點擊上方精彩英文演講,設為星標
每天一個英文演講,讓你從此與眾不同
據韓媒報導,宋仲基和宋慧喬目前正在進行離婚調解,宋仲基通過法律代理人向公眾表示抱歉,稱希望二人圓滿地結束離婚程序,而不是互相指責。早在2019年2月,有網友發現宋慧喬個人社交平臺頭像更換,並刪除了一些照片,因此傳出宋慧喬與宋仲基情變離婚的消息。
而宋慧喬在曝出婚變傳聞後,多次出席公開活動時左手無名指都沒有佩戴婚戒。不過,「雙宋」經濟公司在2月22日曾回應「婚變」傳聞,稱報導不實,今後也不會再回應。
在2019年5月,有網友發現宋仲基曾穿宋慧喬的衣服開工拍戲,衣服上面的英文意思也是很有寓意「每一刻都很特別」,被指是撒狗糧。而轉眼到6月底,二人已進入離婚調解程序。
演員宋鍾基發布官方聲明,稱正在向首爾家庭法院申請與宋慧喬調解離婚。宋仲基通過律師表示:「比起追究雙方的對錯,互相指責,我們更希望圓滿地結束離婚程序。」另外宋仲基還說「對於私生活的事情,很難一一說出來」,「以後將擺脫傷痛,作為演員會盡全力用好的作品來報答大家」。
今天英語演講君分享3個超受歡迎的TED演講,讓你重新認識婚姻和戀愛的真正意義所在。
最好的結婚對象其實是你自己
特蕾西·麥克米倫(Tracy McMillan),她是美國著名兩性關係專家、情感問題專家,她的母親是性工作者,父親大半生在監獄度過,9歲前被超過20個家庭寄養。她曾以為結婚是依靠,三次失敗的婚姻過後,她開始了對自我的思考。聽離過3次婚的女人講婚姻觀:你希望別人愛你,就先愛自己。看完之後,你或許會在這個演講中找到的一些共鳴。
上下滑動,查看雙語演講稿
When I was growing up, there was this song we used to sing on the playground, and it went like this, 「Tracy and so and so, sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g, first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes baby in a baby carriage.」And I’m like, OK, that’s it! That’s how you do life. That’s how you do a relationship. Love, marriage, baby carriage. OK, got it.
我小時候經常唱這麼一首歌:翠西和某某,坐在樹下,互相親吻,先是愛情,再是婚姻,最後生了寶寶,推在嬰兒車裡,一家人其樂融融。感覺就像:「喔!原來如此,這就是生活,這就是感情呀。」愛情、婚姻、嬰兒車,這就是幻想的家庭的全部了。
And then I grew up, and this is what my life turned out to be. Slightly more complicated, right?Love, marriage, divorce, dry spells, love, marriage, co-parenting, another marriage, another divorce; you got the picture.
然而我長大後,這才是我的真實生活:稍微複雜了一點點,相愛、結婚、離婚,單身,再度墜入愛河,又結婚,共同撫養孩子,又離婚;又結婚,又離婚……你可以想像。
So if you’re good at math and/or a fast reader, what you』ve got there is that I』ve been married three times. Yep, three, and divorced. What that’s supposed to mean is that I’m a total failure at relationships. And that is one way to look at it, but not the only way.
所以,你數學或是閱讀能力很好的話,你就會發現,我一共結了三次婚。對,三次,並且都離了。而這所應該代表的就是,我在感情上妥妥的是個失敗者。從另一種角度看,確實如此,但也不是唯一的角度。
Because what I think really happened is that I kept marrying the wrong person. No, it’s not that I didn’t — it’s not that I chose bad guys. My first two husbands were amazing men who are now married to wonderful women who aren’t me. And my third husband, well, we’re friends on Facebook now. So, all is well that ends well, right?
因為在我眼中,真正發生的事情就是我一直在和錯誤的人結婚。和錯誤的人結婚,並不代表我選擇了很差勁的對象,我的前兩任丈夫都是很棒的人。現在也都娶了很棒的姑娘,雖然並不是我。現在我的第三任丈夫是我的Facebook好友。結果一切都還好,是吧?
After the collapse of my third marriage in 2005, I realized that I』ve been marrying everyone in sight, except the one person that I really needed to marry in order to have a great relationship and that once I married that person, all of my relationships would be successes, even the failures. The so-called failures, actually.
在2005年,我第三次婚姻崩潰了以後,我意識到我為了有一段美好的感情,我幾乎和眼前所有的人都結過婚,卻唯獨沒有嫁給那個我應該嫁的人。而且,我一旦嫁給了那個人,我所有的感情都將是成功的,包括那些中途夭折的感情,也就是失敗。
Since we’re talking today about women inventing, I’m going to talk about inventing relationships. What I』ve found through a lot of trial and obviously, many, many, many errors, to be the thing that has transformed my life and love, and that is this idea of marrying yourself.
既然我們今天談論的是女人的創造,我就來說說創造感情吧。我從很多次經歷中,很多很多的錯誤中,所發現的道理,改變了我的人生觀和愛情觀,即嫁給自己。
So what does it mean to marry yourself? It’s a big idea. It is as big as marriage itself except, if I could just summarize it, it would be that you enter into a relationship with yourself and then you put a ring on it.
所以,嫁給自己是什麼意思呢?這是一個大的觀念,幾乎和婚姻觀念等同,如果讓我總結一下的話,就是要和你自己處對象,然後嫁給你自己。
In other words, you commit to yourself fully.And then you build a relationship with yourself to the point where you realize that you’re whole right now, that there is no man, woman, job, circumstance that can happen to you that’s going to make you more whole because you already are. And this changes your life.
換句話說,就是向自己坦白一切,然後和自己建立關係,到了那一步,你就會意識到,你現在是完整的了。男人,女人,工作,環境,都將不會對你有任何影響。這些都不會使你更加完整,因為你已經是完整的了。這將改變你的人生。
By now, I’m sure at least some of you are wondering why you should be listening to a three-time divorcee talk about marriage? Even to herself. And I understand that.
Here’s what I have to say about that: what I』ve learned and my experience is that the places where you have the biggest challenges in your life become the places where you have the most to give if you do your inner work. I kind of want to say that again: the places where you have the biggest challenges are the places where you have the most to give.
到現在為止,我知道你們中間肯定有人在想,你們為什麼要聽一個離過三次婚的女人講婚姻觀。甚至她自己也是這麼想的。我理解這樣的想法。我對此想說的是,我從我的經驗所學到的,當你改變你的內在的時候,越是困難之處,越是要迎難而上。
So let me tell you a little bit about the person I truly needed to marry: myself.
那麼讓我來講講那個我應該嫁的人,也就是我自己。
I am from Minneapolis. Wooh! My mom was a prostitute and an alcoholic. She put me in foster care when I was three months old.My dad was a criminal; he was a drug dealer and a pimp with a heart of gold — actually, they both had hearts of gold — and he spent more or less my whole life in prison.
我來自明尼阿波利斯,我媽媽是一個妓女,而且有酒癮,在我三個月大的時候她就把我送到了寄養家庭。我的爸爸是一個罪犯,他是一個一心想賺錢的毒品走私犯和皮條客。其實他們倆都是一心想要錢的人。幾乎在我一生中的所有時間裡,他們都在蹲監獄。
And he just got out of prison after his most recent sentence which was 20 years.
Until the age of nine, I was probably in two dozen foster homes. The thing you need to know about this story — there are a lot of details, obviously — but the thing you need to know is that I came out of that childhood with one goal: to never be left. And the way I was going to do that is that I was going to get married. That was the way I was going to accomplish that goal.
