Your insecurity is the fact but you aren't by no means short.
Start with online dating,
NR xx
Sorry but unfortunately for guys, that IS below average for a man by European / Caucasian standards. If you're say Japanese, Mexican or several other ethnicities then that same height is a normal height ; but you're compared to people of your OWN background as well as the people that surround you. And the poor devil ended up in the country with the tallest people on earth.
I used to go for cycling trips in the Netherlands and really enjoyed it and people were so friendly, but at the same time 9 out of 10 of the fucking GIRLS were taller than me. Just being in company gave me a fucking inferiority complex.
I stopped going to bars because all the guys were towering a literal head and shoulders above me,
I felt ridiculous, like a kid among grown - ups.
Try ordering a drink and finding out you have to shout or elbow your way through because your physical presence is so insignificant nobody even notices you're standing behind them. As for trying to pull, the only girls trying to flirt with me were the type who looked like they couldn't get fucked for love nor money and I was like sorry I'm not THAT desperate yet.
And online dating as a first resort?? You gotta be kidding. Put your height as anything below at minimum 5'9'' and regardless of your other attributes, women will swipe you into oblivion. Short guys need to lie about their stature the way any female over 25 needs to lie about her age to pull online.
OP' s got my total sympathy and the women commenting on this trying to be nice don't know what they're talking about. If I had a pound for every time I got reassured by some girl that I was attractive and sexy and handsome / pretty, only to watch her squirm trying to come up with something polite when I asked straight up 'so if you think I'm so hot, would YOU wanna go with me'....
.... Women who claim it's all about personality and inches don't matter are being insincere. Yeah it DOES bloody matter because you only get the chance to show your wonderful personality to someone who's attracted to you in the first place, and first impressions go purely on looks. That's just a fact.