男人从未像女人那样开诚布公地说出自己的心里话，但无言的理解，在男人当中却很管用，尤其在维持友谊的时候。

　　也许男人天生就是彼此孤立的，孤独是我们的自然状态。即使成了朋友，也是无声的友谊，这使得我们能彼此独立地活着。

　　而一旦男人间建立起友谊，友谊本身就已说明了一切。我们的沉默，就是来自于对这份情感的欣赏。

　　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.

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

　　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 airing of them often violates their authenticity.

　　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.

　　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 affection.