异性男女做不到“只是朋友”

Can  and women ever be “just friends”? Few other questions have provoked debates as intense, family dinners as awkward, literature as lurid, or movies as memorable. Still, the question remains unanswered. Daily experience suggests that non-romantic friendships between males and females are not only possible, but common—men and women live, work, and play side-by-side.
异性恋的男女可以做到“只是朋友”吗？没有别的问题可以像这个问题一样引出热烈的讨论了：像家宴一样尴尬，像文学一样动人，像电影一样难忘。而这个问题依然没有得到解答。日常经验表明，男女之间不带浪漫色彩的纯友谊关系不仅可能，而且十分普遍——男女可以一起生活、工作、并肩玩乐。

However, the possibility remains that this apparently platonic coexistence is merely a façade. New research suggests that there may be some truth to this possibility—that we may think we’re capable of being “just friends” with members of the opposite sex, but the opportunity (or perceived opportunity) for “romance” is often lurking just around the corner, waiting to pounce at the most inopportune moment.
然而，这种柏拉图式的共处可能只是表面现象。新的研究显示，虽然这种可能性也许是有事实依据的：我们可能认为自己有能力和异性“只做朋友”，然而“浪漫”的机会（或者说感觉到的机会）通常就藏在某个角落，等待一个最不凑巧的时刻迸发。

In order to investigate the viability of truly platonic opposite-sex friendships, researchers brought 88 pairs of undergraduate opposite-sex friends into a science lab. Privacy was paramount—for example, imagine the fallout if two friends learned that one—and only one—had unspoken romantic feelings for the other throughout their relationship.
为了调查单纯的柏拉图式异性友谊的可行性，研究人员将88对异性大学生朋友带入了一间实验室。隐私是最重要的。比如说想象一下，假设两个朋友发现其中一人（单方面）在两人的关系中对另一个人有还没说出口的浪漫感觉，那会很尴尬。

In order to ensure honest responses, the researchers not only followed standard protocols regarding anonymity and confidentiality, but also required both friends to agree—verbally, and in front of each other—to refrain from discussing the study, even after they had left the testing facility. These friendship pairs were then separated, and each member of each pair was asked a series of questions related to his or her romantic feelings (or lack thereof) toward the friend with whom they were taking the study.
为了确保得到真实的反馈，研究人员不仅遵循匿名和保密的标准协议，而且要求每一对朋友都同意在对方面前不要讨论这项研究，哪怕在他们结束试验后也不行。之后这些朋友被分开，每一对朋友都分别被询问一系列关于他/她对另一人的浪漫感觉（或者没有感觉）的问题。

The results suggest large gender differences in how men and women experience opposite-sex friendships. Men were much more attracted to their female friends than vice versa. Men were also more likely than women to think that their opposite-sex friends were attracted to them—a clearly misguided belief.
结果表明，男女对待异性友谊的感受存在巨大的性别差异。和女性相比，男性更容易被异性朋友所吸引，也更容易认为异性朋友被自己所吸引——这显然是自我感觉良好。

In fact, men’s estimates of how attractive they were to their female friends had virtually nothing to do with how these women actually felt, and almost everything to do with how the men themselves felt—basically, males assumed that any romantic attraction they experienced was mutual, and were blind to the actual level of romantic interest felt by their female friends.
事实上，男性对于自己对女性朋友的吸引程度的估计和这些女性的真实感受完全无关，几乎都是这些男性自己的感觉——基本上来说，男性总是假设他们感受到的浪漫吸引是相互的，而对于他们的女性朋友对自己到底有多少浪漫的兴趣视而不见。

Women, too, were blind to the mindset of their opposite-sex friends; because females generally were not attracted to their male friends, they assumed that this lack of attraction was mutual. As a result, men consistently overestimated the level of attraction felt by their female friends and women consistently underestimated the level of attraction felt by their male friends.
而女性往往也不明白她们异性朋友的心态；因为一般来说女性不会被男性朋友所吸引，她们也假设男性朋友不会被自己所吸引。结果就是，男性始终高估了自己对女性朋友的吸引力，而女性又一直低估了自己对男性朋友的吸引力。