Well all you have written is just your opinion and zero facts. And your're wrong 5'8 is still around the average. But is it the perfect height for most guys? Properly not... The reality according to most experts and people who have observed height alot is that unless your 2-3 inches / 5-7.5 cm shorter than the national average in a given country you ain't short. And in the US a tiny bit under 5'10 / 178 cm is the average height so maybe 176.5? /5'9 1/2? so if your 5'8 / 173 cm your're technically speaking still within the wider average, were barely any would consider you short.
http://www.limblengtheningforum.com/index.php?topic=70539.0
https://dragons.org/what-height-is-considered-short/ (according to this article you would have to be 3 inches shorter than average to be considered short - 5'7 / 170 cm)
https://www.hoodmwr.com/what-height-is-considered-short-for-a-man-and-woman/ (same with this one)
However I agree that you would still see benefits by becoming taller at around this height for some indviduals, but they wouldn't be as big as someone going from 5'4 - 5'7 as an example, were your're invisible to women to dateable by almost everyone except shallow women since your taller than like 80% of women. At the end of the day it also depends on your overall apperience wether someone would look better being taller. If your more of a sweet looking pretty boy like - Zac Efron, Justin Bieber, Zayn Malik it would look off if your too tall, so their heights around 5'8 is fine to them, but oppisite if your more of a bigger badboy type of guy with big muscles and tatoos, around 5'11 properly would look better. This last part is just my opinion tho, but it can defitnitly also look stupid if you become tall and lanky rather than just skinny and around average height ish.
I don't need frickin (((articles))) to read, no, 5ft 8 is not 'average', I don't care what your (((research))) says. You know how it's easy to settle this?
Would you rather be 5ft 10 or 5ft 8?
You chose 5ft 10, and you should have been indifferent if there is truly 'no difference' between the two heights. Game, Set, and Match.
Going from 5ft 4 to 5ft 7 I think is about the same as 5ft 10 to 6ft 1 tbh. It's a boost, yes, it's not gargantuan however, as the first one is still a manlet (NOT 'average') who will face quite a bit of height rejection, and the second one goes from average to tall. The BIG leap is from starting heights of 5ft 7-5ft 9 to ending heights of 5ft 10-6ft. That's the greatest percentile gain vs the general population - especially 5ft 7 to 10 and 5ft 8 to 11.
5ft 7 is not dateable to 80% of women and it's laughable to claim it is. Maybe 30%. 5ft 4 is near enough 0%. Everyone is 'shallow', it's not a bad thing, you too have looks requirements for a girl. Yes, I want to date 'shallow' people, as do you, as does everyone, and being rejected by a girl for height doen't mean you 'dodged a bullet', that's just copium manlets tell themselves. You don't consider yourself a toxic bullet because you have looks standards for your dates, I guarantee that. Why would it be any different when swapping the genders?
I agree with you about almost everything besides few things though. 5'8 is around average and imo height and race are equivelant as negatives ( that is too short or being from an "unattractive" racial minority like asians and indians in europe for example).
You are also correct about online dating where only looks matter but in real life (work, gym, bars etc...) Your character matters a lot. Of course it would be better to be 180cm, white, extrovert and facially attractive than being those things and 170cm tall but irl being all those things and being 170cm tall is not as bad as it might be on online dating
Online dating is the most 'brutal', but it's also how most young couples meet these days, so that's the yardstick to use. Clubs and bars are absolutely dead, and you need to be a certain type of person to thrive in those anyway (specifically, you need friends, friends who also enjoy going to bars and clubs, since going there alone is extremely awkward and marks you out as a loser from the getgo, that's if you even get in as a single guy, which you most likely won't. You also have to be comfortable approaching strangers, most people aren't, and nothing wrong with that since it is kinda 'weird').
Yeah you can luck out at the gym or the park or whatever but it's just not where most people meet nowadays. If you can't do well on online dating you're fighting a massive uphill battle, especially once you've graduated college since how else are you getting access to young prime women? Wagie jobs are full of 30+ trash women, and working one of those sucks anyway.