Actually getting dates? That's easy enough. Being white, attractive enough, 6' tall, between 150 and 180lbs, no kids, and make a tech salary seems to tick off a lot of boxes for girls.
I have had relationships and am engaged to a beautiful woman now so I found a way to work around it but it is near impossible. My short male friends are either single or have made considerable compromises.
It's a factor that is weirdly denied in society too. Nobody wants to hear that an immutable characteristic plays such a role on the male side...
This said, you can still somewhat compensate for height with status and other looks. Tom Cruise is 172cm but I don't think he ever struggled for dates.
We men of course have our own biological preferences perhaps equally irrelevant in the modern era, so this isn't a blame thing just an oft denied fact.
Oh and as to Tom Cruise - it is a hilarious kind of example I have heard so many times. The fact that people have to reference those who are monumentally successful in the top .000001% kind of proves the point.
Yes there other factors but height tends to be a prerequisite before they apply. Odds goes exponentially down based on how far from the mean you are. 5'9" vs. 5'5" is a world of difference.
'Success' is also not Boolean. I know very successful short guys who have had zero success with women.
Talking in blasé terms 'oh it is just one of many factors' is like saying possessing functioning legs is just one of many factors a footballer requires. Or having enough petrol is one of many factors in a car functioning properly. It's true but kind of missing the point.
The really interesting point is why people are so in denial about this fact that is so blatantly obvious.
I suspect it is a mix of those without this issue wanting to think their success was all attributable to their own skills, people not liking the idea that something uncontrollable could screw you so bad, women feeling it is an attack (it isn't at all), those who are shorter but not significantly below the mean having success (though reduced) and thinking it must apply to those shorter than them, etc.
Another interesting thing I have noticed is that short men is one of the few remaining immutable characteristics society allows people to mock openly. "What is she doing with that little squirt" is something I heard from a friend recently without a hint of self-awareness.
On the mocking, I agree but hopefully that’s slowly going away. It’s one of those things, like casual racism and casual sexism, that will take a while to fully disappear from everyday conversations. Some animal instincts are just what they are.
Most of the examples of guys who do well at very short height are either - some MASSIVE compensation in some other way (hugely confident, etc.) with a MASSIVE failure rate, or they are actually in a dating pool with a lower male height.
Obviously exceptions happen (I'm engaged for one!) but the impact it has is massive and I didn't know until my mid 20's, nobody wanted to admit it or talk about it and it would have saved me a lot of pain to know.
I find that quite hard to believe. Otherwise, the range of heights would be much narrower, and humans would probably be much taller (we're barely taller than gorillas), with much less variation between cultures. I'd say either it's unlikely that there was that much genetic pressure on height, or that most of evolution height wasn't genetic (but limiting factor was something else, e.g. food - so only well-fed people could grow as tall as their genetic potential).
Also all of literature would suggest otherwise. Look at any documentary talking about a man who is considered attractive and see what word they use first. "Tall, dark and handsome" - notice the order. The list goes on and once you start looking for it you'll be surprised. Look at romance - novels - see how many of the men are short.
You could also speak to some women and ask them about it. If you ask enough you'll get at least some honest responses (not disparaging women, equally men may often be deceptive on this kind of question).
I'm also not sure I understand your argument - both men + women contribute to height, male height is only part of the equation (my dad is normal height my mum is very short and I am short for example). Also nutrition has been HUGE in stunting growth, societies with better nutrition have a very big increase in height (which also suggests sexual selection plays a role I'd say).
Height is also in a pretty narrow range anyway, +-2SD.
Finally I'd say that if you were significantly shorter than average and male + had tried your hand with dating you'd have a very raw and immediate series of data points that would be pretty compelling.
This isn't really a controversial point, in the same way men have a preference for a certain hip/waist ratio in women ("why don't all women then have that hip/waist ratio" you might ask following your existing argument...!)
But I agree that women are obviously filtering on that.
As an anecdote - one site I was on took a while to publish my height and I started having conversations with women. As soon as it showed one dropped contact and the other said she felt 'no chemistry' after we had basically said hello to each other :)
What barnacled is saying is absolutely true, and unless you've spent time as a single man of below average height, you really just won't understand.
The difference in attention and respect that a few inches make is pretty astounding. I'd imagine it's pretty similar to the stories I hear of people shedding hundreds of pounds and being treated as a completely different person. Once again, unless you've been on both sides of the equation, it's unlikely you'll be able to grasp how much physical traits like height and weight affect how people treat you.
As you say, unless you've experienced it for yourself it's hard (but not impossible) to get quite how extreme it is.
I've heard plenty enough from women talking directly about it, from basically all fiction ('tall, dark, handsome' in that order, no romance novel has a short guy, etc.), the fact that height rockets up when nutrition improves - sexual selection likely to be a big factor on that too.
It's nuanced and it's all relative to the average height of the dating population you're in but a few inches can be the difference between some attention and absolutely none.