他最近才服完20年監禁從監獄中出來,而我...在九歲以前,我在20多個寄養家庭中生活過。畢竟這裡面有很多細節,你們只需要知道,從那樣的童年中走過來,我只有一個目標,就是永遠不被拋棄。而我達成這個目標的途徑,將是結婚。這就是我為了達成這個目標將會做的事情。
So I got married the first time to a guy I met when I was 17. We got married a couple of years later, when I was 19. He was a really good guy from a great family, he had an MBA. I mean, it was like, you know, marriage material. You know, I was thrilled. I was like, 「I have a family. I belong somewhere. This is wonderful.」
所以,我和一個我17歲時候認識的男人結了第一次婚,那時我19歲。他是一個很棒的男人,有著和睦的家庭,以及MBA的文憑。就像...你知道的,很適合的結婚對象。我當時很驚喜,當時就想著,我有家庭了,有歸屬了,真是太贊了。
And then after five years I left him. And then 10 years later, I got married again to another wonderful guy, who is the father of my now 16-years-old son. We still have a wonderful relationship. He is a really good guy.But after four years I left him, too.
但是,五年以後我就離開了他。接著,十年之後,我又結婚了。對象是另一個很棒的男人,也就是我現在16歲兒子的父親。我們現在關係也很好,因為他真的是一個很好的人。但是結婚四年以後,我還是離開了他。
And I am not proud to say that I did that, but in order to really marry yourself, you have to get sometimes very painfully honest with yourself about what it is that you』ve done. So I’m not proud of that.
我對此並不真正感到驕傲,但是為了真正的嫁給自己,你就要對自己誠實,有時候甚至痛苦至極地面對自己已經做過的事情。所以,我對此並不感到驕傲。
And then eight years later, I got married again, when I was 40, and I was like, 「OK, this feels right!」 Let me tell you what felt right to a girl who was in 24 foster homes: a guy who started to date after nine months of marriage; essentially, he started dating a 21-year-old girl.
八年之後,在我40歲的時候,我又結婚了。我當時想著,這感覺真不錯。讓我來說說什麼會讓一個在24個寄養家庭中生活過的女孩兒感覺不錯。一個在結婚後九周就開始約會的男人,重要的是,他開始和一個21歲的女孩兒約會。
OK, I mean, it would be funny, if it weren’t so tragic. You have to have a sense of — that is why we’re Facebook friends. So, here I am looking at this person that I just described with a terrible track record of relationships, and I’m like, 「I’m supposed to marry her? This is the woman you want me to marry?」
我的意思是,如果不是這麼悲慘的的話,還蠻有意思的。你會有種感覺,這也是我們倆現在還是Facebook好友的原因。所以,當我從現在的角度再去看我剛剛說的這個有著劣跡斑斑的感情經歷的女人,我的想法就像是,我真的要嫁給她嗎?這就是你想讓我嫁的人?
And the answer is yes. Because here is the deal: the thing about marrying yourself is not just like cohabitating. You’re not just going to date for a while and see how it turns out. You are going to do this till death do you part.
答案是,是的。因為嫁給自己並不是像同居那樣,你不能約會一段時間再看情況做決定。你必須堅持到最後直到死亡把你們分開。
You are going to take vows. So here are the vows.
你將宣誓,宣誓如下:
Number 1: you are going to marry yourself for richer or for poorer. This means you are going to love yourself right where you are. You don’t say to yourself,「When you get to the corner of Hollywood and Vine, then I will marry you.」You don’t say, 「When you lose ten pounds, then I will love you.」And you don’t say, 「If you hadn’t married that loser, I would love you, but since you did, I’m sorry, I think it’s over.」
When you marry yourself, you walk yourself down that aisle exactly where you are. And paradoxically, I found that loving myself exactly where I am is the only way to get where I am going.
第一,你將嫁給你自己,無論貧窮與富貴。意思是你將無條件地愛自己。你不能說「等你去了好萊塢和藤街,我才嫁給你」,你也不能說「等你瘦了十磅以後我才會愛你」,你更不能說「如果你沒有嫁給那個失敗者,我才會愛你。既然已經嫁了,那麼我覺得我們之間結束了」。當你嫁給你自己的時候,你走過長廊,走到你所在的位置。略微矛盾的地方在於,我發現愛那個就在原地的我是我走向目的地的唯一途徑。
Number 2: you are going to marry yourself for better or for worse. What this means is that most of us are willing to love ourselves for better, I mean, sure, I am having a great hair day today. I love me. That’s not what I am talking about.
I’m talking about for worse, you know, the big life disappointments. Maybe you don’t own a home, you didn’t get the career you wanted, maybe you didn’t graduate from college, maybe you didn’t get the relationship you wanted. Maybe it hasn’t turned out — maybe you fight with your mum, maybe you watch too much reality TV, whatever it is, it doesn’t matter anymore. Because when you marry yourself, you agree to stay with you no matter what.
第二,你將嫁給你自己,無論環境好與壞。這句話意思是,大部分人都會在更好的情況下愛自己,比如,我今天髮型很贊,我愛我自己。這不是我要說的部分,我要說的是,在更壞的情況下,那種當人生辜負了你的時候,可能你無家可歸,可能你沒有從事喜歡的事業,可能你沒有順利地大學畢業,可能你沒有找到想要的感情,可能事情沒法向你想的方向發展,可能你和媽媽吵架了,可能你看了太多太現實的電視劇。無論發生了什麼,都不重要。因為,當你嫁給了自己以後,你都將永遠陪在自己身邊,不管發生什麼。
Third, you marry yourself in sickness and in health. So what this means is that you forgive yourself for your mistakes. A mistake isn’t actually a failure unless you don’t learn from it and unless you don’t grow.There is a saying, 「You ask for patience, and what you get is a line at the bank.」
第三,你將嫁給自己,無論生病與健康。這句話的意思是,你要原諒自己所犯過的錯誤。錯誤,並不代表失敗,除非你不懂得吸取教訓,除非你不成長。有句話是這樣說的,你想要耐心,得到的卻是在銀行排長隊。
What that means is that life does not give you what you』ve asked for, it gives you the people, places, and situations that allow you to develop what you ask for.And the thing is if you don’t get it right the first time, life will give it to you again. Because life is very generous that way. It’s like I didn’t get it the first time, in the first marriage, and I didn’t get it the second time, maybe the third time I』ll get it.
也就是,生活不會給你你所想要的東西,它只會給你那些能讓你建立你所想要的東西的人物,地方,和狀況。並且,你知道,如果你第一次無法達成你想要的,生活會再給你一次機會。因為生活在那方面還是很慷慨的。
So inside that terrible experience of that third marriage, I learned something about 「in sickness and in health」. What I learned is how to sit by my own bedside, and how to hold my own hand, and how to nurse myself, and how to comfort myself. And what I learned is that I am a person that I can count on.
就像,我在第一次婚姻中沒有得到想要的,在第二次婚姻中也沒有,但是,就像...也許我在第三次婚姻中可以得到我想要的呢。所以,在我糟心的第三次婚姻中,我從「無論生病還是健康」中學到很多。我學會了在自己的床邊,握著自己的手,照顧自己,安慰自己。我知道,我知道我是那個自己是那個可以依賴的人。
Last but not least, you marry yourself — when you marry yourself, it’s to have and to hold yourself. What does it mean to have and to hold? Well, I think it means that you love yourself the way you want someone else to love you.
最後,也同樣重要的是,你嫁給你自己。當你嫁給自己的時候,就要擁有並掌握自己。那麼,什麼叫做「擁有並掌握自己」呢?我認為它的意思是,你希望別人怎樣愛你,你就要像那樣愛你自己。
I had always been going through life with this sense of lack. I felt like I was kind of half a person, and that I was missing something. I went into my relationships hoping to solve this feeling that I had my entire life: that I wasn’t whole unless someone loved me.And the truth was that I wasn’t ever going to feel whole until I learned to love myself.
