(17m) Im 5’4 and I have no hope of getting taller, i found out my growth plates have closed so I’ll be stuck at this height forever. I got an x-ray earlier and I almost started crying in the car on our way home.
It’s clearly important, all the videos I see about how being tall is so desirable and the comments with women saying they deserve tall boyfriends with thousands of likes.
It’s depressing to think my worth as a person and a man depends on something out of my control.
I’ve been researching leg lengthening surgery but it is very expensive and the recovery seems brutal.
Right now your brain is soaking in TikTok comments and YouTube clips that are basically the emotional equivalent of junk food. The algorithm pushes the loudest, most superficial opinions because outrage and insecurity get clicks. But those comments are not reality. They’re a distorted little corner of the internet.
Out in the real world, there are millions of men your height living full lives. They have careers, friendships, families, partners, and respect. Not because they magically got taller. Because they built lives around things that actually matter.
If you spend the next decade obsessing about your height, comparing yourself to every tall guy in the room, and believing you’re less than, that mindset will hurt you far more than being 5’4 ever will.
Leg-lengthening surgery isn’t going to fix that voice in your head. It’s an extremely painful, expensive, high-risk procedure. And even if you did it, you’d probably wake up 5’7 still scanning the room for the 6’2 guy and feeling like you lost.
The work you actually need to do is harder, but it’s also the path to a real life.
Take care of your body. Get strong. Develop skills. Build confidence that comes from doing hard things. Become someone who is kind, dependable, funny, and interesting to be around. Learn how to talk to people. Learn how to take rejection without letting it define you.
Because the men who struggle the most in life are rarely the shortest guys. They’re the ones who decide early on that the world is unfair and they’re doomed, and they build their identity around that story.
You’re seventeen. Your story hasn’t even started yet.
Don’t spend the next twenty years fighting a war against your bones. Spend it building a life so meaningful that your height becomes one of the least interesting things about you.