As an indicator of what truly matters in a man, many guys get excited at the sight of someone wearing size 14 shoes. Others claim it’s all about the Adam’s apple. And a few who’ve never heard the story about Pinocchio claim a man’s nose tells you everything you need to know about him. But once you’ve unpeeled his package and discovered whether you were right or wrong, a closer look at his hands may be in order. ‘Cuz if you’re thinking he’s a keeper, that may be what indicates whether or not – or how soon – he’ll be cheating on you.

And yup, that smells like science to me.

According to researchers at the University of Oxford’s Department of Experimental Psychology and Northumbria University, not all men cheat. But all men are inclined towards either promiscuity or fidelity in their relationships. You’d think the difference between the faithful and the unfaithful would be how often their partner whines and acts like a little bitch. But science says that while those traits may give cause to dump someone, guys with a roving eye can blame their inability to keep it in their pants on their ring finger.

The study analyzed surveys about how participants felt about non-committal sex from 1,314 men from the UK and North America. They found that those whose ring finger was longer than their index finger were more likely to be promiscuous than those whose index finger out-distanced their ring finger. The researchers believed the underlying cause was that the cheaters had been exposed to more testosterone in the womb. Dick size, however, was not measured in the study, so being more popular as a cause for infidelity did not affect the researchers conclusions.

Professor Robin Dunbar, who spearheaded the research, said his work showed that within sexual relationships there were clusters of men more inclined to ‘stay’ and a separate cluster of men more inclined to ‘stray’. “It is important to note that these differences are very subtle, and are only visible when we look at large groups of people,” he said. Of course when you’re talking a large cluster of men, the urge to ‘stray’ is always gonna come out of tops.

As a cause for being a cheater, being born that way ain’t a bad excuse. The only problem is that what’s good for the gander is good for the other gander too. And researchers at the University of California at Berkeley already published a study that concluded while in most men the index finger is usually the shorter of the two digits, among gay men the length of their ring finger was generally significantly longer. Which poses the question, are all gay men prone to cheating, or are those men with a propensity to stray just smart enough to know they can score more partners if they stick to men?