我的生活中,一直有這樣一種缺失感。我覺得我像是個半邊人,缺失了什麼東西一樣。我開始了一段感情,希望能緩解我這一生都有的這種情緒,即:如果沒有人愛我,我就是不完整的。而事實卻是,如果我不學會愛我自己,我將永遠無法感覺到自己是完整的。
So this business of marrying yourself transforms every area of your life: your business, family relationships, kids, social relationships, friends. Because when you marry yourself, this huge thing happens: you become able to love in this whole new way. You become able to love other people right where they are, for who they are, the same way you’re already loving yourself. And of course, this is what the world needs more of.
所以,嫁給自己這件事將改變你人生中的每個部分,你的生意,家庭關係,孩子,社交關係,朋友。因為在你嫁給自己的時候,會發生很大的轉變,你將會以全新的方式去愛。你將會無條件地去愛別人,就像你愛自己的那樣。沒錯,這世界就是需要更多這樣的愛。
So when I married myself, and I realized that I already had everything I needed, I started seeing it as my job to basically just light up my little corner of the world. That’s my new job. Because I don’t need anything, I already have it.
當我嫁給自己的時候我就意識到,我已經擁有了我所需要的一切。我開始把點亮我的小角落這件事情看做自己的工作,那就是我的新工作。因為我現在並不需要什麼。
So when I take meetings, it’s all about how can I help this person achieve her goal? When I’m in my social communities, it is like what can I bring to this that only I can bring?And when I go on dates, it is like how can I just discover another person maybe for just one hour which, of course, brings me a full circle.
所以,當我開會的時候,我所想的就只有怎樣幫助她來完成她的目標。在我的社交圈內,我就會想,我能帶給這個人只有我能帶給他的東西嗎?而我在約會的時候,我就會想我能在一個小時內了解對方多少呢?這樣就帶給我了一個良性循環。
Because people always asked me about my love life; they want to know.And you know, the answer is, I am still working on it. Aren’t we all? So this is where I am right now. About three months ago, I went on a first date. And about 30 minutes into the date, I found myself paying attention not to whether he liked me, but how I felt in his presence. I noticed that I was light, happy, and joking. And as I reflected on the date afterwards, I was like, 「Wow, I got really excited! Look, this is how committed I am to myself.」
因為大家總是問我的感情生活,很八卦。答案是,我還在努力中。難道我們不都是嗎?所以,我現在的處境是這樣的,約三個月前,我和他第一次約會,這次約會中有30分鐘,我都在關注我在他的陪伴下的感受,而不是他是否喜歡我。我發現我當時很放鬆,很開心。我在約會之後的反應就像「我真是天興奮了,看,這就是向自己坦白真實的自己」。
I am not even on this date trying to get someone to like me. I am more interested in how I feel about me than how he feels about me, not because I am selfish, but because the only relationship I am ever going to have with another person is the one that I am already having with myself — just going to have it with them now.
So it turned out he liked me, and we are still together. It’s cool and amazing, but I』ve been married three times, so slow down.
我在這次約會上完全沒有努力去讓別人喜歡我,比起他怎麼看我,我更關心的是我自己怎麼看我。並不是因為我自私,而是因為唯一一段我將會和別人擁有的感情就是我現在已經和自己擁有的這種感情。從現在到今後都是如此。後來發現,他很喜歡我,我們也還在約會。這非常酷也非常激動人心,不過鑑於我已經結了三次婚,所以還是慢點。
The thing is that I am not trying to get security from him through marriage, and, God forbid, a baby carriage. I am only here to just be in a relationship. I am not dying to hear the words, 「Will you marry me?」 Because even though those words are very powerful — and very powerful to a person like me — I don’t need them to hear it from him because I have already heard them from myself.
重點在於,我沒有想從他或者從婚姻中得到安全感,以及一個嬰兒車。我只是為了一段感情而來,我並不會迫不及待想聽到「你願意嫁給我嗎?」。因為儘管這樣的語言很有煽動性,尤其是對於像我這樣的人。我也並不需要從他那裡聽到這樣的話,因為我已經聽到自己這樣說過了。
The way I see it is like I took myself to the top of a mountain, or maybe to the bottom of the ocean, and I got down on one knee, and I said, 「I』ll never leave you.」
And now I am married to the one person I really wanted to be with all along: myself.
在我的眼中,就像是我帶我自己去了高山之巔或者深海之底,我單膝跪下說「我永遠都不會離開你」。現在,我終於嫁給了那個我一直想共度一生的人,我自己。
Thank you.
謝謝
這才是愛情應有的樣子
談論愛情時,大家最常用到的詞語往往有「墜入愛河」,「神魂顛倒」,「茶不思飯不想」,「相思成災」,「情難自控」「痛並快樂著」等等, 我們是否想過這些詞語是否給了我們一些負面的心理暗示,讓很多人從中誤解和曲解了愛情感受和含義呢?我們是否能有更好的詞語或比喻來談論愛情呢?Mandy Len Catron女士在TED舞臺上分享的一種更好的方式來談論愛情,讓愛情回歸其應有的樣子。
上下滑動,查看雙語演講稿
OK, so today I want to talk about how we talk about love. And specifically, I want to talk about what’s wrong with how we talk about love.今天, 我想討論一下我們談論愛情的方法。說得更明確一些,就是討論一下我們談論愛情時犯的錯誤。
Most of us will probably fall in love a few timesover the course of our lives, and in the English language, this metaphor, falling, is really the main way that we talk about that experience.
我們大多數人在一生中會不止一次墜入愛河,而在語言中,我們使用「墜入」一詞,很大程度上也形容了戀愛的體驗。
I don’t know about you, but when I conceptualize this metaphor, what I picture is straight out of a cartoon -- like there’s a man, he’s walking down the sidewalk, without realizing it, he crosses over an open manhole, and he just plummets into the sewer below.
我不知道你們怎麼想的,但我腦海中所浮現的畫面完全和卡通片一樣:有一個人,他走在人行道上,不經意間走過一個井口,然後「撲通」一聲跌進了下水道。
And I picture it this way because falling is not jumping. Falling is accidental, it’s uncontrollable. It’s something that happens to us without our consent. And this --我這樣想像是因為「墜入」與「跳入」不同。「墜入」是意外的,是不可控制的。它的發生是未經自己允許的。而這就是我們討論一段新戀情時的描述方式。
I am a writer and I’m also an English teacher, which means I think about words for a living. You could say that I get paid to argue that the language we use matters, and I would like to argue that many of the metaphors we useto talk about love -- maybe even most of them -- are a problem.我是作家也是英語老師,這意味著我靠咬文嚼字為生。你可以說我的工作就是告訴別人日常用語是很要緊的,而我想指出的是,有很多用來形容愛情的比喻,甚至可能是大多數,都是有問題的。
So, in love, we fall. We’re struck. We are crushed. We swoon. We burn with passion. Love makes us crazy, and it makes us sick. Our hearts ache, and then they break. So our metaphors equate the experience of loving someone to extreme violence or illness.所以說, 我們會「墜入」愛河。愛情突如其來。我們不能自拔。我們痴狂迷醉。我們被熱情灼燒。愛情使人癲狂,也使我們患病。我們的心在滴血,然後支離破碎。所以說,這種比喻將戀愛經歷等同於極暴力和病態。
They do. And they position us as the victimsof unforeseen and totally unavoidable circumstances. My favorite one of these is "smitten, "which is the past participle of the word "smite." And if you look this word up in the dictionary --事實真是如此。而這些比喻把我們定位成某種未知、不可避免的事件的受害者。其中我最喜歡的單詞 「smitten」,是「smite」的過去分詞。如果在詞典裡查詢這個單詞……
you will see that it can be defined as both "grievous affliction," and, "to be very much in love." I tend to associate the word "smite" with a very particular context, which is the Old Testament.
