'My boyfriend is 5ft 6in but it doesn't matter' - Tinder's height filter divides daters
BBCJoe is somewhat shorter than the average American man, at 5ft 6in (1.67m) - but when Ashley came across his Tinder profile last year, the last thing she was thinking about was Joe's height.
"We were talking about our hobbies and ions," Ashley says, "not superficial things."
News that the dating app where Ashley and Joe found love is trialling a new feature - allowing some s to filter potential matches according to their height - was met with mixed reactions earlier this week.
While daters like Ashley worry it might stifle possible connections, others say the feature might actually help shorter men find a match.
Tinder's trial is running in "limited" parts of the world, excluding the UK, with the feature only available to those who pay for its two highest subscription tiers. Tinder has not told the BBC which countries it is being trialled in.
It works by informing the app's matching algorithm based on a 's stated preference, rather than filtering out certain s altogether. But online reaction to its launch has ranged from amusement to outrage.
"Tinder just declared war on short kings," wrote one social media , while another said they'd be "using the Tinder height filter to filter out all men taller than 5ft 9in".
Another commented: "I don't care what Tinder says - short kings are elite."
Ashley, from Wisconsin, says she understands why height can be a deal-breaker for some daters - but that wasn't the case for her.
"I've heard people talk: 'I can't wear heels or my partner will look shorter,'" the 24-year-old says, "but that's never mattered to me".
Joe is "just such an amazing person", she says, it wouldn't matter to her "if he was six feet tall or five feet tall".
Using a height filter might actually have prevented her and Joe from ever meeting, she adds - and she reckons others could be missing out too.
Joe, meanwhile, says Tinder's height filtering feature could actually make dating harder for shorter men.
"Limiting yourself to physical things about someone will lessen your opportunities and chances of finding a partner," he says. "Height shouldn't matter when you're looking for forever."
The 27-year-old says his own dating experience hadn't "all been so bad" and that his matches had judged him based on his personality, rather than his height.
But he thinks the new Tinder filter might affect other s' chances of meaningful connections.
Tinder is not breaking new ground here - seasoned swipers will be familiar with various kinds of filter, which are now common features of dating apps including in the UK.
Hinge, a key Tinder competitor, already allows paying s to filter matches according to their height. Other filters include education level, religion, and checking whether potential matches smoke, drink or take drugs.
Bumble allows s to avoid matches with certain star signs, while paying Grindr s can filter by body type.
But as the world's largest dating app, Tinder's experiment with height filtering still has huge significance, and has sparked discussion in Britain too.
At 5ft 9in, Matt Heal, from Manchester, says he feels jaded about the online dating scene.
Matt's around average height for a man in the UK, but says some daters' preferences for taller men have disadvantaged him on the apps.
"As someone who is neither very tall nor financially well off, I have definitely felt desensitised about dating [using apps]," he says.
The 28-year-old thinks it's understandable that apps like Tinder try to optimise their matching algorithms, though.
"People have preferences based on all sorts of things," Matt says, adding these features help people "see others they are interested in, rather than swiping for hours on people you don't consider compatible".
However, he thinks daters shouldn't be too rigid about what they're looking for.
"If you were into people who are over six feet, would you really not date someone who's 5ft 11in" - if they were good looking and had similar interests":[]}