by all accounts its agonizingly painful and has major impacts in your older years.

up to you, but most people I know with chronic pain or similar conditions would give up a foot in height to not be in pain any more

Nope. You're gonna be happier to find someone who likes you for you, and not someone shallow enough to worry about the length of your legs.

It's fairly dangerous and can introduce lifelong complications.

Imagine realizing 10 years from now that your wife wouldn't have married you if you were shorter.

Don't know that this is really a dating question overall, so be aware that you might end up with skewed perspectives.

That being said, it's a lot of risk, a lot of pain, and a very long process that's going to interfere with every part of your life. There's multiple long term risks on top of the short term ones.

I'm not saying you shouldn't do it. That's ultimately a highly internal decision. What I'm saying is that before you decide, you need to really dig deep into the possible outcomes, good and bad.

You'll also have to find doctors willing to perform the procedures in the first place. Even for people with dwarfism, not all doctors are willing to take on the risk. You might even have to move to get it done. For someone without an underlying condition, it's going to be harder to find someone willing. And it's definitely going to be out of pocket, dwarfs have trouble getting it covered even when you can point to a medical necessity like equalizing leg length as part of the benefits.

Which, you gotta save up ahead of time usually, they don't work on credit.

At 26, you'll likely be in your thirties by the time you can realistically complete everything involved.

It won't be something that you can just switch off in the middle and go back to normal life either. Yeah, they can stop the lengthening, but you'll still have all the recovery and pain to go through. Makes needing to be fully committed a higher priority than something cosmetic.

And it will likely come with benefits. You won't actually see much of that in dating, but you'll have an easier time moving through the world physically (assuming all goes right, because of it goes wrong you'll be worse off in that regard). I was stuck in a chair briefly at one point, and the height issues are not easy to deal with. I had never really thought about it before, but once your head is under about 5'6", even with the longer arms of being taller otherwise, shit gets difficult. Easier clothes shopping with more options. Better vehicle choices. Dating is where you'd see the least improvement, if you saw any at all there.

Other social issues though, you'll get treated differently. Not always better, but different.

Me? I've seen what all goes on with it. One of my patients back in the day had achondroplasia and opted for the lengthening, both arms and legs eventually. I was only there for the leg lengthening. No fucking way would I go through that for a few inches. That guy was also having surgeries to correct other things, so it wasn't any worse in terms of hassles, but hell to the no just for height.

Anyone wanting it, you have my full support, but no way in hell would I go through it.

I am a 34 year old who has never been on a date. Not because I am not tall enough. I am 6 ft tall, btw. But because of my general anti-social nature paired with BPD. I am hardly qualified to give dating advice, but I doubt that the right person would care about your height over your other better qualities. Or maybe I am just being romantic.

No. Many other things you can do have a bigger impact on dating success, without any real downsides.

It's very common to need to work hard to find relationships. That's not going away.

Also at 26 you're still very young. You have a lot of time to keep rolling the dice on meeting new people.

26... and you are giving up already?

My dude.

By the time you are done your agonizing surgery, you and the girls you'll want to be with won't give a crap about those superficial qualities anyway.

That kind of surgery can leave you disfigured like you were in a car accident and will likely lead to bone issues later in life.

As a tall man, I can tell you that personality is way more important. Girls who actually care about your height are not worth your time.

It's your body; you can do what you want with it and there's no "should" or "shouldn't". However, getting a surgery because you feel it will make you more attractive to the women you are around in your daily life right now is probably inadvisable, in the long term.

It's supposedly a pretty hellish recovery process, involving you learning how to walk again. Also, personally, I think the photos of the guys who've had this done are very weird because they're not proportional at all.

It's natural to feel insecure about things, and I'd argue it's natural to feel extra insecure about something like height, when it does seem to be something that makes some people view you differently, and is the focus of a lot of snake oil salesmen online trying to bully their way into your wallet by playing off that insecurity.

I don't want to point out that there are a lot of guys who are short but are in relationships, but it is true. You say you've been in a relationship previously and have dated other women -- obviously those people weren't too worried about your height.

I would recommend against it, personally.

No.

Every short guy I've ever met has had a girlfriend. Meanwhile I'm 6'0 and a middle-aged virgin.

I think it's an illusion in your head. The fact you've gotten somewhere makes you more successful with girls than a lot of other guys, many of them taller than you. I don't think height plays much of a role for most women.

What I think does matter? Confidence, financial success, good looks, and cock size. Height has to rank like... not even on the top 10. My guess is it's something that matters to certain girls with unusual tastes.

To be honest I wish I was shorter. I want to be a weak little shota boy with 3 legs. I'm serious. Smaller, slimmer, and with a divine endowment. I want to be so small and weak I'm unable to fight the women off.

I wouldn't.

I'm a 5'1" lady, and I've met plenty of short fellas with girls, I've dated a few myself.

I even worked with a guy, who was 5'2", not a bad person, but he had a medical problem with his BO, like, needed an Rx $60 deodorant, medical problem. We shouldn't have known about it, but he never got the Rx deodorant and instead we all had to smell his rotting death BO. Like, it wasnt normal. He had a girlfriend The girlfriend liked it...

If he can find love, theres hope for you too. I didn't meet the love of my like until I was 32. You have plenty of time yet.

I was checking out a short baddy just yesterday.. don't tell my 6'3" husband.. I just thought the guy was handsome. I didn't do anything about it obviously, but like, even in highschool senoor year my crush was no more then 2 inches taller than me, and he was my crush until he told me he slept with over 200 women, true or not idk, but we stayed friends for a time. Last I saw him, he and his wife were swingers.

Good women don't give afuck about this kind of thing. Changing your body is dangerous and risky. Wear your body with pride, have confidence, the rest will follow. The surgery won't really impact your outcomes I don't think.

What would the timeline be before you're back in the dating pool? A couple of years? I'd say it's false economy at this stage, even if it wasn't a horrendous and unnecessary procedure.