雙語散文：男人間無聲的友誼

The silence of men in general is overtalked about and overcriticized. To be sure, men never open up as much as women want them to, but there is a wordless understanding in which we function fairly well especially in friendships.

男人的沉默往往被過多地談論且過分指責。(但)可以肯定的是，男人從未像女人所希望的那樣開誠布公地說出自己的心里話，但我們卻能很好地運用無言的理解，尤其是在維持彼此的友誼的過程中。

I believe, in fact, that most women would prefer a man to be glumlyuncommunicative than to [1] spill his guts at the drop of a hat.

事實上，我相信大多數女人都寧愿男人可以憂郁地不言不語，而不喜歡男人就像竹筒倒豆子，什么都說。

The push for men to express their feelings presumes that we have feelings, and we do have a few, but they remain submerged, and the [2] airing of them often violates their authenticity.

男人被認定為應表達感情，這就是他們表達情感的推動力。不錯，我們確實有一些，但隱而不露，若要表達出來就會破壞其真實性。

I am no biologist, but my guess is that the male human animal was programmed for silence. I would go so far as to argue that men were programmed to be isolated from one another and that aloneness is our natural state. Silence in male friendships is our way of being alone with each other.

我不是生物學家，但我猜想男人這種動物天生就是沉默寡言的。我甚至認為男人天生就是彼此孤立的，孤獨是我們的自然狀態(tài)。男人間的友誼表現為沉默寡言，正是我們彼此獨自生活方式的表現。

Once men have established a friendship, that itself is the word. The affection is obvious, at least to us. A main component of our silence is an appreciation of the obvious.

一旦男人間建立起友誼，友誼本身就已說明了一切。情感是明顯的，至少對我們來說，我們沉默的一個主要組成部分就是對這明顯情感的欣賞。

注解：

1. spill one’s guts本意是“告密”，和”spill the beans”意思相近，但是后者包含“不慎泄露風聲”的意思，而前者則是刻意泄露。“ At the drop of a hat”是“突然”的意思。在這里，“spill his guts at the drop of a hat”指一個人藏不住心里的話，經常不經覺地就把許多話告訴別人。

2. airing是由air派生出來的，作名詞用時是“風干”的意思。它同時也是air的動名詞，有“張揚”的意思。在這個句子中，airing指代的也就是feeling,即感情的張揚。