me considering how well I get along with everyone!

But my point is, there is a some sort of deep sub-conscious "scoring" method. This explains why kids are bullied. And the bullying continues into adulthood with "harmless" short jokes. Or fat jokes. Or whatever. Then to take the power away from the jokers, we self-deprecate with our OWN short jokes, before they get the chance. That only scores you down by a half a point instead of a full point. Then to get the points back, we try to over achieve. We try to be a ladies man. We try to get rich. We try to have better stuff, or go on more vacations. We tease someone for being too tall, which doesn't really get any points back, but it gets you some partial points for being a "good sport", or for having a good sense of humor.

It is all a need to establish yourself higher on the ladder. It comes from childhood. Someone with multiple strikes against them are destined to be bullied. Those with all winning characteristics will surely be very successful. And those in the middle will learn to play the game, pushing people down to elevate themselves, while simultaneously networking with those higher than they are.

And specifically, if one of your strikes is that you are short, because height is a physical characteristic,you will overcompensate by being overly aggressive, physically. This is the "little guy" syndrome. I have always prided myself on not having "little guy" syndrome. But I totally get why it happens. They HAVE to compensate for the points that others zap them for being easy targets. Unfortunately, it usually turns into OVER-compensating.