摘要：At first glance, the research on friendship seems to confirm traditional gender stereotypes about intimacy—that women value emotional closeness more than men. Male buddies tend to spend time together doing things—playing sports, listening to music—while female friends place talk, often of personal matters, at the center of their time together. Women say that intimate conversation is the most important facet of friendship, helping them understand who they are, improve their sense of self, and solve problems with other loved ones.。" The final question puts interlocutors in intimacy central: They're asked to share a personal problem and get the other's insights into how to handle it. By the time they finish their questioning, lab partners are not only sharing emotionally fraught information（分享滿是情感類的信息）, they're essentially acting just as people in real relationships do—being responsive （易感應的）to each other's needs.。

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Friendship: Are Men Missing Out?

At first glance, the research on friendship seems to confirm traditional gender stereotypes about intimacy—that women value emotional closeness more than men. Male buddies tend to spend time together doing things—playing sports, listening to music—while female friends place talk, often of personal matters, at the center of their time together. Women say that intimate conversation is the most important facet of friendship, helping them understand who they are, improve their sense of self, and solve problems with other loved ones.

But men are not born to shun deep intimacy（男人不是生來就回避深層次的親密的，也就是說，他們對親密的迴避，是後天的教育、環境使然）. In fact, studies show, both men and women value friendships with women—precisely because those relationships tend to be especially emotionally intimate. Outside the Western world, male-male friendships tend to be highly intimate and expressive.

North American men are well aware that sharing personal information will bring them closer to a friend than will doing an activity together, finds Beverley Fehr, a professor of psychology at the University of Winnipeg and the author of Friendship Processes. What stops them from engaging more often in self-disclosure with other men, she says, is fear of rejection. Sharing makes men feel too vulnerable, perhaps because it conflicts with another value men hold—competitiveness.

What would happen if men were put in a situation where they were expected to share private information with other men? Fehr wondered. Would they benefit the way women do?

She turned to a tool widely used by relationship researchers: "36 Questions," developed by Arthur and Elaine Aron. The questions, which couples ask each other, are designed to create a temporary feeling of closeness, even between strangers, in an experimental setting. Beginning with "Given the choice of anyone in the world, whom would you want as a dinner guest?" the questions gradually escalate in emotional intensity. Question 18, at the halfway mark, gets highly personal: "What is your most terrible memory?" The final question puts interlocutors in intimacy central: They're asked to share a personal problem and get the other's insights into how to handle it. By the time they finish their questioning, lab partners are not only sharing emotionally fraught information（分享滿是情感類的信息）, they're essentially acting just as people in real relationships do—being responsive （易感應的）to each other's needs.

Fehr brought into her lab pairs of men who were already friends and launched them on the 36 Questions. As the conversations progressed to a pointedly personal question, she observed a common response. "Typically, the men looked stunned," she reports. "Then they fell silent. Then they uttered either the'f' word（fuck的諱稱）or commented, 'That's deep.'" But to her amazement, they all really opened up in their answers.

So far, Fehr has found that the prompted self-disclosures have increased feelings of closeness between friends as well as boosted satisfaction with the friendship. Time will tell whether the men reap the same lasting benefits women do from friendships— heightened self-understanding and self-worth, an added sense of meaning.

Keeping It Going

Maintaining intimacy in a friendship is not a topic that gets a lot of attention, in part because our society tends to value friendship less than romance. Counseling services abound for committed couples on the rocks（觸礁的）, and family and friends rally around them to help them stay together. But faltering （動搖的）friendships trigger neither the same mobilization of resources nor efforts to shore them up（支撐，支持）. And friends themselves seem to have absorbed the message; they tend to be more passive than couples about resolving conflicts. Friendships can end dramatically through betrayals of trust or an act of disloyalty. But most often they wither from neglect.

Yet they are remarkably responsive to resuscitation（易於復活；易於復甦）—by picking up a phone or meeting for coffee. The way friends stay close, says Fehr, is by going back to what drew them together in the first place: sharing information about their lives, offering support, and spending some time together.

Sometimes, though, intimacy between friends is revived in unexpected ways. Halling finds that experiences of reunification （複合）can be startlingly significant, often so profound they deliver transcendence（帶來超越。transcendence: the state ofexcelling or surpassing or going beyond usual limits 完美，超越平常的水平）. "You feel close to a person because you are truly open to them, and the feeling of being alone in the world is suspended （終止）for a time," he says.

Murray Suid, a 74-year-old screenwriter, met Bryan, a charismatic （有魅力的）professor, when the two were in a Bay Area men's group in the 1970s. They became friends, then they lost touch. Two decades later, Suid was living in Los Angeles, and Bryan began making regular trips there for cancer treatment. Suid volunteered to ferry （擺渡；接送）him from airport to clinic and back again. The prognosis （預斷病情） for Bryan was grim （可怕的）, and he often talked about how scared he was. Suid, in turn, confided that his old friend's ordeal was stirring up his own fears of death.

Suid had always thought of dying as something that created a wall between people. But "I found that instead it was a door, enabling two men to feel close to each other in a way that hadn't happened before," he says. Twenty years after Bryan's death, Suid still treasures the drives back and forth to the clinic for their otherworldliness （來世的；陰間的；空想的）. "The intimacy wouldn't have happened if we hadn't had the chance to talk, with me in the role of just being his driver," he says.

That's the thing about intimacy. It can offer up otherworldliness without fanfare （炫耀）, although Halling finds that moments of deepest connection tend to spring from（來自）a shift in circumstances. Going on a trip, being in nature, even working on a project together can pave the way for unselfconscious （自然的；不裝腔作勢的）union, when time falls away and the present moment shines in sharp focus（熠熠生輝）. "We're open to the person, and touched and surprised by who we see," Halling says. "It's an experience of awakening."

When Intimacy Is Imbalanced

Sometimes, the slow dance of self-revelation—the core of intimacy—becomes a bit lopsided （傾向一方的；不平衡的）. One partner may be more forthcoming （樂意幫助的；主動的） or attached than the other. That doesn't mean the relationship has to be scuttled （使……迅速地進行）. It is possible to help a skittish （膽小的；易受驚的）partner open up..

PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT.

Self-disclosure is a process not an all-or-nothing （要麼全有，要麼全無的）proposition （事情；問題）. Intimacy takes time. "The more comfortable partner should positively reinforce any attempts," says psychologist Catherine Sanderson.

SEEK OTHER CONFIDANTS （知音）.

Don't expect your partner to fulfill all of your intimacy needs. "Nurture connection in friendships by being genuinely interested in your friends' worlds," psychologist Debra Mashek advises.

SHIFT THE FOCUS.

The direct gaze can be intimate—but also daunting （令人畏懼的）, especially for people who struggle with opening up. Spend time side-by-side （肩並肩地，而非直接地、面對面地） instead. "Some intimate conversations occur when driving and the focus is not directly on each other," psychologist Steen Halling says.

NURTURE YOUR SOLO SELF.

If you're inclined to want to do everything with your partner, try some adventures on your own, suggests Mashek. Go to the movies or take a fun weekend trip alone.

OPEN UP ABOUT OPENING UP.

Don't hide your interest in how your partner is feeling. If your partner seems to be shutting down, let yourself wonder out loud about the reason（好好想想對方爲什麼會這樣）, Halling recommends.

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BE COMPASSIONATE.

People who are reluctant to self-disclose may have been, early in life, punished for talking about emotions or expressing vulnerability. "We have to be kind, encouraging, and full of care for the genuinely fragile heart that we have invited into an intimate relationship," psychologist James Córdova says. "We have to use our imagination to empathize with（對……有同理心）what it must be like to be afraid."