I'm 6'3".  Oddly, I never think of myself as being particularly tall,
but occasionally some interesting implications of being big get brought
home to me.

I was standing in line at Starbucks the other night, getting coffee
for myself and my wife, who had staked out a table for us.  When I
was next in line, they decided to change out cashiers, which aparently
caused a certain amount of confusion, which spread to the customers, and
the line sort of disentegrated to the point where the group of people
waiting to pay were indistinguishable from the mass of people waiting
for their drinks.

At this point, this really big guy came in with his girlfriend on
his arm.  It was obvious that he didn't know where the line was (it
would have been impossible for him to tell), and he just assumed that
we were all waiting for drinks.  At that moment the new cashier said,
"Can I help the next person?"  and he stepped up to the counter.

So, the guy was huge.  Thinking about putting myself in conflict with
him gave me this little belly twinge, on a purely cave man level; and
it took a little bit of courage to actually *say* anything.

I stepped up behind him and said, "Excuse me," like he was just blocking
my way, and he turned around and said, "Oh, were you next?  Sorry."
Totally polite; like I said, he just couldn't tell where the line was.

This'd just be one of those stupid little things that happens in line
sometimes except that once I'd gotten my drinks and I walked over to the
little table to put milk in my wife's coffee, the guy was standing there
doctoring his drink; he straightened and walked past me as he finished,
and gave me that little "guy nod" that happens when you accidentally meet
a stranger's eyes in public, and I realized that the guy was actually
exactly my height, and only a little broader through the chest.

So, I guess I've been thinking about the fact that it's totally possible
that everybody coming in contact with me all the time gets that little
"oh, shit, do I want to cross this guy?" twinge when there's conflict
in the air, and that my not paying attention to what I'm doing probably
means that I've managed to cut in line and nobody called me on it.

The obvious conclusion here is that I ought to pay more attention to what
I'm doing, and make sure that the fact that I'm a big guy doesn't mean
that I'm getting special treatment, or that I'm accidentally intimidating
my way into getting what I want.  I mean, it's only fair, right?

The problem is, that thinking that puts me in the position of "arbiter
of fairness."  Maybe in a lttle way, but sort of continually.  If I'm
taking responsibility for making sure everything gets done fairly (and,
more importantly, if everybody lets me -- but who's going to object?
Shit, I'm big),  I've basically just taken on a bit of power, and I've
become sort of "in charge."

So how do you manage this sort of thing?