A few years ago, my best friend, Graeme, was getting an ear infection treated when he decided to ask his doctor about recurring back pain.

"How tall are you?" he asked, eyeing Graeme's lanky frame.

"Six foot 2."

Without pausing, Graeme's doctor informed him, in a tone worthy of a biblical proclamation, "You will have back problems."

I am 6-foot-5 and I can tell you that, unfortunately, Graeme's doctor was right. Numerous studies and books such as The Height of Your Life have proved that tall men veritably rule this tiny Earth: We receive higher salaries and achieve greater political and social success. But life offers no freebies, and the cost of unimpeded sightlines at concerts and the ability to peer down low-cut blouses is unavoidable lower back pain.

Sadly, little people fail to understand our great vertebrate struggle. Literature on lofty affairs is scarce, beginning and ending with David versus Goliath, Sarah, Plain and Tall and Tall Blondes (don't get too excited, it's about giraffes). Us height-privileged folks just got our first magazine earlier this year, when the debut issue of Tall Magazine, a publication based in Oakland, Calif., hit the top shelf of the newsstand rack.

Issue No. 1 offers an eight-page stretch-car guide, reminding me of Very Tall Man (VTM), a Simpsons character who spoke for all tall fellows when he confronted bully Nelson Muntz for laughing at his Volkswagen Beetle. "Do you find something comical about my appearance when I am driving an automobile?" VTM asks Muntz as he towers over his cowering victim. "Everyone needs to drive a vehicle, even the very tall. This was the largest auto that I could afford. Am I therefore to be made the subject of fun?" Consider this the definitive manifesto on the subject.

But, despite the headroom and legroom rankings and an advice column written by a 7-foot-2 chiropractor, do not count me as a Tall subscriber. While I would like to believe that the struggles I face as a height-positive male are unique enough to warrant a bimonthly magazine, it simply isn't true. Unless you're a basketball player, height is a meaningless measure of shared identity. Indeed, some of my best friends are short people. Thus, I doubt a publication built around a shared dislike of ankle-height urinals, economy-class airline seats and insufficient shirt sleeves will excite readers.

I don't blame 6-foot-9 editor Everard Strong for Tall's narrow focus, however. Ever since general interest magazines like Time and Maclean's became generally uninteresting, the glossy trend has been to find a unique demographic and slobber all over them. And, according to Tall, there are nine million American men over 6-foot-2 and six million women over 5-foot-9.

Which brings up one of the eternal truths of the tall man: Since there are clearly not enough Amazonian women to go around, lots of these men must embark on, shall we say, "long-distance relationships." Tall Magazine itself features an interview with 7-foot-2 James Bond villain Richard (Jaws) Kiel, wherein we learn that his wife is 5-foot-1 1/2.

From my experience, I can safely say that an already awkward procedure is made somewhat easier when the mommy and daddy parts nearly align. But two towering friends of mine have considerably shorter wives, and my well-thumbed copy of the Kama Sutra proves that with some creativity, hard work and plenty of practice, problems can be overcome.

And therein lies a terrible irony. Women, eager as they are to join the 1/812th of a Mile High Club, claim to prefer their gentleman tall, dark and handsome. But, to rework the porter's comments about alcohol in Macbeth, "Height, sir, it provokes, and unprovokes; it provokes the female desire, but it takes away the male's performance."

Oh baby. Oh yeah. Oh, my aching back! A definite mood killer.

Ryan Bigge believes he is the tallest freelance writer in Toronto.