男生女生在许多方面都有着差异，而这一点也体现在了处理维系友情的方式上……
You may have heard the saying, women are from Venus and men are from Mars. It’s a nice way of saying how males and females are, in many ways, quite different from each other.
你或许听过“女人来自金星，男人来自火星”这句话。这句话很好地道出了男性和女性在许多方面上有着天壤之别。
These differences can be seen everywhere, even in how we communicate with friends. A recent study by the University of Oxford suggested that males and females keep long-distance relationships with friends of the same sex alive in different ways.
这些区别随处可见，甚至我们和朋友沟通的方式都有所不同。牛津大学近期发布的一项研究表明，男性和女性会用不同的方式来维系与异地同性朋友间的友情。
Researchers questioned 30 students about their friendships just before they graduated from high school and moved away for college. They then followed up the questions nine months, and then 18 months, later.
研究者们在30名学生即将高中毕业，迈入大学校园之际，询问了他们关于友谊的问题，并在9个月和18个月后对这些问题分别进行了跟进。
Robin Dunbar, who headed the research, told The Guardian: “What determined whether [friendships] survived with girls was whether they made an effort to talk more to each other on the phone.”
牵头这项研究的罗宾·邓巴在接受《卫报》采访时表示：“女生之间维系友谊的因素是两人是否能尽量煲更长时间的电话粥。”
Males, on the other hand, tended to do things differently. Most male respondents said they get through months of being apart from friends by arranging occasional meet-ups. “What held up their friendships was doing stuff together,” Dunbar told The Guardian.
而男性处理这些事情的方式则截然不同。大多数男性受访者表示，他们会安排不定期的聚会，这中间他们要有好几个月天各一方。“他们维系友谊的方式是一起干点事儿，”邓巴在接受《卫报》采访时表示。
“Going to a football match, going to the pub for a drink ... They had to make the effort. It was a very striking sex difference.”
“去看场足球比赛，去酒吧喝一杯……他们需要努力做到这些。这是十分显著的性别差异。”
Of course, genderisn’t the only thing that determines how we stay in touch. The way we keep our relationships alive comes down entirely to the preference of each person, and it can take a while to find your own way of making your friendships work. One thing that is definitely clear though is that friends who make the effort to stay in contact, even if it’s only through Skype once a week, do tend to stay friends, no matter what the distance.
当然，性别并非是决定我们如何保持联系的唯一要素。我们维系关系的方式完全取决于每个人的不同偏好，找到自己维系好友谊的方式你或许要花上一段时间。但有一点是明确的，努力保持联系的朋友，就算只是每周视频聊天一次也能做朋友，不论距离有多远。
本文选自《二十一世纪学生英文报·高三》617期
本文音频由我报外籍专家Dale Fox朗读
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