Pep talk: Everybody dies alone. Sorry, not very "peppy" perhaps. All right, how about this: Quantity of women (i.e. numbers who prefer tall guys on some app) is not the same as quality of women. It's kind of the opposite in fact, if humanity is anything like a bell curve. The mainstream, with its sheer numbers, is full of dullards. The most blindingly, boringly average people, from essentially the center of the gene pool in every way, are the ones we tend to find most attractive. Which is great for selecting for
reproductive fitness for the species overall. Evolution will trick you into doing its bidding. But thanks to modernity, reproduction itself is really only relevant if you choose to make it so, and even then, only for like the first third or half of your life. Which is a time horizon that's hard to see when you're in it, but clear as day by the time you hit 40 or 50 and your kids are starting to be independent.
So try to play the long game. You might meet your special someone later in life, who knows. Meanwhile in the short term, whoever doesn't appreciate you for what you are, look at it kind of like "well fuck 'em anyway," like they just self-selected out of your filter. Regardless, I'm 100% certain you won't be helping anything by trying to trick people into liking you. And I'm about 80% sure you won't even get anywhere by trying earnestly to be whatever stupid thing they want or think they want, or that some cost-free process of entering profile info on an app encourages them to blithely and carelessly say they want (because why not?). This goes not just for being short but for any human trait you do or don't possess. (And the only reason I allow 20% of hope there is because there's a possibility that through concerted effort you might actually manage to improve yourself in some way. But it should be something that came from you, something you yourself want to strive for, not something to please some fickle asshole and make them like and approve of you.)
It's not about what they want. It's about who you are, and whoever is the "audience" for that, is who you should be focusing on. What does Slayer care about Ariana Grande fans? Maybe on some level they wish they had as many fans as she does, but I'm pretty sure they aren't out there trying to impress them or win them over by being more Ariana-Grande-like. (I don't even know if Slayer is still a band; I might be dating myself.)
Editing to further bloviate:
Who is going to mate with all the short women of the world? Tall guys? No, they're mostly looking for tall girlfriends. But short women need love too, and the ones who aren't so shallow and lacking in logistical foresight as to demand someone two full feet taller than themselves, are out there. Just a thought.
One detail stuck out to me in this piece: The fact that this guy continues to read anti-short-people hate online, and still reflexively feels slighted, but then "remembers" that he got this surgery, kind of speaks to the fact that a big part of this is in his own head. Hear me out. I'm not suggesting people aren't being total douches about those of diminutive stature, because I've witnessed it and I'm quite sure they are. If someone is saying a sentence where if you put "black" let's say, in place of "short," there would be hell to pay, well then... there should be hell to pay. It's not right. At the same time, there is always evil shit out there being hurled at someone. Even tall white rich males. (Maybe especially them, lately.) Do you let that inside your head and make it your own thought that follows you around, day and night, far outside the reach of the douche who said it? It's difficult to practice the level of mental & emotional discipline it takes to cast such thoughts out, but it is an area where you have some degree of control over the situation.