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By Philip Matogo

Women Don’t Like Short Men

Being a short man is hard in the dating field.
Women discriminate against short men.
I speak from experience.

Women have told me things like, “You know Elly, you are a good guy… but am not good at short guys.”

As if loving short men is a talent!

Women don’t like short men!

Let me tell you a short story.

There was this short guy. He had a good job working in Kampala, a nice car… and he liked this hot corporate chic who was working in Entebbe.

Every day, this short guy would drive to Entebbe to take her breakfast.

Lunchtime, he would drive back to Entebbe to take her lunch.

But the chic wasn’t giving in.

Apparently, at her workplace, she had a crush on her boss.

The guy was a hunk — you know those dark, tall, bumless guys.

The short guy kept bringing breakfast and lunch. The chic kept fooling him.

After more than a year of bringing breakfast and lunch, the short man finally gave up on this chic.

Right now, more than 10 years have passed.

And that hot chic is married…

TO THE SHORT MAN.

AND THEY HAVE TWO SHORT CHILDREN.

This joke by Ugandan comedian Elly Odoki is certainly not short on humour.

Odoki employs a setup-and-punchline approach to comedic storytelling, building expectations before abruptly overturning them.

The setup/punchline structure is one of comedy writing’s fundamental mechanisms. The comedian establishes an expectation in the audience’s mind and then introduces an unexpected turn that disrupts it.

When applied to storytelling, this structure can transform an ordinary anecdote into a tightly constructed comic narrative.

Odoki’s joke is built as a narrative routine — essentially, a short comedic story. It combines observational stand-up with narrative subversion.

1. The Premise

The central topic is the difficulty of dating as a short man.

Odoki’s comic angle is deliberately provocative: women don’t like short men.

Rather than attempting to establish this as a universal truth, the comedian uses his own supposed experiences of rejection to establish the premise from which the rest of the routine develops.

That premise immediately gives the audience something to anticipate.

If women don’t like short men, what happens to the short man in the story?

2. The Micro-Joke

Before beginning the main story, Odoki delivers a conventional setup-and-punchline joke:

“Women have told me things like, ‘You know Elly, you are a good guy… but am not good at short guys.’”

Then comes the punchline:

“As if loving short men is a talent!”

The comic mechanism rests on the phrase “good at.”

Normally, being “good at” something suggests an ability or learned skill: singing, football, mathematics or playing an instrument.

Odoki deliberately interprets the woman’s statement literally.

Suddenly, attraction to short men sounds like a talent one might practise and eventually master.

The absurdity produces the joke.

3. The Short Story

The main body of the routine expands that initial observation into a narrative.

A short man has a good job in Kampala, owns a nice car and becomes interested in a corporate woman working in Entebbe.

His commitment is considerable.

He drives from Kampala to Entebbe to take her breakfast.

Then, at lunchtime, he drives back to Entebbe to bring her another meal.

But she isn’t interested.

Worse still for our protagonist, she apparently has her eyes on her boss — a man Odoki describes as a “dark, tall, bumless” hunk.

The contrast matters.

Odoki has already conditioned the audience to believe that height is the short man’s fatal disadvantage. Introducing the tall boss seemingly confirms everything the comedian told us at the beginning.

The short man keeps bringing breakfast and lunch.

The woman keeps refusing him.

Eventually, after more than a year, he gives up.

At this point, the story appears complete.

The short man has lost.

Or so the audience thinks.

4. The Punchline

Odoki suddenly moves the story more than ten years into the future:

“And that hot chic is married… TO THE SHORT MAN.”

The revelation overturns the entire narrative.

The audience has spent the story being prepared for the short man’s romantic defeat. Instead, the supposedly impossible suitor ultimately becomes the husband.

That reversal is where the principal laugh lies.

5. The Tag

But Odoki doesn’t stop there.

He adds:

“AND THEY HAVE TWO SHORT CHILDREN.”

A tag is an additional joke delivered after the principal punchline, extending the laugh without requiring an entirely new setup.

Here, Odoki brings the story back to where it began: height.

The romantic problem has been resolved, but shortness gets the final word.

The couple didn’t simply marry.

They produced the next generation.

Style and Local Context

The routine also benefits from its recognisably Ugandan setting.

Kampala and Entebbe aren’t merely geographical references. The repeated journeys between the two places exaggerate the man’s commitment and give the audience a tangible measure of his effort.

Breakfast.

Kampala to Entebbe.

Lunch.

Back to Entebbe.

Again and again.

That repetition builds the narrative before the eventual reversal.

Words such as “chic” and “hunk,” alongside Odoki’s conversational delivery, also make the routine sound less like a formally constructed joke and more like somebody telling friends an unbelievable piece of gossip.

That apparent informality conceals its structure.

There is a premise.

There is misdirection.

There is escalation.

There is a punchline.

And finally, there is a tag.

For a joke about a short man, Elly Odoki takes the long route to the punchline — and that may be precisely why it works.

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