你會發現它既可譯為「慘痛的折磨」,又可以譯為「被迷得神魂顛倒」。這個單詞常使我聯想到一段特殊文字,那就是《聖經·舊約》。
In the Book of Exodus alone, there are 16 references to smiting, which is the word that the Bible uses for the vengeance of an angry God.僅在《出埃及記》中,就16次提及這個單詞,它被《聖經》用來形容一位憤怒的神的復仇。
Here we are using the same word to talk about love that we use to explain a plague of locusts.而如今這個用來形容愛情的詞,原本是拿來形容蝗災的。
Right?對吧?
So, how did this happen? How have we come to associate love with great pain and suffering? And why do we talk about this ostensibly good experience as if we are victims?
所以為什麼會這樣?我們怎麼會將愛情和傷痛與苦難混為一談?還有我們為何會討論這種美好假象,好像自己是受害者?
These are difficult questions, but I have some theories. And to think this through, I want to focus on one metaphor in particular, which is the idea of love as madness.這些問題很難回答,但我有一些理論。若想解釋清楚,我想著重談談這樣一個比喻,那就是將愛情喻為瘋狂。
When I first started researching romantic love, I found these madness metaphors everywhere. The history of Western cultureis full of language that equates love to mental illness. These are just a few examples.
一開始研究浪漫愛情的時候,我發現這種比喻無處不在。西方歷史文化中,有許多文字將愛情比喻為精神疾病。以下是幾個例子。
William Shakespeare: Love is merely a madness, from "As You Like It." Friedrich Nietzsche: There is always some madness in love. Got me looking, got me looking so crazy in love -- 威廉·莎士比亞說過:「愛情不過是一種瘋狂。」出自《皆大歡喜》。哲學家尼採說過:「愛情中總是有些瘋狂的。」還有「你的愛,你的愛讓我如此痴狂……」
from the great philosopher, Beyoncé Knowles.上句出自偉大的「哲學家」,碧昂斯·諾裡斯。
I fell in love for the first time when I was 20, and it was a pretty turbulent relationship right from the start. And it was long distance for the first couple of years, so for me that meant very high highs and very low lows.
我在二十歲的時候經歷了初戀,那是一段自始至終都非常凌亂的戀情。剛開始幾年還是長途異地戀,所以對我來說意味著很高的高潮和很低的低谷。
I can remember one moment in particular. I was sitting on a bed in a hostel in South America, and I was watching the person I love walk out the door. And it was late, it was nearly midnight, we』d gotten into an argument over dinner, and when we got back to our room, he threw his things in the bag and stormed out. While I can no longer remember what that argument was about, I very clearly remember how I felt watching him leave.我還記得一個特別的瞬間。當時我在南美,坐在一間旅社的床上,看著我愛著的人衝出門外。當時很晚了,將近午夜,我們在晚飯時發生了爭吵,當我們回到房間後,他把東西扔到包裡,徑直衝出了房間。我已不記得當時爭吵的目的,但我清楚記得我看著他離開時的感受。
I was 22, it was my first time in the developing world, and I was totally alone.I had another week until my flight home,and I knew the name of the town that I was in, and the name of the city that I needed to get to to fly out, but I had no idea how to get around. I had no guidebook and very little money, and I spoke no Spanish.我當時22歲,第一次來到發展中國家,而且我孤身一人。距離我回家還有一周,我記得我所在的那個小鎮的名字,也記得我要飛離南美的出發地城市的名字,但我並不知道怎麼走。我沒有嚮導書也沒有多少錢,而且我不會講西班牙語。
Someone more adventurous than me might have seen this as a moment of opportunity, but I just froze. I just sat there. And then I burst into tears. But despite my panic, some small voice in my head thought, Wow. That was dramatic.I must really be doing this love thing right.比我更有冒險精神的人,可能會把這視為一次很好的鍛鍊經歷,但我卻不知所措。我就坐在那兒。然後嚎啕大哭。但在慌亂中,我腦海中的一個聲音告訴我:「天啊,這很戲劇化哦。我一定是把愛情表現的淋漓盡致了。」
Because some part of me wanted to feel miserable in love. And it sounds so strange to me now, but at 22, I longed to have dramatic experiences, and in that moment, I was irrational and furious and devastated, and weirdly enough, I thought that this somehow legitimized the feelings I had for the guy who had just left me.因為我內心深處是渴望在愛情中受傷的。這對於現在的我說很奇怪,但對於22歲的我,我渴望一次戲劇性的經歷,那個瞬間我很不理性、很氣憤、很絕望,而更奇怪的是,我認為某種程度上,它證明了我對離我而去那個人的愛。
I think on some level I wanted to feel a little bit crazy, because I thought that that was how loved worked. This really should not be surprising,considering that according to Wikipedia, there are eight films, 14 songs, two albums and one novel with the title "Crazy Love."可能在某些時候想瘋狂一些,因為我以為愛情就應該是這樣。其實這不應該使人驚訝,因為根據維基百科,有8部電影,14首歌,2張專輯,和一本小說都命名為《瘋狂愛情》。
About half an hour later, he came back to our room. We made up. We spent another mostly happy week traveling together. And then, when I got home, I thought, "That was so terrible and so great. This must be a real romance."
半小時後,他回來了。我們複合了。接下來,在旅行中我們度過了愉快的一周。然後我回到家,我想,「這可真是既糟糕又美好。這一定是真正的愛情吧。」
I expected my first love to feel like madness, and of course, it met that expectation very well. But loving someone like that -- as if my entire well-being depended on him loving me back -- was not very good for me or for him.我期盼著能在初戀中感受到瘋狂,顯然,這個期望被很好的滿足了。不過這樣愛著一個人,好像我的全部都取決於他回饋的愛,對自己是很不好的,對他也一樣。
But I suspect this experience of love is not that unusual. Most of us do feel a bit mad in the early stages of romantic love.In fact, there is research to confirm that this is somewhat normal,because, neurochemically speaking, romantic love and mental illness are not that easily distinguished. This is true.不過我覺得這段愛情經歷並不是非常罕見。我們大多數人在戀情的早期都會感受到些許瘋狂。事實上,研究表明這是正常現象,因為, 從神經學角度來說,戀情和精神疾病並沒有特別大的區別。這是真的。
This study from 1999 used blood teststo confirm that the serotonin levels of the newly in lovevery closely resembled the serotonin levels of people who had been diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder.一個1999年的實驗通過驗血,確認了新情侶的血清素水平和另一群人的血清素水平相似,那就是強迫症患者。
Yes, and low levels of serotoninare also associated with seasonal affective disorderand depression. So there is some evidence that love is associated with changes to our moods and our behaviors. And there are other studies to confirmthat most relationships begin this way.沒錯,低水平的血清素與季節性情感障礙以及抑鬱症都有關聯。由此證明,心情和行為的變化與愛情是有關的。也有其他研究確認大多數感情是這樣開始的。
Researchers believe that the low levels of serotoninis correlated with obsessive thinking about the object of love, which is like this feeling that someone has set up camp in your brain.
研究者相信,低水平的血清素代表了對戀愛對象的強迫性回憶,就好像別人在你的腦海中安營紮寨。
And most of us feel this way when we first fall in love. But the good news is, it doesn’t always last that long --usually from a few months to a couple of years.我們在初戀都有這樣的感受。但幸運的是,這感受不會持續很久,通常只有幾個月到一兩年。
When I got back from my trip to South America, I spent a lot of time alone in my room, checking my email, desperate to hear from the guy I loved.
