What does it feel to be a tall guy?

Life as a tall man gives me many good and bad experiences, perceptions and impressions from other people. Of course everything in this world has its own pros and cons. So does being a tall man. If I remembered back, I realized that I have been a tall boy when I was 12 years old. An ustazah of mine stood beside me in school and told me “haziq, tingginya awak”. I smiled. It was not that I really happy when she told me that, it was just I did not know what to respond. Hehe.

Actually, I am not that tall compared to my older brother and yes I am not really tall when compared to foreigners from Europe and Arab. There are some problems, memories or maybe experiences I have faced throughout my life as a so called tall man that I want to share.

1. When you are tall, you will have difficulties when performing your prayer in jamaah. The problem occurs when the space between the saff are not big enough. You will especially feel uncomfortable during sujood.

2. This happened to me during my school days. My friends, or sometimes my teachers asked me for help to do something at a higher place. I was the one who will take a clock to be repaired and put it back to the wall, I was the one who will clean up dirty ceiling fans, I was the one who will attach the curtains and clean up the upper part of whiteboard. Many other tasks I have done in school because of my height. 

3. I remember when I was younger; a lot of adults who saw me will tell me to become a police or a soldier. And sorry to say, not only my body is skinny, but I am also not interested in becoming neither a police nor a soldier.

4. Throughout my life so far, I have received a lot of opinions and suggestions from my friends, acquaintances, and even strangers for me to involve in sports like basketball, volleyball and also football. I love sports but amongst the suggestions, football is the only one I love to play.

5. It is not easy to accept nicknames that I think are not necessary to use towards myself. I used to be called “hantu galah”, “panjang”, flag pole and giraffe by my friends. As the time passes, I do not mind what nicknames they give to me as long as the names do not mean anything bad. But I cannot accept nicknames given by strangers. Hehe.

6. We all always had to queue during our school times. As usual, the talls will have to stand at the back of the line. I rarely got to queue in front of the line.

7. Given a long body, of course I got long hands. Because of that, I used to be called monopod. Whenever they want to take selfies, the one who will hold the camera or phone is me.

8. A lot of people think that person with long legs will run faster than short people. They are wrong. The proof is me. Yes I have long legs, but I run a bit slow. But not all tall people will run slowly. For instance, Usain Bolt, the fastest man in the world.

9. Tall man is rarely born in Asia. So, there are many people are shorter than me. My friends, many of them are shorter than me. They sometimes tell me that they are embarrassed every time we walk together, particularly in a shopping complex and every time they say like that, I will tell them to stay away from me. Just kidding.

10. Car seat is another problem for people with long legs. They will always need to sit in front because the front seat is adjustable. If they are to sit at the back, they will have a hard time. Only tall people will understand this.

11. Sometimes being a tall guy is not fun because when a shorter people want to talk to us, he/she will ask us to sit down. Who they think they are?! Hah?!! Hahaha

I think those are all that I can share for the time being. If you ask me if I am happy to be a tall guy, yes I will say I am. Why? Because people will always “memandang tinggi” towards us. Besides that, a friend of mine once said, girls like tall guys. I wonder if I have secret admirers or not. Hehe. Maybe some of you are wondering how tall I am. The last time I measured my height, it was 1.86m.

Pardon my grammar errors (if any).