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 guts¹ 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 authenticity². 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 isolated³ 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 component⁴ of our silence is an appreciation⁵ of the affection.