當我從南美回來的時候,我在我的房間裡獨自待了很久,查看我的郵箱,非常渴望得到我愛的那個男人的消息。
I decided that if my friends could not understand my grievous affliction, then I did not need their friendship. So I stopped hanging out with most of them. And it was probably the most unhappy year of my life.
我決定:如果我的朋友不理解我的困境,那我也不需要這些友誼。所以我和大多數好友斷絕了聯繫,那可能是我人生中最失落的一年。
But I think I felt like it was my job to be miserable, because if I could be miserable, then I would prove how much I loved him. And if I could prove it, then we would have to end up together eventually.但我感覺我必須要感受痛苦,因為通過我的痛苦,才可以證明我對他的愛。如果我可以證明,那我們終將會在一起。
This is the real madness,because there is no cosmic rulethat says that great suffering equals great reward,but we talk about love as if this is true.這才是真正的瘋狂,因為並沒有明確規定,受苦受難就一定能得到回報,但在愛情裡我們卻覺得這是對的。
Our experiences of love are both biological and cultural. Our biology tells us that love is good by activating these reward circuits in our brain, and it tells us that love is painful when, after a fight or a break up, that neurochemical reward is withdrawn.
我們的愛情體驗 既是生理上的,又是文化上的。生理通過激發我們大腦的激勵反饋,告訴我們愛情是美好的。然而在吵架或分手後,它又告訴我們愛情是痛苦的,這時候神經反饋是無效的。
And in fact -- and maybe you』ve heard this --neurochemically speaking,going through a breakup is a lot like going through cocaine withdrawal, which I find reassuring.事實上,你可能聽說過,從神經學的角度來說,經歷分手和戒毒過程非常相似,這點我感到很舒心。
And then our culture uses language to shape and reinforce these ideas about love. In this case, we’re talking about metaphors about painand addiction and madness. It’s kind of an interesting feedback loop.
我們的文化利用語言來塑造與加強對於愛的觀念。現在的情況是,我們將其等同於痛苦、癖嗜和痴狂。這好像是一個有趣的反饋循環。
Love is powerful and at times painful,and we express this in our words and stories, but then our words and stories prime usto expect love to be powerful and painful.愛情很偉大,但有時也讓我們痛苦,我們用詞句和故事來表達這點,然後這些文字又使得我們盲目期待愛情就應是偉大而痛苦的。
What’s interesting to me is that all of this happensin a culture that values lifelong monogamy. It seems like we want it both ways: we want love to feel like madness, and we want it to last an entire lifetime. That sounds terrible.而對我來說有趣的是,這一切都發生在一個鼓勵終生一夫一妻制的文化裡。這好像是說我們想兩者兼得:我們既想讓愛情瘋狂一些,我們又想讓它持續一生。這聽起來糟透了。
To reconcile this,we need to either change our culture or change our expectations. So, imagine if we were all less passive in love. If we were more assertive, more open-minded, more generousand instead of falling in love, we stepped into love.
要緩解這種情況,我們要不改變我們的文化,要不改變我們的期望。請各位想像一下,所有人的愛情都沒那麼被動。想像我們少一些固執,心胸變得更寬廣、更開放,我們不再「墜入」愛河,我們「步入」愛河。
I know that this is asking a lot, but I’m not actually the first person to suggest this.In their book, "Metaphors We Live By," linguists Mark Johnson and George Lakoff suggest a really interesting solution to this dilemma, which is to change our metaphors.
我知道這個要求有點高,但我並不是第一個提出這點的人。在《我們賴以生存的隱喻》一書中,語言學家馬克·詹森和喬治·拉克夫提出了一個非常有趣的方法來解決這一矛盾,那就是改變我們的比喻。
They argue that metaphors really do shape the way we experience the world, and that they can even act as a guide for future actions, like self-fulfilling prophecies.他們認為,比喻真的可以左右我們感受世界的方式,而它們甚至可以成為我們未來行動的指引,就像是自我實現的預言。
Johnson and Lakoff suggest a new metaphor for love: love as a collaborative work of art. I really like this way of thinking about love. Linguists talk about metaphors as having entailments, which is essentially a way of considering all the implications of, or ideas contained within, a given metaphor.
詹森和拉克夫提出了愛情的一種新比喻:愛情是一個合作完成的藝術品。我很喜歡這種看待愛情的方式。語言學家運用比喻是有很多內涵的,其實就是說喻體中包含了本體的幾乎一切含義與概念。
And Johnson and Lakoff talk about everything that collaborating on a work of art entails: effort, compromise, patience, shared goals. These ideas align nicely with our cultural investmentin long-term romantic commitment, but they also work well for other kinds of relationships --short-term, casual, polyamorous, non-monogamous, asexual --because this metaphor brings much more complex ideasto the experience of loving someone.而詹森和拉克夫的比喻涉及到了合作創作藝術品的所有含義:努力、妥協、耐心、共同的目標等等。這些概念與我們在長期戀情中做出的精神投入很契合,但它們同樣適用於其它各種戀愛關係——短期的、隨意的戀情,多角戀,非一夫一妻制,無性戀……因為這種比喻在戀愛的體驗中賦予了更多複雜的概念。
So if love is a collaborative work of art,then love is an aesthetic experience. Love is unpredictable, love is creative, love requires communication and discipline, it is frustrating and emotionally demanding. And love involves both joy and pain. Ultimately, each experience of love is different.所以假如愛情是合作完成的藝術品,那麼愛情就是一種美學體驗。愛情是無法預測的,愛情是創造性的,愛情需要溝通,需要規矩,愛情是令人沮喪的,會造成很多精神壓力。而愛情中既有快樂,也有痛苦。而最終,每次愛情經歷都是不同的。
When I was younger, it never occurred to me that I was allowed to demand more from love, that I didn’t have to just accept whatever love offered.
當我還年輕的時候,我從來沒想過我可以從愛情中尋求更多,或者說我不需要全盤接受愛情給我提供的感受。
When 14-year-old Juliet first meets --or, when 14-year-old Juliet cannot be with Romeo, whom she has met four days ago, she does not feel disappointed or angsty. Where is she? She wants to die. Right?
當14歲的朱麗葉第一次見到……或者說,當14歲的朱麗葉不能和羅密歐在一起,她才認識羅密歐四天時間,她不覺得失落或痛苦。她怎麼了?她想尋死。對吧?
And just as a refresher, at this point in the play, act three of five, Romeo is not dead. He’s alive, he’s healthy, he’s just been banished from the city. I understand that 16th-century Verona is unlike contemporary North America, and yet when I first read this play, also at age 14, Juliet’s suffering made sense to me.大家回憶一下,戲劇演到這裡的時候是五幕中的第三幕,羅密歐並沒有死,他還活著,他很健康,他只是被驅逐出城了。我明白16世紀的維羅納和當今的北美非常不同,然而當我第一次讀到這部戲劇,同樣也在14歲,我覺得能夠感受朱麗葉的痛苦。
Reframing love as something I get to create with someone I admire, rather than something that just happens to mewithout my control or consent, is empowering. It’s still hard.
把愛情當作一個與我所愛的人共同創造的東西,而不是一個不經我控制或同意就發生在我身上的東西,這想法非常激動人心。這依然很難做到。
Love still feels totally maddening and crushing some days, and when I feel really frustrated, I have to remind myself: my job in this relationship is to talk to my partner about what I want to make together. This isn’t easy, either. But it’s just so much better than the alternative, which is that thing that feels like madness.愛情有時候還是讓我陷入瘋狂與痛苦,而當我感到特別沮喪時,我必須提醒自己:在這段關係中,我的任務是與伴侶交流,溝通我們想共同創造的東西。其實這也不容易,但它已經比另一種方式要好很多了,那就是將愛情當作瘋狂的體驗。
This version of love is not about winning or losing someone’s affection. Instead, it requires that you trust your partnerand talk about things when trusting feels difficult, which sounds so simple, but is actually a kind of revolutionary, radical act.
