Are you lonely? Bored? Trying to deflect questions about that special someone from Mom, Dad or your friends because there’s nobody romantic in your life?
　　你寂寞吗？无聊吗？试图从爸爸妈妈或是好友转移问题，因为生活中的浪漫爱情遍寻不着。
Maybe you need an Invisible Boyfriend.
　也许你需要的就是一个虚拟男友。
Yes, the Internet has a solution for everything, and Invisible Boyfriend (or Girlfriend) can take care of those pesky privacy-invading questions by supplying an actual person to call you, text you and leave you messages. They’ll even send you handwritten notes.
　是的，网络无所不能，而虚拟男友（女友）可以省去那些麻烦的侵犯个人隐私的问题，传送一个真人打电话给你，发短信给你，并给你留言。他们甚至还会亲手写下留言给你。
Why, that’s sometimes better than an Actual Boyfriend!
　　为什么，有时候就是比现实中的男朋友还要好！
Matthew Homann, who describes himself as a “recovering lawyer” with “idea surplus disorder,” came up with the idea several years ago after a divorce and bought the domain InvisibleGirlfriend.com for $7. He filed it away until late 2013, when he pitched it to a St. Louis hackathon. A long weekend later, he and his team won the contest.
　　把自己形容为“脑补过剩混乱”的“复职律师”马修·霍曼，几年前在离婚后想出了这个主意，并花7美元注册InvisibleGirlfriend.com域名。直到2013年末，他才存档完毕，参加了圣路易斯的黑客马拉松活动。一个长周末过去后，他和他的团队赢了竞赛。
For $24.99 a month (for starters, which includes 100 text messages, voicemail and handwritten notes), you get to make up a story about how you met and pick out an image, name, age and interests.
24.99美金一个月（为新用户，包括100条短信，语音留言和手写留言），你能自编自导一个你们如何邂逅的故事，并选择头像，姓名，年龄和兴趣爱好。
Who’s at the other end? Though Homann says some of that information is proprietary, he’ll allow that the St. Louis-based company has partnered with a service that has real people responding to your messages. (Yes, they’ve been trained, so watch your language.)
　另一端到底是谁？虽然霍曼声称一些信息归私人所有，他会允许圣路易斯的公司和有真人服务回应你信息的合作。（是的，他们训练有素，所以，注意你的言辞）

Eventually, Invisible Boyfriend expects to offer gifts sent to you at work and other real-life services, says Homann. Not even Pygmalion had it so good.
　　最终，霍曼说，虚拟男友希望能在你工作时送礼物给你，还有其他真实生活中的服务。即使“卖花女”都没有这么贴心。
Ideas like Invisible Boyfriend have been fodder for generations of stories, of course. Think of “Cyrano de Bergerac,” who supplies poetry to the lunkheaded Christian to woo Roxane; or the movie “Her,” in which Joaquin Phoenix’s sad sack falls in love with a computer operating system.
　　当然了，像虚拟男友这样的点子已经滋生了几代故事。想想“大鼻子情圣”为呆头呆脑的基督徒写诗歌来追求罗克珊；或是电影《她》中，瓦昆·菲尼克斯扮演的冒失鬼爱上了电脑操作系统。
What lonely person wouldn’t like someone understanding to talk to, even if just through a device?
　孤独的人怎么会不喜欢有贴心的另一半说说话，即使是通过一个装置设备。
Homann admits he’s thought about it. “There’s a very real possibility that people might grow attached, though that’s not what we’re trying to go for here,” he says.
　　霍曼承认他想过。“虽然这不是我们想要的结果，但是真的非常有可能人们渐渐对此产生依恋，“他说。
But he believes his service can be useful to build customers’ confidence.
　　但是他觉得他的服务能够对建立消费者信任大有裨益。
“We had a user who was at dinner on a date. His text message went off, he texted her back, and all of a sudden the woman across the table from him asked who it was,” he says. The real-life date, he says, wasn’t upset at all, but became more intrigued.
　“我们有用户在吃饭的时候约会。他的短信来了，他发短信回她，而突然对面的女人问他谁来的短信，”他说。现实的约会，他说，并没有那么心烦意乱，但是变得更感兴趣。
“What we’re seeing is potential user cases are all over the board,” Homann says. “It’s not just, I want to convince my parents I’m in a relationship.”
　　“我们探寻的是潜在用户星罗棋布地呈现出来，”霍曼说。“不仅仅是这样，我想要让父母深信不疑我在恋爱。”

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