Meet Paulo Gabriel da Silva Barros and Katyucia Hoshino, the world’s shortest couple, who both measure less than three feet tall. If you are wondering how does this fact make them newsworthy, then hang in there because there’s more.
Both Paulo and Katyucia have proved that size doesn’t matter when it comes to love. These two Brazlians have different forms of dwarfism and stand at 34.8in and 35.2in respectively.
Interestingly, their love story blossomed through the internet. Yes, you read it right! The cute couple met on a website 10 years ago and started chatting on MSN Messenger.
“I found her very beautiful from the first moment I saw her,” Paulo said. But for Katyucia it wasn’t the same. In fact, she initially blocked him on the instant messaging site!
She said: ‘The first time I started talking to Paulo, he was really annoying. He had cheap-pick up lines.’
Paulo is 30 years old and has a rare genetic condition called diastrophic dysplasia dwarfism. Katyucia is 26 and she has achondroplasia dwarfism, which affects bone growth.
This disability, however, did not deter their spirits. Paulo is a legal secretary and Katyucia owns a beauty salon! Inspiring, isn’t it? Coming back to their intriguing love story, after blocking the man, Katyucia had a change of heart after 18 months.
That would have been the end of the matter, if Katyucia hadn’t suddenly decided to unblock him 18 months later.
“One day something happened in my head and I went and unblocked him. By then he was already more relatable,” revealed Katyucia.
Paulo said: “When she unblocked me, it didn’t take me more than a minute to say hello. We started speaking and she said I was more civilised.”
A couple of months later, Paulo travelled all the way to her hometown Londrina. Two months later, Paulo travelled more than 186 milies to Katyucia’s home town – Londrina to meet her. Describing the first meeting, he said he was bowled over by Katyucia’s beauty, but she was shy and unimpressed with his dressing sense!
“What most attracted me to her, besides her beauty, was how sweet she was. It was her sweet personality,” said Paulo. Katyucia said, “He was wearing an orange shirt, jeans and sunglasses – thank God it has improved since then.”
The biggest question after the first meeting was the distance between the two. Despite Katyucia’s concerns, the two started dating each other five days after their first meeting.
Katyucia said: ‘I had never dated before so Paulo is my first boyfriend, my first everything.’
Four years later, the couple moved in together.
They are just like the next couple in love and the only difference is their height. According to Paulo
“Basically, we are a normal couple but our height is a little smaller. The best thing about our relationship is our closeness, our companionship we have for each other.She supports me in everything, she’s my little warrior.”
Katyucia added, “We fight like every couple. A couple that doesn’t fight isn’t a normal couple. Our thoughts match, our ideas match, our feelings match and that’s really cool.
His best quality is his simplicity. He is a person like any other. I think as a couple we are both different people, we aren’t the same person. We discuss our relationship, sit down and talk and get to a resolution.
‘I have a really difficult temper; dealing with me is not easy, but Paulo is so understanding and patient – that’s what I find most attractive about him.”
Their small stature results in a constant struggle with routine chores. In fact, the duo has admitted to being facing discrimination for their size and have been pointed and stared at in the street ,with passers openly making fun of their size.
Katyucia said: “I’ve been through discrimination every day. Every day I go outside and you see people pointing at you, whispering about you, that’s normal. You can’t escape it.”
But for Paulo and Katyucia, all this is just background noise. After spending 8 years together the pair are considering marriage. Paulo has yet to pop the question though.
Katyucia said: ‘If it wasn’t for his patience, we wouldn’t have been together for eight years.I wouldn’t be who I am today. Paulo teaches me so much.”
Talking about having kids in the future, Katyucia said,
“We’ve discussed having kids. My pregnancy would be high risk because the size of my uterus wouldn’t support a baby. We’ve decided to let things happen at the right moment. In regards to the future we say: ‘never say never’.”
As they say, when two are meant to be together, they will find each other no matter what!