這種愛情不是為了贏取或者失去某人的愛慕,而是需要你相信你的伴侶,而且當遇到信任危機時冷靜交流,雖說聽起來很容易,但這實際上是挺革命性、顛覆性的。
This is because you get to stop thinking about yourselfand what you’re gaining or losing in your relationship, and you get to start thinking about what you have to offer.
因為你可以不再糾結於自身,不再糾纏自己在愛情中的得與失,而開始思考你可以做出什麼貢獻。
This version of love allows us to say things like, Hey, we’re not very good collaborators. Maybe this isn’t for us. Or, "That relationship was shorter than I had planned, but it was still kind of beautiful."這種愛情讓我們可以這樣說:「嘿,我們之間的合作不是很好。可能這不適合我們吧。」或者說,「這段愛情比我預計的要短一些,但它還是挺美好的吧。」
The beautiful thing about the collaborative work of artis that it will not paint or draw or sculpt itself.This version of love allows us to decide what it looks like.一個合作完成的藝術品的魅力所在,就是它不會自己描繪或塑造自己。這種愛情讓我們主動決定它的美。
Thank you.謝謝!
數學家才是最會談戀愛的一幫人
2018年過去了,你的單身問題解決了嗎?世界那麼大,難道你只能一個人孤單到天明?或許,數學可以幫你解決這些問題!英語演講君在觀看TED演講視頻的時候,發現了一位複雜理論學家(complexity theorist) Hannah Fry的一個精彩演講,她用10多分鐘的時間,帶著獨有的英倫風趣,告訴我們數學與愛情的親密關係。原來數學家是世界上談戀愛最成功的一幫人!解完幾個數學題之後,他們就成功地「約了炮」、選擇了最好的伴侶,還能一輩子不離婚~~我讀書少,數學家你不要騙我!::>_<::
上下滑動,查看雙語演講稿
Today I want to talk to you about the mathematics of love.Now, I think that we can all agree that mathematicians are famously excellent at finding love.今天我想要和大家談談 關於愛情的數學。我想大家都同意數學家在尋找真愛上特別在行。
But it’s not just because of our dashing personalities,superior conversational skills and excellent pencil cases.It’s also because we』ve actually done an awful lot of work into the maths of how to find the perfect partner.但那並不只是因為我們 精力充沛的性格、超凡的對話技巧, 和炫麗的筆盒。也是因為我們真的 花了許多時間精力在數學上,計算如何找到完美的伴侶。
Now, in my favorite paper on the subject, which is entitled,Why I Don’t Have a Girlfriend --
現在,在此學科中我最愛的論文,名為「為甚麼我沒有女友」
Peter Backus tries to rate his chances of finding love.Now, Peter’s not a very greedy man.Of all of the available women in the UK,all Peter’s looking for is somebody who lives near him,somebody in the right age range,somebody with a university degree,somebody he’s likely to get on well with,somebody who’s likely to be attractive,somebody who’s likely to find him attractive.Peter Backus 試著 計算他尋得真愛的機會。現在,Peter 不是一個非常貪心的人。在英國所有適宜的女性對象中,Peter 所看的, 就只是那個住在他附近的對象、某個處於適宜的年齡階段的女人、某個擁有大學文憑、某個他很有可能相處地不錯的對象、某個有魅力的女子,以及......某個認為 他也富有魅力的對象。
And comes up with an estimate of 26 women in the whole of the UK.結果他估計在全英國 大概有 26 位此類女性。
It’s not looking very good, is it Peter?Now, just to put that into perspective,that’s about 400 times fewer than the best estimates of how many intelligent extraterrestrial life forms there are.And it also gives Peter a 1 in 285,000 chance of bumping into any one of these special ladies on a given night out.I』d like to think that’s why mathematicians don’t really bother going on nights out anymore.這看來很不妙,不是嗎,Peter?我們好好思考一下這件事,在無數聰明外星 生命形式存在的情況下,那是少於 400 倍數的估計呀。那也給了 Peter 一個在某晚遇見一個特別的女子28 萬 5 千之 1 的機會。我想,那就是為什麼數學家不再怎麼想 晚上出去約會了的原因了吧。
The thing is that I personally don’t subscribe to such a pessimistic view.Because I know, just as well as all of you do,that love doesn’t really work like that.Human emotion isn’t neatly ordered and rational and easily predictable.But I also know that that doesn’t mean that mathematics hasn’t got something that it can offer us,because, love, as with most of life, is full of patterns and mathematics is, ultimately, all about the study of patterns.Patterns from predicting the weather to the fluctuations in the stock market,to the movement of the planets or the growth of cities.And if we’re being honest, none of those things are exactly neatly ordered and easily predictable, either.Because I believe that mathematics is so powerful that it has the potential to offer us a new way of looking at almost anything.Even something as mysterious as love.And so, to try to persuade you of how totally amazing, excellent and relevant mathematics is,I want to give you my top three mathematically verifiable tips for love.重點是,我個人其實並不同意這種悲觀的看法,因為我知道,如同你們所有所知道的,愛情並不是這樣發生的。人類的情感不是那樣地秩序井然、 乾淨利落、邏輯清晰,和容易預測。但我也知道那並不意謂著數學無法提供幫助,因為愛情,如同生命中多數的事物一般, 充斥著許多規律,而數學最終就是 那研究規律的學說。從預測天候,到 預測股票市場的開高走低,到星球的運轉,或都市的發展。如果我們對自己誠實的話, 上述那些東西,沒有一個是井然有序以及容易預測的。因為我相信,數學的力量非常強大, 以至於它讓我們得以以新方法,重新看待任何事物。就算是和愛情一般神秘的東西也是。為了試著說服你們數學的神妙用處,我想要給大家三個最重要的 在數學上可以驗證的愛情秘訣。
OK, so Top Tip #1:How to win at online dating.So my favorite online dating website is OkCupid,not least because it was started by a group of mathematicians.Now, because they’re mathematicians,they have been collecting dataon everybody who uses their site for almost a decade.And they』ve been trying to search for pattern sin the way that we talk about ourselves and the way that we interact with each otheron an online dating website.And they』ve come up with some seriously interesting findings.But my particular favorite is that it turns out that on an online dating website,how attractive you are does not dictate how popular you are,and actually, having people think that you’re ugly can work to your advantage.好,首先最重要的秘技一:如何贏得線上交友的機會。我最愛的線上交友網站是OkCupid (網站名:好吧,丘比特),這並不僅僅因為這網站 是由一群數學家所架設的。因為他們是數學家,他們已經蒐集了近乎這十年來所有 該網站使用者的資料。他們試著尋找我們在線上談論自己的方式的模式,以及我們和他人互動的模式。他們發現了一些重要的有趣結果。但我特別喜歡的結果之一是在線上交友網站上你的魅力程度並無法 預測你的受歡迎程度,事實上,讓人們覺得你很醜可以讓你擁有優勢。
Let me show you how this works.In a thankfully voluntary section of OkCupid,you are allowed to rate how attractive you think people are on a scale between one and five.Now, if we compare this score, the average score,to how many messages a selection of people receive,you can begin to get a sense of how attractiveness links to popularity on an online dating website.讓我向各位展示這是怎麼一回事。在 OkCupid 的一個自願欄目中,你可以評價人們的魅力值,從 1 到 5 。現在,如果我們比較這個分數, 平均分數,有多少人收到訊息,你就可以開始理解在一個線上約會網站上 魅力指數與受歡迎程度有關。
