An observation from "The Tall Book"

Arianne Cohen on choices in life:

Height makes a great case study, because height statistics are easily quantifiable. Tall women have half the birth rate of shorter women. "It's not related to lower fertility," says anthropologist Boguslaw Pawlowski, the pre-eminent mating patterns researcher. "It's the same with short guys. They are not limited by sperm quality or hormone level - they've got problems with finding a partner." In the population at large, women typically date men who are 8% taller. This is a boon for the women below the 50th percentile, who have 99 per cent of men to choose from. A 6ft 3in woman is looking at less than 3% of the male population. Extrapolate freely to the choices you make in your own life.

I had six months with Alan to let Dodson's words marinate before the relationship imploded. The truth was that despite getting along famously, we had little in common. No tall joke could save us. And in the two years since, I haven't kissed anyone taller than me. Don't get me wrong, they're still tallish - the 6ft DJ, the 5ft 11in triathlete, the 6ft 1in actor. But my dating pool has expanded by 3,000%. I'm happier.