Men may have hardened exteriors, but surprising new research has found they fall in love almost twice as fast as women.

Academics at the Australian National University surveyed 808 young adults from 33 different countries, including the United States, to uncover the differences between the sexes when it comes to romance.

The findings revealed that the average man takes a little over four weeks to fall head over heels, while women move much more slowly.

“The mean love progression score for females was 1.92 months after romantic relationship formation whereas for males it was 0.98 months, indicating that males fell in love approximately one month sooner than females did,” the researchers stated in their paper, published in the Biology of Sex Differences late last month,

Not only do men fall in love far more quickly than women, they also fall in love more frequently.

Surveyed men had been in love an average of 2.6 times compared, while for women it was 2.3 times.

Those surveyed for the research were all aged between 18 and 25 years of age.

Given that the average participant had already been in love multiple times despite their relatively young age, the research suggests that romantic love is quite common.

Many of the youngsters will likely go on to fall in love several more times over the course of their lives.

Meanwhile, the research uncovered that while men fall in love more frequently and more quickly, women are more likely to experience stronger feelings when they eventually commit.

“Females had higher intensity of romantic love, higher commitment, and higher obsessive thinking about a loved one than males,” the academics declared.

“Men will have fallen in love sooner than females because the male fitness landscape favours quantity of potential mates over quality, whereas the opposite is true for females,” they further explained.

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“All of this is consistent with the sex difference in partner selection, with females being choosier than males.”