This is the graph the OkCupid guys have come up with.And the important thing to notice is that it’s not totally true that the more attractive you are, the more messages you get.But the question arises then of what is it about people up here who are so much more popular than people down here,even though they have the same score of attractiveness?And the reason why is that it’s not just straightforward looks that are important.So let me try to illustrate their findings with an example.So if you take someone like Portia de Rossi, for example,everybody agrees that Portia de Rossi is a very beautiful woman.Nobody thinks that she’s ugly, but she’s not a supermodel, either.If you compare Portia de Rossi to someone like Sarah Jessica Parker,now, a lot of people, myself included, I should say,think that Sarah Jessica Parker is seriously fabulous and possibly one of the most beautiful creatures to have ever have walked on the face of the Earth.But some other people, i.e., most of the Internet ...這是 OkCupid 得到的圖表。一件重要的值得注意的事是並不是越有魅力的人, 收到的訊息越多。問題是,為什麼上面的這些人比下面這些人要受歡迎得多,即便他們都有相同的魅力值?原因是,並不是直觀的外貌是重要的。讓我來談談他們的發現, 以一個案例說明。如果你拿 Portia de Rossi 為例,每個人都同意 Portia de Rossi 是個非常美麗的女人,沒有人覺得她醜,但她也不是超級名模。如果你拿某個人,比如 Sarah Jessica Parker (譯註:欲望城市女主角)來和她比較許多人,包括我自己,我應該會說,Sarah Jessica Parker 魅力極為出眾,有可能是地表上最美麗的物種之一。但許多其他人,比如,大多數的網友。
seem to think that she looks a bit like a horse.似乎都認為她看起來像馬。
Now, I think that if you ask people how attractive they thought Jessica Parker or Portia de Rossi were,and you ask them to give them a score between one and fiveI reckon that they』d average out to have roughly the same score.But the way that people would vote would be very different.So Portia’s scores would all be clustered around the four because everybody agrees that she’s very beautiful,whereas Sarah Jessica Parker completely divides opinion.There』d be a huge spread in her scores.And actually it’s this spread that counts.It’s this spread that makes you more popular on an online Internet dating website.So what that means then is that if some people think that you’re attractive,you’re actually better off having some other people think that you’re a massive minger.That’s much better than everybody just thinking that you’re the cute girl next door.如果你問人們他們覺得自己有多美,Sarah Jessica Parker 或 Portia de Rossi你要他們給自己打分,從 1 到 5,我猜他們也會大約給一個 和大家都差不多的數字。但是人們投票的方式各自不同。因此 Portia 的分數會聚集在 4 分左右,因為所有人都同意,她非常美麗,然而人們對 Sarah Jessica Parker 卻有截然不同的意見。她的分差懸殊很大。然而事實上,就是那分差別具意義,那差異讓你在交友網站上受歡迎。所以那意味著如果有些人認為你別具魅力,你最好有其他人認為你是個醜八怪。那遠優於所有人認為你是鄰家的可愛女孩。
Now, I think this begins to make a bit more sense when you think in terms of the people who are sending these messages.So let’s say that you think somebody’s attractive,but you suspect that other people won’t necessarily be that interested.That means there’s less competition for you and it’s an extra incentive for you to get in touch.Whereas compare that to if you think somebody is attractive but you suspect that everybody is going to think they’re attractive.Well, why would you bother humiliating yourself, let’s be honest?But here’s where the really interesting part comes.Because when people choose the pictures that they use on an online dating website,they often try to minimize the things that they think some people will find unattractive.The classic example is people who are, perhaps, a little bit overweight deliberately choosing a very cropped photo,當你們開始思考一下 這些寄送訊息的人的話,這開始變得合理些了。這麼說吧,假設你認為那個人很美,但你同時猜想其他人並不會 和你有同樣的審美觀。那就意味著,你的競爭對手略少,這就給你增加了額外的動機 去與他/她認識。與之相對的情況是, 你認為某人很有吸引力,但你猜想所有其他的人 都認為那人很有吸引力,嗯,讓我們面對事實 為什麼要自取其辱呢?這就是最有趣的部分。因為當人們去選擇他們 在交友網站上使用的照片時,他們總是試圖最小化其他人認為不吸引人之處的可能性。最經典的例子是, 那些體重略重的人故意選擇一個 剪裁非常不正確的照片。
or bald men, for example,deliberately choosing pictures where they’re wearing hats.But actually this is the opposite of what you should do if you want to be successful.You should really, instead,play up to whatever it is that makes you different,even if you think that some people will find it unattractive.Because the people who fancy you are just going to fancy you anyway,and the unimportant losers who don’t, well, they only play up to your advantage.例如那些禿頭的男士,故意去選擇他們帶著帽子的照片。但你的行為是與你的目標相悖的,如果你想要在網上交友成功。你真的應該,去選擇 讓你看起來與眾不同的照片,即便你認為某些人會對此失去興趣。因為那些喜歡你的人 無論如何都會去喜歡你,而那些不重要的路人 只是渲染你的優勢。
OK, Top Tip #2: How to pick the perfect partner.So let’s imagine then that you’re a roaring success on the dating scene.But the question arises of how do you then convert that success into longer-term happiness,and in particular, how do you decide when is the right time to settle down?Now generally, it’s not advisable to just cash in and marry the first person who comes along and shows you any interest at all.But, equally, you don’t really want to leave it too long if you want to maximize your chance of long-term happiness.As my favorite author, Jane Austen, puts it,An unmarried woman of seven and twenty can never hope to feel or inspire affection again."好了,最高秘訣 2 號:如何選擇完美的伴侶。讓我們想像你的約會精彩成功,但問題來了 你如何將那成功的約會轉變成長期的幸福,尤其是,你要如何選擇 在哪個時刻安定下來?一般來說, 並不建議人們立刻與第一個出現對你表達好感的人結婚。但是,一般來說,如果你想要 最大化你未來數十年幸福婚姻的機會,你也不願等待太久。我最喜歡的作家珍.奧斯汀這樣說:「一個未婚的 27 歲女子就別指望再能感受或觸動愛情了。」
Thanks a lot, Jane.What do you know about love?這太嚴重了,珍, 你對愛了解多少呢?
