Katie writes: Because he’s tall, my husband, Andrew, puts our backpacking gear on the dining table, including our shoes, which I don’t think should be on eating surfaces. He says that he wouldn’t do it if he had stepped in dog poop, and that the thousands of steps we take each day remove anything objectionable.
Setting aside that weird brag, let’s first establish that being tall does not entitle you to put your hiking boots on the dining table. But I get why you bought this premise. The tall guys I know get away with a lot. Height is the quiet superpower of passive intimidation. Andrew may not even realize, as he swans through the average-size world, why people instinctively get out of the way — of both his body and opinions. Nor does he probably appreciate how (semiliterally) belittling it is when he tries to talk you out of your feelings, rather than simply respecting them because he loves you. He should put that energy into finding a nice tall bench for the garage.