If you're wondering who falls in love faster, men or women, it depends on your definition of love. Just because the sparks fly and the butterflies flutter does not mean you have truly fallen in love — or, at least, into the kind of love that lasts a lifetime. You could be experiencing limerence or even simple lust.

It’s all about hormones and other chemical reactions in the brain and body. Everyone is at the mercy of one of Mother Nature’s most delightful and devastating little tricks, which has successfully resulted in 8.025 billion (and counting!) humans on the planet.

Here are five differences between how men and women fall in love:

1. Men tend to fall in love fast, while women take their time

Men reported being attracted to a woman physically first, then mentally, emotionally, and, finally, spiritually. Women tend to be attracted mentally first, then emotionally, physically, and, at last, spiritually.

"If women commit to and get pregnant by an unworthy mate [with] no help rearing a child, that would be very costly, time- and resource-wise," psychologist Marissa Harrison explained. According to a study of 172 college students in The Journal of Social Psychology, men reported both falling in love and saying "I love you" earlier in a relationship than women.

Although women are assumed to be more in touch with their emotions than men, men took an average of 88 days to fall in love, whereas women took an average of 134 days to feel the same.

Men may fall in love faster than women. Co-author Harrison suggested women need more time to feel trust due to the subconscious biological imperative to find the most suitable partner to father children, which is likely why intimacy works best for a woman once her emotional needs are being met.

"I think women unconsciously postpone love compared to men," Harrison says. "Women have a lot more to lose reproductively by committing to the wrong man. They are born with a finite number of eggs, yet men produce millions of sperm daily."

If a woman is immediately physically drawn to a man, she may see it as a red flag or a cautionary warning, seeing it as a sign that she may be attracted to her fantasy of who he might be and not necessarily to who he is.

Although there's a chance a man might be the right one for her, a woman cannot know that early on. For the most successful relationship, both partners need to be prepared to go at different paces as they navigate the various stages of dating and relationships.

2. Men are more likely to pull back and want to slow things down

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There's a point when both partners need to reflect on whether this is the right relationship. Men often pull away at this stage.

Relationship coach Alex Cormont explained, "Some men pull away the moment they realize they’re developing real feelings for you. Unfortunately, this can also happen at the very moment you realize you're developing real feelings for them! This fear of love happens because suddenly there are important stakes involved. They begin worrying about the potential outcomes of the relationship, and this affects their behavior. They become nervous, which leads to uncomfortable feelings of vulnerability many people don’t know how to handle."

For women, this can be a time when emotions run high, especially anxiety, and some may tend to text or call their new beau too many times. Moving on to the next stage requires both partners to give each other space and time to decide if they want to move into exclusivity.

One study out of the University of Arizona found that men are especially likely to pull away when they feel their masculinity has been threatened.

3. Men are more likely to regret inaction than action

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A study published in Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin found that "within romantic relationships, men emphasize regrets of inaction over action... whereas women report regrets of inaction and action with equivalent frequency." So perhaps men are more likely to say "I love you" first because they would rather be wrong later than to have missed their chance to say it.

4. Women become less selective the more they have been rejected

A 2017 study of 66 female college students from The American Psychological Association found women who have experienced rejection become "significantly less selective" when faced with romantic choices in the future.

5. Rejecting someone is a riskier prospect for women than it is for men

According to a 2017 review of four previous studies in The Journal of Social Psychology, men punish women for rejecting them, whereas women do not punish men for doing the same.

Among their findings, the researchers state: "Women felt they were more likely to be penalized for engaging in social rejection than men, women were less willing to endorse social rejection than men, and men, but not women, viewed female rejectors in a more negative manner than male rejectors."

To be fair, though, more research is needed to know for sure who has the last word on this one.

Melodie Tucker is an internationally known Mars Venus Success Coach and instructor, guiding people to discover what it is they want out of life — and then helping them figure out how to get it.