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?
你寂寞嗎？無(wú)聊嗎？試圖從爸爸媽媽或是好友轉(zhuǎn)移問(wèn)題，因?yàn)樯钪械睦寺?ài)情遍尋不著。

Maybe you need an Invisible Boyfriend.
也許你需要的就是一個(gè)虛擬男友。

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，網(wǎng)絡(luò)無(wú)所不能，而虛擬男友（女友）可以省去那些麻煩的侵犯?jìng)€(gè)人隱私的問(wèn)題，傳送一個(gè)真人打電話給你，發(fā)短信給你，并給你留言。他們甚至還會(huì)親手寫下留言給你。

Why, that's sometimes better than an Actual Boyfriend!
為什么，有時(shí)候就是比現(xiàn)實(shí)中的男朋友還要好！

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 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.
把自己形容為“腦補(bǔ)過(guò)?；靵y”的“復(fù)職律師”馬修·霍曼，幾年前在離婚后想出了這個(gè)主意，并花7美元注冊(cè)域名。直到2013年末，他才存檔完畢，參加了圣路易斯的黑客馬拉松活動(dòng)。一個(gè)長(zhǎng)周末過(guò)去后，他和他的團(tuán)隊(duì)贏了競(jìng)賽。

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美金一個(gè)月（為新用戶，包括100條短信，語(yǔ)音留言和手寫留言），你能自編自導(dǎo)一個(gè)你們?nèi)绾五忮说墓适拢⑦x擇頭像，姓名，年齡和興趣愛(ài)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.)
另一端到底是誰(shuí)？雖然霍曼聲稱一些信息歸私人所有，他會(huì)允許圣路易斯的公司和有真人服務(wù)回應(yīng)你信息的合作。（是的，他們訓(xùn)練有素，所以，注意你的言辭）

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.
最終，霍曼說(shuō)，虛擬男友希望能在你工作時(shí)送禮物給你，還有其他真實(shí)生活中的服務(wù)。即使“賣花女”都沒(méi)有這么貼心。

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.
當(dāng)然了，像虛擬男友這樣的點(diǎn)子已經(jīng)滋生了幾代故事。想想“大鼻子情圣”為呆頭呆腦的基督徒寫詩(shī)歌來(lái)追求羅克珊；或是電影《她》中，瓦昆·菲尼克斯扮演的冒失鬼愛(ài)上了電腦操作系統(tǒng)。

What lonely person wouldn't like someone understanding to talk to, even if just through a device?
孤獨(dú)的人怎么會(huì)不喜歡有貼心的另一半說(shuō)說(shuō)話，即使是通過(guò)一個(gè)裝置設(shè)備。

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.
霍曼承認(rèn)他想過(guò)?！半m然這不是我們想要的結(jié)果，但是真的非常有可能人們漸漸對(duì)此產(chǎn)生依戀，“他說(shuō)。

But he believes his service can be useful to build customers' confidence.
但是他覺(jué)得他的服務(wù)能夠?qū)⑾M(fèi)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.
“我們有用戶在吃飯的時(shí)候約會(huì)。他的短信來(lái)了，他發(fā)短信回她，而突然對(duì)面的女人問(wèn)他誰(shuí)來(lái)的短信，”他說(shuō)。現(xiàn)實(shí)的約會(huì)，他說(shuō)，并沒(méi)有那么心煩意亂，但是變得更感興趣。

"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."
“我們探尋的是潛在用戶星羅棋布地呈現(xiàn)出來(lái)，”霍曼說(shuō)?！安粌H僅是這樣，我想要讓父母深信不疑我在戀愛(ài)。”