I used to hate being tall. I know, it sounds like the opposite of a problem. But sticking out like a sore thumb in class photos, always having the pants that fit my waist only reaching my mid-calf and having the nickname “man hands” in seventh grade — a cruel, but honestly hilarious, joke — all seemed like huge drawbacks growing up. In pictures with my friends, I always have to do a half-kneel down just so that the proportions don’t look off, or, more realistically, that my head doesn’t get cropped out. But the worst came with sports. Growing up playing soccer and lacrosse, I was taught to play with physicality to beat my opponents to the ball and work around opponents under pressure. But the easiest person to blame in any sort of brawl on the field is the player who towers over everyone. If I was dribbling alongside an opponent and threw a little elbow, I would hit her in the neck. Taller people are always assumed to be the best at headers in soccer and really good at taking the draw in lacrosse, but I was usually mediocre in both.

My insecurity was extremely visible in my bad posture. My mother, being a professionally trained ballerina and a stickler for good posture, would get on me about the way I stand. “Shoulders back and down” would come out of her mouth twice a day, on a good day. She knew why I would resort to hunched shoulders and a forward-hanging neck — she knew I was trying to hide my height. She always said “own the tall,” but I couldn’t until just recently.

I am realizing that I forgot to mention how tall I am. I am 5 feet, 10 inches. This usually renders two different answers: either, “Wow that’s huge,” or “That’s not even that tall.” I would like to think, considering the average height for adult women in the United States is 5 feet, four inches, that the former is true. Now, I am no “size 13 men’s Nikes,” but I am a tall girl. And upon arriving at Binghamton, I realized just how many benefits there are to being tall.

For starters, I don’t have to worry about creepy guys hitting on me at parties, because they are usually intimidated. Now, this may be for other reasons, but sure, let’s credit it to my height. I can always spot my friends in the crowd, and it also gives me a very defining attribute. My friend told me that when he mentioned me in conversation to another student here, the student said, “Oh yeah, the tall one.”

One of my favorite new realizations is that when I walk into a room, people take notice. I realize this sounds arrogant, but it is true. When people take notice of you, they remember you, and when they remember you, you have a bunch of new friends. And what about the fact that tall people make more money? I’m serious! It is a simplistic idea that big and strong people are better at accomplishing big and strong tasks, but that is the way humans think. Malcolm Gladwell, in his book “Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking,” explains that an extra inch is worth about $800 in elevated earnings. Looking at this advance in salary within a whole career, you can see that it’s a lot of money.

But looking past social or even financial advantages, I have started to see my self-confidence also make advances. The reality is that you are the only one who makes these little nitpicky observations about yourself. No one else is that invested in your looks. It has taken me 18 years to figure this out, but I am glad I did. Oh, and on a separate note — I don’t think, outside of movies, that anyone has ever, without irony, said “How’s the weather up there?”

Carol Dineen is a freshman majoring in chemistry.