You're a smart, attractive person, so you wouldn't be surprised if one of your friends got the hots for you and then started acting all kinds of crazy.
你聪明，充满吸引力，所以如果你的一个朋友迷上了你，然后为你做出一系列疯狂的举动就不会令人奇怪了。

Your love-struck friend will wonder if you feel the same way, and will probably dream up subtle tests to find out. They could save themselves some effort by quickly surveying the scientific literature, though, because they will almost certainly be following one of six well-trodden paths.
迷上你的那位朋友不知道你和他（她）的想法是否一样，因此就想出一些绝妙的测试来验证。他（她）如果快速地翻阅一下科技文献其实可以给自己省下不少功夫，因为以下这6条测试方法是很多人都会尝试的。

In a classic study led by Leslie Baxter at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon, and William Wilmot at the University of Montana, Missoula, a team of researchers interviewed 90 undergraduate students about their relationships with people of the opposite sex.
来自奥勒冈州波特兰刘易斯克拉克学院的莱斯利 巴克斯特（Leslie Baxter）与密苏里市蒙大拿大学教授威廉 威尔莫特（William Wilmot）联合进行了一项研究，他们访问了90名大学生，旨在了解他们与异性的关系。

The interviewees admitted to a total of 158 "calculated acquisition strategies" or secret tests that they hoped would reveal how a fancied friend felt about them. Many of the tests were pretty similar, so Baxter and Wilmot were able to boil them down to just seven categories. Read on to see how infuriating, and downright calculating, friends can become in the pursuit of a relationship upgrade.
被访问者采用了158条“蓄意获取策略”，也就是秘密测试，他们希望通过这些测试来探知自己喜欢的朋友是怎么看待自己的。大多数的测试都很相似，因此巴克斯特和威尔莫特把这些测试分成7类。接下来让我们来看一看异性朋友为了追求一段恋情是如何让人抓狂又工于心计的。

1. Endurance
忍耐度

This is most common type of test. In this category, the love-struck friend does their best to test the other person's feelings by fishing for compliments or demanding help, especially if it comes at a cost to the other.
这是最常见的一类测试，在这类的测试中，陷入情网的那个人竭尽所能地恭维对方或者向对方寻求帮助，特别是涉及需要对方付出代价的事情。

A classic endurance gambit is the self-put-down. As one respondent recalled: "He was really getting down on himself, saying he wasn't a very capable or nice person. He said it to get me to compliment him and verbalise how much I thought of him."
一个经典的忍耐力测试开场就是放低自己的姿态。一个被测试者回忆说：“他把自己位置放得很低，说他能力不强，人也不好，他这样说就是想让我夸奖他，听听我是怎么看他的。”

Another type of endurance test is called forced choice, in which your friend wants to see if you will drop everything for them. "She came to where I work out and said that she was really depressed but didn't want to bother me," said one man in his interview. "She really wanted to see if I would stop what I was doing and show my concern, indicating how much I care for her."
另外一种忍耐度测试叫做强迫选择测试，在这项测试里，你的朋友想知道你会不会为了他们放弃所有事情。一个男性受访者说：“她来到我锻炼的地方，告诉我她很沮丧不过她不想打扰我。她非常想知道我是否能停下我手头的事情关心她。”

Finally, enamoured friends will behave like spoiled brats, pushing their friend's buttons to see how much mistreatment they will put up with without complaining, will you still like them even when they're being a pain?
最后，迷恋你的朋友会表现得像个被宠坏了的乳臭未干的孩子，看看他们的迷恋对象在深受对方折磨的情况下还会不会毫无怨言地忍受——如果你的朋友是这样，你还会喜欢他们吗？

2. Triangulation
三角测量法

The second most popular type of test was dubbed the triangle, because it relies on the age-old saying "three's a crowd".
第二流行的测试方法就是三角测量，这个测试来源于老辈人口中的“三人不欢”。

