I've had to face similar situations in my family life, and this part really resonated with me. It's an extremely eloquent way of capturing something I've never been able to put into words. Thank you for that.
You're not wrong though, both men and women love to make fun of a short guys.
Get out of the "dating scene" and just do stuff with people.
I am part of the generation that went through the change and saw both "systems", and I personally much prefer the current one - at least you never reach a dead end like you did when you depended on friends of friends to meet news people. It just requires you to be more proactive.
Both reactions can be rationalized and he has the ability to choose which way he leans.
However, once we choose, we tend to incorporate that choice into our narrative as the solution that makes sense, and reinforce it to the point that we end up forgetting there was once an alternative. "I left my wife, it was miserable, I'm so glad I left", etc.
It is good to not forget that there was once a choice to make, the choice wasn't easy, and there were arguments in the other side that could have won.