As a short man – 5ft 6.5in (1.69m), the half inch is vigorously debated – I was interested to read that researchers have discovered humans are genetically predisposed to fancy people of the same height.

As I read the study, I felt several emotions, including relief that one of the country’s elite educational institutions is addressing such important issues. I also had a renewed sense of respect for Jamie Cullum and his ilk. By “his ilk” I don’t mean good-natured jazz urchins – I’m yet to fall for his music, primarily because I haven’t listened to any of it just in case I really like it and everybody thinks I’m uncool. No, I’m referring to short men who are confident enough to step out with much taller women, in his case Sophie Dahl, who rises seven inches above him. Obviously there is a flip side – tall women who are confident enough to step out with shorter men – but I have little experience of being a tall woman.

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During my traumatic dating years, I briefly went out with a couple of taller women, but found my shaky self-esteem couldn’t really cope. I once met a girl of Taylor Swiftian stature at a bar, in a scene that played out in a similar fashion to the one in Sex and the City involving Samantha and vertically challenged hedge fund boss Jeff Fenton. Like them we were both on stools, like him there came a moment where I slid off said stool. Naturally I assume she greeted this with the same horror Samantha does.

It doesn’t bother Jeff, who is imbued with the kind of aggressive assuredness that is the default setting for City-boy types. But it bothered me. If this fling goes anywhere, I thought, would I be able to stand up in public again?

I confirmed that I wouldn’t when we went on a second date that involved playing pool in a bar. Tall, blond women bending over pool tables tend to attract morons, and lo and behold, a small crowd of men gathered around us, sniggering smuttily at regular intervals. Now, a gentleman would have told them to locate their manners or face the consequences. But I was too busy focusing on how I could get from my chair to the table without standing up to worry about that – I decided to adopt a moving crouch position that suggested I was lining up my shot as I approached the baize.

Unsurprisingly, that relationship didn’t last, but that’s not to say this quirk of nature isn’t still having an impact on my life. My wife is that (disputed) half an inch shorter than me, and only a pair of heels away from being two inches taller than me, hence why I’ve encouraged her Converse trainer habit. At social events like weddings, we tend to avoid standing next to each other to the extent our friends probably suspect we’re on the verge of a divorce. But that’s still better than a stranger asking if my wife’s little brother would like to play with her son.

Cullum is on the record as saying he finds the media interest in the height difference in his relationship strange. And he is right. After all, nobody needs a big strong man who can bring down a woolly mammoth these days – all our hunter-gathering is done in Tesco. If anything, those searching for a provider should be homing in on pale, emaciated men who look like they enjoy 24-hour coding sessions and might just create the next tech giant. Anyway the dynamics of a relationship rarely revolve around who is the tallest; emotional intelligence and the ability to make your other half feel guilty without saying much are far more important than additional skin and bone.

Still, it takes a commendably fearless sort to buck against something that is, according to the University of Edinburgh, entwined in our very DNA and reinforced by thousands of years of cultural conditioning. Even when love does overcome, some men are reluctant to reveal just how much shorter they are than their partners. Take Nicolas Sarkozy, who is around five inches smaller than his wife, Carla Bruni, and has a penchant for a heel. Allegedly, he even edits pictures so that the pair appear to be the same height. This is someone who has President of France on his CV.

I could easily make the point that old-fashioned ideas of masculinity continue to undermine men who do not conform to traditional stereotypes, not to mention women of all heights. But instead I will leave you with an image of a man, with a striking resemblance to me, straining to reach the last box of Rice Krispies at the back of the cereal aisle’s top shelf, rescued only by the kindness of a passing six-foot octogenarian. Sexy or what?