How long most couples date for before they say 'I love you'.

Alrighty. I have a confession to make.

As someone who wears her heart on her sleeve, I may or may not have uttered those three little words to my boyfriend – oh, I don’t know – three and a half weeks into dating.

*waits for people to laugh/mock me/hate me/throw stones*

I know, you guys. I know. Three and a half weeks is early. I’ve had chin pimples live for longer.

I’ve always known I was ahead of the bell curve in saying ‘I love you’, but until this morning I didn’t realise quite how much.

After doing a wee bit of research around the office, I’ve figured out that I’m actually an ‘I love you’ freak.

“I told my ex-boyfriend three months in because I thought he said it first and I didn’t respond,” one Mamamia writer told me. “But it turned out I’d misheard him… he had never said ‘I love you’ at all.”

Another said: “My partner said it after five months and then I waited another month to return the sentiment, because treat ’em mean, you know?”

And, finally: “About three months for me… and he said it about a year later. I almost died waiting, but we ended up married so it’s okay.”

See? I’m a freak.

Feeling like a total ‘I love you’ outcast, I decided to consult Science, because unlike Donald Trump and raisin cookies, Science doesn’t lie. Science is steady. Science is trustworthy. Science is real.

But then… well… Science went and crushed my soul even more.

According to Psychology Today, research reveals men take an average of 88 days to tell their partner they love them. Meanwhile, women take 134, which equates to a little under three months and 4.5 months respectively.

Crap.

I’ve started to think maybe I’m doing this whole ‘love’ thing kinda… wrong?

In my defence, I was smitten. Also, he’s my first technical “boyfriend” so I was going crazy with feels. So I’d argue being a pathetically soppy romantic has paid off in dividends.

Romance > playing it cool, okay?

Okay.

How long did it take you to say ‘I love you’ to your partner?