Most of the confidences were unsought—frequently I have feigned sleep, preoccupation, or a hostile levity when I realized by some unmistakable sign that an intimate revelation was quivering on the horizon; for the intimate revelations of young men, or at least the terms in which they express them, are usually plagiaristic and marred by obvious suppressions.
应该是下面这个意思:
其实,那些推心置腹大多是自作多情--每次我看出苗头,有人要向我倾述衷肠,我就常常装睡,或者装作有事,甚至用轻佻来激怒他们让他们不要开口,那些年轻人的表白,至少他们的言辞,常常是陈腔滥调,欲说还休,言不由衷。