Good point about height exaggeration screwing over the truly 5'11 people. It may be selfish, but I don't know how claiming 5'11 can hurt the 5'9 guy if he gets away with it. Sure, he may get rejected, but he would still have gotten rejected if he had had claimed 5'9, so there is no potential for harm (again assuming that he's not caught lying) and much to win (more dates and friends). Still, I wholeheartedly agree that it's not fair to the true 5'11 people. This seems to be the only major con to exaggerating height a little. But they can just claim 6'1 and do even better in dating because they can claim to be over 6 feet. Everyone knows that, in the dating game, men are two inches taller and ten pound lighter
Almost every "I'm exactly six feet" person I know is really 5'11 or a smidgen over that. The only people who claim to be 5'11 are almost always a little shorter, but feel that they can't get away with 6 feet.
Sometimes I feel that growing to 5'11 is like running a marathon and stopping one block short of the finish line. So, so close to truly being that high-status six feet but not truly there. That's why so many 5'11 men have spiky hair