Betty and Harold have been married for years. But one thing still puzzles （困扰) old Harol

Betty and Harold have been married for years. But one thing still puzzles (困扰) old Harold. How is it that he can leave Betty and her friend Joan sitting on the sofa, talking, go out to a ball- game, come back three and a half hours later, and they're still sitting on the sofa？ Talking？

What in the world, Harold wonders, do they have to talk about？

Betty shrugs. Talk？ We' re friends.

Researching this matter called friendship, psychologist Lillian Rubin spent two years interviewing more than two hundred women and men. No matter what their age, their job, their sex, the re- suits were completely clear: women have more friendships than men, and the difference in the con- tent and the quality of those friend-ships is "marked and unmistakable".

More than two-thirds of the single men Rubin interviewed could not name a best friend. Those who could were likely to name a woman. Yet three-quarters of the single women had no problem naming a best friend, and almost it was a woman. More married men than women named their wife/ husband as a best friend, most trusted person, or the one they would turn to in time of emotional distress (感情危机). "Most women," says Rubin, "identified (认定) at least one, usually more, trusted friends to whom they could turn in a troubled moment, and they spoke openly about the importance of these relationships in their lives."

"In general," writes Rubin in her new book, "women' s friendships with each other rest on shared emotions and support, but men' s relationships are marked by shared activities." For he most part, Rubin says, interactions(交往)between men are emotionally controlled--a good fit with the social requirements of "manly behavior".

"Even when a man is said to be a best friend," Rubin writes, "the two share little about their innermost feelings. Whereas a woman' s closest female friend, might be the first to tell her to leave a failing marriage, it wasn't unusual to hear a man say he didn't know his friend' s marriage was in serious trouble until he appeared one night asking if he could sleep on the sofa."

What old Harold cannot understand or explain is the fact that ________.

A．he is treated as an outsider rather than a husband

B．women have so much to share

C．women show little interest ballgames

D．he finds his wife difficult to talk to