At least half of the diaries I've read have been mid to late 30s.
I think the age discussion was mostly prompted by your proposing three surgeries. I just listened to a Paley interview with Victor where Paley says he looks askance at humerus and that, when people come to him proposing several surgeries like this, he suspects there is a mental health problem and does not want to work with them. I can see you're already adjusting your expectations as you consume more CLL content and learn more.
The kid who was on your case here is obviously early 20s if he doesn't know that your market value goes up probably fivefold in your thirties.
I can totally how that kind of talk can serve as a marker for a potential mental health issue. In my case, it's more my penchant for perfection/ideal than anything else. I suppose there is a bit of an OCPD element there, but I'm definitely mentally stable. I think for most folks here, the significant role stature plays on one's dating life probably lends to the mental health concern.
As I mentioned in one of my previous replies, I've been fortunate that I've had a pretty successful dating life (both casually and seriously, often with women who were in the 8 plus range) so I didn't really have as much of a pressing need to do it sooner, nor do I have that much of a regret that I'm doing it now rather than earlier (although, NGL, I have thought about how much better my otherwise pretty good dating/sex life could have been). I actually heard about CLL when I was in my mid 20's and played sports, but I was soon caught up with building my career (and later a couple of startups, one of which ended up being successful abroad) and still having a lot of fun going out and enjoying life with friends that I kind of forgot about it until recently. I was often so oblivious to the fact that I was as short as I am that my delusional confidence may have made up for it when it comes to women. That and the fact that I was out of the US for most of the last 10 years doing business in a country where the average height was around 5'6 probably made it easier to forget as well.
Once I'd accomplished my financial goals and settled down with my fiancé, I realized I still had these latent/unresolved insecurities. It's one of the reasons I've avoided having a wedding/getting married for all these years, 5 long-term relationships later. For some reason, every girl I've had a serious relationship with (except one) was on the taller side (usually my height, if not slightly taller), including the current one. She says she's 5'6 but is likely 5'7; we don't talk about the fact that she might be taller than me. lol But one thing's for sure, I don't see myself having a wedding unless I'm definitively and unambiguously taller than her. Plus, now that I'm back in the US and much of my professional work is here, it's increasingly more difficult to avoid the reminders, especially when many of my colleagues are on the taller side, including the women. To make matters worse, a majority of the women I work with are in the 5'6-5'9 range. So these are the factors that sort of conspired to make now the right time.
I just hope that the muscle hypertrophy expectation I have for my tibia procedure turns out to be true. I could actually live with not doing any more CLL after that, even if I'm just shy of 5'9, so long as I can finally wear shorts and low top sneakers.