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We don't officially have the slightest belief in mind reading: we scoff at the absurd idea that we might telepathically know what number between one and a million a stranger is thinking of or that we could place our hands on someone else's skull and thereby intuit the precise details of what they dreamt of last night.
我们表面上不相信读心术：嘲笑这种想法荒谬，我们怎么可能通过心灵感应知道一个陌生人在想什么，或者把手放在别人头上，用直觉猜出他们昨晚梦境的准确细节。
But in relationships, whatever our professed scepticism, we very frequently proceed as if mind reading were not only possible but a standard requirement and possibility in love, something of whose absence we would have every right to complain with bitterness and surprise.
但在人际关系中，无论我们是否公开表示怀疑，我们经常认为读心术不仅是可能的，而且是爱情中的一种必然要求和可能性，如果对方没有读心术，我们就完全有权进行苦涩或惊讶的抱怨。
In a great many ways, we simply assume that our partner must automatically be able to know the movements and preoccupations of our minds.
很多时候，我们简单地认为自己的伴侣一定能自然而然地知道我们思想的动向和关注点。
And our expectations show up in one of the standard ways in which we speak of the perfection of a lover in the initial days of rapture:
我们的期望有几个典型的表现，例如在恋爱初期谈论的完美情人的标准：
they seem to know what we are thinking, without us needing to speak...
他们似乎知道我们在想什么，都不用我们说……
But our superstitious commitment to mind-reading soon evolves into something darker as relationships proceed, for example when:
但随着感情的发展，我们对读心术的迷信很快就会演变成更黑暗的东西，例如：
-We get huffy that our partner didn't realise that our off-colour comment was only a joke.
-由于伴侣没有发现我们的下流调侃只是一个笑话，我们感到十分愤怒。
-We can't imagine they could even think we'd like the bizarre birthday present they bought us.
-我们无法想象，伴侣认为我们会喜欢他们给我们买的奇怪的生日礼物。
-We're offended that they like a book we've already decided is silly.
-因为伴侣喜欢一本我们认为很愚蠢的书，我们感觉到冒犯。
-We're annoyed that they didn't know we wouldn't want to go to the mountains this summer.
-因为伴侣不知道我们今年夏天不想上山，我们感到很恼火。
- they can't understood the mood we are in when we get back from having lunch with our mother.
-在我们和妈妈吃完午饭回家后，他们无法理解我们的心情。
We get worked up because we can't conceive that certain ideas and feelings that are so vivid in our minds should not immediately be obvious to someone who professes to care for us.
我们之所以激动，是因为我们无法想象，某些在我们脑海中如此鲜活的想法和感受，那些声称关心我们的人却没有马上看出来。
We quickly fall into believing that the partner's incomprehension can only be explained in one way: it must come down to wilfulness or nastiness.
我们很快就坚信，伴侣的不理解只能用一种方式来解释：他们是故意的，或丑陋的。
And therefore, it seems only fair that we respond with one of our standard forms of punishment due to all those who should have known better: a sulk - that paradoxical pattern of behaviour in which we refuse, for several hours or even a day or two, to reveal what is wrong to our confused partner because they should just know.
因此，我们以一种标准的方式惩罚那些本应知道我们心思的人，因为这似乎才公平：我们开始生气——这是一种自相矛盾的行为模式，在这种模式下，我们几个小时甚至一两天内都不向我们困惑的伴侣透露哪里出了问题，因为他们“应该”知道。
