New research has found that men tend to fall in love faster and more often, yearn for a partner more, and confess their love first (saying those three little words an average 42 days before women do). They were also less likely to initiate break-ups, with about 65 per cent of “relationship dissolutions” instigated by women. Additionally, following a break-up, men tend to suffer more.

The Times interpreted these findings as evidence that “men are more romantic than women”. But I think that’s the wrong conclusion to draw.

From childhood, women are encouraged and conditioned to let men take the lead in heterosexual romantic relationships. All the advice – from family, from friends, from strangers on the internet – instructs us to always be guarded and restrained, to never get carried away, to lead with your head and never your heart. And many of us have doubtless learnt firsthand why people say these things (if you’re lucky enough not to know why: men are exceptionally good at finding new and innovative ways to be cruel and duplicitous. Relatedly: while men may be inclined to say “I love you” sooner than women, there’s no way for researchers to tell whether they truly mean it when they say it).

Plus, we may be in 2025, but many women still struggle with the niggling sense that their worth is bound up with how ‘successful’ they are in the dating arena. There’s still a lot of stigma surrounding being ‘left on the shelf’ as a ‘spinster’ (largely owing to the fact that it’s difficult for people to let go of the idea that a woman’s sole ‘purpose’ in life is to bear children), whereas being a bachelor is more commonly regarded as a sophisticated, fashionable lifestyle choice (à la Daniel Cleaver). Even if an air of tragedy surrounds a bachelor, it’s often in a mysterious, roguish, slightly sexy way – conversely, when a woman is truly single, it’s seen as just sad. With so much pressure on us to make a ‘success’ of dating, it’s hardly shocking that we tread more carefully than men.

Essentially, it’s unsurprising that given the social pressures women face – especially when coupled with personal experience of dating terrible men – many of us keep our walls up a little longer in a bid to insulate ourselves against the potential of rejection. Who can blame us?

It’s also not massively shocking that men struggle more in the aftermath of a breakup, given that straight men often expect their female partners to fulfill all of their emotional (and often practical) needs. “They often see fewer positives [emerging from] the break-up, experience fewer positive emotions such as relief or joy, feel lonelier, and even have a more pronounced increase in suicide risk – in some studies, it even doubles,” said Iris V Wahring of the Humboldt University of Berlin, lead author of the paper.

“Men tend to share their struggles less with friends and family than women do, resulting in less emotional support from these social ties. Instead, men often rely heavily on their romantic partners for emotional support, making the presence of a partner more psychologically significant,” she continued. Even this man, writing for The Times, admits that men cling onto relationships out of “self-interest”. It’s little wonder then that women, by contrast, can adapt to single life faster: it’s likely a big relief to quit an unpaid, thankless job as someone’s live-in therapist, life coach, sexual partner, chef, and cleaner.

So, no, men aren’t more romantic than women. It’s more that there’s less at stake for them in the early stages of a relationship and they crash out during break-ups because they lose access to all the emotional and domestic labour their female partners do for them. More brazen? More inclined to act on their own instincts and impulses without thinking of the emotional consequences for the other party? More dependent on partners for fulfilling lives? Yes. More romantic? I don’t think so.