Some people engineer "fidelity checks", especially if the relationship has already strayed beyond the platonic. One of the interviewees wanted to test if her boyfriend was as keen as she was. "I would intentionally leave him alone with my room-mate and then ask him when I returned 'What have the two of you been up to?' If he acted uncomfortable, I would know that he wasn't faithful or at least that he was thinking about being unfaithful to me."
一些人愿意做“忠诚度测试”，特别是两者之间关系已经不再是纯粹的柏拉图式的关系。因为受访者想知道自己的男朋友是不是如同她爱他一样喜欢她。“我有时候故意把他和我的室友单独留在一起，我回去的时候问他他们两人在一起的时候做了些什么。如果他表现不自然，我就知道他不诚实，至少他想对我不忠诚。”

Others employ jealousy tests: "I tested her limits by going out with other women and making sure that she found out about it. I wanted to know what kind of relationship commitment she wanted," said one man.
另外一些人采用嫉妒测试。“我和其她女人出去，并确保她知道，这样就能测试她的极限。我想知道她想要什么样的爱情承诺”，一位男性受访者表示。

3. Hint, hint
暗示测试

Then there are the indirect suggestion tests: joking about serious feelings, hinting or getting increasingly intimate with bodily contact. "When we were just becoming romantic, he kept getting more and more bold with his touching, first his arm around my shoulder, then moving in real close, etc. He was waiting to see if I would tell him when to stop as a sign of how much I liked him," said one interviewee.
接下来还有间接暗示测试，也就是对于一段认真的感情开玩笑，通过身体接触给予暗示使感情升温。“我们逐渐变得浪漫的时候，他对我的身体接触也越来越大胆。首先，他的胳膊搭在我的肩头，然后手慢慢移过来，他等着我喊停，通过他与我的距离判断我有多爱他。”一位受访者说道。

4. Miss me?
想我吗？

Distance is supposed to make the heart grow fonder, and indeed physical separation is a common test. One respondent admitted: "To see if our relationship was really strong I tested it by going overseas for a few months."
距离产生美，因此与相爱之人分开也是一项常见测试。一位受访人认为他测试他俩关系是否巩固的方法就是出国，和对方分离几个月。

If you have felt like you didn't want to be the first to call, you could be using another separation test called initiation induction. "When I returned from Switzerland, he didn't call me even though he knew exactly when I was returning. He wanted to see if I still felt the same way about him by calling him first," one woman recalls.
如果你不想成为先打电话的那个人，你可以采取另外一个分离测试，这项测试叫做初始感应。一位女士回忆说：“当我从瑞典回国的时候，他并没有给我打电话，虽然他清楚知道我回来的时间。他想知道我是否能和他想法一样并首先打电话。”

5. Heart to heart
心与心交流

The directness test is really the opposite of a secret strategy. Far more popular with men than women, it involves either asking a person straight out how they feel, or speaking openly about yourself in the hope your love interest will too.
直接测试与秘密测试刚好相反。男性采用这种测试方法的频率远远高于女性。这样的测试方法包括直接问别人他们的感觉或者开诚布公地和自己有感觉的那位交谈。

"I was having trouble getting him to open up to me about his family and his background," one woman said, "so I started talking about my folks and sisters, hoping that he would reciprocate and tell me about himself as a sign that he trusted me and wanted me to know more about him."
一位女性表示：“想和我那位开放地聊聊他的家庭和背景非常困难，所以我首先和他介绍一下我的家庭和姐妹，希望他能和我交换意见，与我聊他的情况，以此让他相信我，也想让我多了解他。”

6. Inside information
内部信息

Ever tried to find out from someone's friends whether they might have a crush on you? Then you have employed what Baxter and Wilmot aptly call asking third party tests. It might sound like playground behaviour, but grown-ups do it too.
你是否想知道别人的朋友是否喜欢你？那你可以试试巴克斯特和威尔莫特所定义的第三方测试。这听起来也许像是小朋友的游戏行为，但是大人们也这样做。