They say it’s easy to get a secret out of a woman because she will tell it to you without even having to ask. Although most women consider themselves trustworthy confidantes in whom a friend can find a shoulder to cry on and a “grave” for their secrets, a recent study comes to show that, at the end of the day, a woman with a secret means that the respective secret will be out in about two days tops, as the Telegraph informs.

Researchers in the UK have conducted a poll among 3,000 women aged 18-65 and have learned that ladies are no good when it comes to keeping secrets, being able to keep them for a maximum of 48 hours, after which time the cat is out of the bag. The persons in whom women confide and to whom they reveal secrets they should keep are usually their boyfriends or husbands, mothers or best friends. The last two, in their turn, have mothers and best friends to tell the secret to in the next 48 hours, of course.

As the Telegraph puts it, the findings of the study clearly show that every Brit who ever confided in a woman a secret they didn’t want out for dear life might as well start thinking about a lie to cover it up. The irony of the study, the publication says, is that 83 percent of the queried women stated they considered themselves trustworthy and good at keeping secrets no matter the circumstance, so it could very well be that they’re not even aware they’re breaching a friend’s confidence when they dish out all the dirt to a third party.

“It’s official – women can’t keep secrets. We were really keen to find out with this survey how many secrets people are told. What we didn’t bank on was how quickly these are passed on by those we confide in. No matter how precious the piece of information, it’s often out in the public domain within 48 hours. That means every single Brit who has confided in a friend should be worried because they don’t know where their secret is heading.” Michael Cox, UK director of Wines of Chile, which commissioned the study, says.

Alcohol is a very important factor in women’s decision to reveal a secret to another person, the survey has also revealed. Given that they hear on average three nuggets of gossip per week, it’s no wonder they feel the need to share it with a friend, especially after a couple of glasses of wine, it is being said. The good news is, though, that 38 percent of the women who have been made party to someone else’s secret usually forget what they’ve been told by the next morning.