So the question is then,how do you know when is the right time to settle down,given all the people that you can date in your lifetime?Thankfully, there’s a rather delicious bit of mathematics that we can use to help us out here, called optimal stopping theory.So let’s imagine, then,that you start dating when you’re 15and ideally, you』d like to be married by the time that you’re 35.And there’s a number of people that you could potentially date across your lifetime,and they』ll be at varying levels of goodness.Now the rules are that once you cash in and get married,you can’t look ahead to see what you could have had,and equally, you can’t go back and change your mind.In my experience at least,I find that typically people don’t much like being recalled years after being passed up for somebody else, or that’s just me.那麼問題來了,你怎麼知道哪個時刻 是該要安定下來的時刻,畢竟生命中你有很多可能的對象?幸好,我們可以運用一點數學來幫助我們計算解決這個問題,這理論名叫 「最優停止理論」。那麼讓我們來想像一下,你在 15 歲的時候開始交往,理想狀態下,你在 35 歲的時候會結婚。你的人生中有很多潛在的約會對象,他們都有各自的優點。規則是,你一旦跳進婚姻,你就不能繼續前進尋找 你可能可以有的對象,你也不能回頭來改變你的主意。我個人的經驗看來,一般人們不希望在被拒絕又過了多年後被找回來, 也許只有我這樣想。
So the math says then that what you should do in the first 37 percent of your dating window,you should just reject everybody as serious marriage potential.數學告訴我們你應該拒絕認為會和 在你人生約會周期前 37% 時段出現的任何人 有嚴肅認真的婚姻關係。
And then, you should pick the next person that comes along that is better than everybody that you』ve seen before.So here’s the example.Now if you do this, it can be mathematically proven, in fact,that this is the best possible way of maximizing your chances of finding the perfect partner.Now unfortunately, I have to tell you that this method does come with some risks.For instance, imagine if your perfect partner appeared during your first 37 percent.Now, unfortunately, you』d have to reject them.接著,你要選擇下一個人,那個比你以前約會對象都好的人。這裡舉個例子。如果你這麼做,從數學證明來看 可以認為,事實上這可能是最好的選擇來最大化你找到完美伴侶的機會。現在不幸的是,我必須告訴你 這個方法也是有風險的。比如,想像一下,假設你的完美伴侶出現在你約會歷程的前 37%那就很不幸了, 你會拒絕他們。
Now, if you’re following the maths,I’m afraid no one else comes along that’s better than anyone you』ve seen before,so you have to go on rejecting everyone and die alone.如果你相信數學,恐怕你不會再找到比你以往見過更好的對象,你就會持續拒絕每個人 然後孤獨終老。
Probably surrounded by cats ...可能會被貓咪包圍
nibbling at your remains.一點點啃食你的遺骸。
OK, another risk is, let’s imagine, instead,that the first people that you dated in your first 37 percent are just incredibly dull, boring, terrible people.That’s OK, because you’re in your rejection phase,so that’s fine, you can reject them.But then imagine the next person to come along is just marginally less boring, dull and terrible ...好,另一個風險是, 讓我們想像,相反的,你約會歷程前 37% 裡第一個對象極度愚蠢、無聊又很糟糕。沒關係,因為你還處於拒絕對象的階段,沒問題,你可以拒絕他們。但想像一下,下一個出現的人只是沒那麼無聊、愚蠢,
than everybody that you』ve seen before.Now, if you are following the maths, I’m afraid you have to marry them ...比你以前的對象都略好那麼一點。如果你遵循數學, 恐怕你要和他們結婚。
and end up in a relationship which is, frankly, suboptimal.Sorry about that.But I do think that there’s an opportunity here for Hallmark to cash in on and really cater for this market.A Valentine’s Day card like this.然後沈浸在一段, 實話說,次優的關係中。很抱歉。但我認為,機會還是有的賀曼公司迎合市場需求出售這樣的情人節賀卡。
My darling husband, you are marginally less terrible than the first 37 percent of people I dated."「我親愛的丈夫,你沒有我約會歷程中前 37% 的男士 那麼糟糕。」It’s actually more romantic than I normally manage.這比一般的賀卡浪漫很多。
OK, so this method doesn’t give you a 100 percent success rate,but there’s no other possible strategy that can do any better.And actually, in the wild, there are certain types of fish which follow and employ this exact strategy.So they reject every possible suitor that turns up in the first 37 percent of the mating season,and then they pick the next fish that comes along after that window that’s, I don’t know, bigger and burlier than all of the fish that they』ve seen before.I also think that subconsciously, humans, we do sort of do this anyway.We give ourselves a little bit of time to play the field,get a feel for the marketplace or whatever when we’re young.And then we only start looking seriously at potential marriage candidates once we hit our mid-to-late 20s.I think this is conclusive proof, if ever it were needed,that everybody’s brains are prewired to be just a little bit mathematical.這個數學方法不能保證 100% 的成功率,但也沒有更好的策略了。事實上,在動物界, 某個特定種類的魚遵循使用這樣的策略。在交配期,牠們拒絕出現在前 37% 的每個求婚者,接著牠們選擇 37% 後出現的下一個比所見過的魚體型更加龐大,更加結實的魚。我想作為人類 我們潛意識裡也在做同樣的選擇。我們給自己更多時間尋找,在我們年輕的時候 感受婚戀市場。我們只有在 20 歲年齡段的中後期才會很真尋找潛在的結婚對象。我想這證明了, 即使不確定是否需要,每個人的大腦 都預配了點數學能力。
OK, so that was Top Tip #2.Now, Top Tip #3: How to avoid divorce.OK, so let’s imagine then that you picked your perfect partner and you’re settling into a lifelong relationship with them.Now, I like to think that everybody would ideally like to avoid divorce,apart from, I don’t know, Piers Morgan’s wife, maybe?好,上述就是最高秘訣 2 號。現在,最高秘訣 3 號:如何避免離婚。好的,讓我們想像一下 你找到了你的完美對象,你和他/她進入了一生的婚姻關係。我假設每個人都不希望離婚,當然,也許除了 Piers Morgan 的太太?
But it’s a sad fact of modern life that one in two marriages in the States ends in divorce,with the rest of the world not being far behind.Now, you can be forgiven, perhaps for thinking that the arguments that precede a marital breakup are not an ideal candidate for mathematical investigation.For one thing, it’s very hard to know what you should be measuring or what you should be quantifying.But this didn’t stop a psychologist, John Gottman, who did exactly that.Gottman observed hundreds of couples having a conversation and recorded, well, everything you can think of.So he recorded what was said in the conversation,he recorded their skin conductivity,he recorded their facial expressions,their heart rates, their blood pressure,basically everything apart from whether or not the wife was actually always right,which incidentally she totally is.But what Gottman and his team found was that one of the most important predictors for whether or not a couple is going to get divorced was how positive or negative each partner was being in the conversation.可是,現代婚姻一個悲傷的事實就是美國離婚率高達 50%,世界其他國家也離這個數據不遠。當然,你可以認為婚姻破裂的原因不是數學運算理想的數據源。一方面來說,很難了解到你該去測量什麼 或者是你該去量化什麼。但這並沒有阻止心理學家 John Gottman 做這樣的研究。Gottman 觀察了數百對夫婦的對談儘可能錄下來所有資訊。記錄了對話的內容、皮膚的傳導性、面部表情、心跳、血壓,基本上除了「太太永遠是對的」 以外的所有東西,當然,太太永遠是對的。但是,Gottman 和他的團隊發現最能夠準確預測這對夫妻是否未來會離婚的是雙方在對話過程中 積極還是消極。
Now, couples that were very low-riskscored a lot more positive points on Gottman’s scale than negative.Whereas bad relationships,by which I mean, probably going to get divorced,they found themselves getting into a spiral of negativity.Now just by using these very simple ideas,Gottman and his group were able to predict whether a given couple was going to get divorced with a 90 percent accuracy.But it wasn’t until he teamed up with a mathematician, James Murray,that they really started to understand what causes these negativity spirals and how they occur.And the results that they found,I think, are just incredibly impressively simple and interesting.So these equations predict how the wife or husband is going to respond in their next turn of the conversation,how positive or negative they’re going to be.And these equations depend on the mood of the person when they’re on their own,the mood of the person when they’re with their partner,but most importantly, they depend on how much the husband and wife influence one another.
那些離婚風險很低的夫妻在 Gottman 的測試中得到了 更多正面而不是負面的分數。相反的,在糟糕的關係中,我是指那些可能離婚的夫妻,他們發現自己沈浸在消極的漩渦中。就用這些非常簡單的方法,Gottman 和他的團隊能夠準確預測一對夫妻是否會離婚,準確率高達 90%。但是,直到他與 數學家 James Murray 聯手,他們才真正找出那些消極漩渦是 如何產生,為什麼產生的。結果是他們發現我認為不可思議太令人驚嘆 的簡單而有趣。這些算式,他們用來預測 妻子或是丈夫是如何去回應他們下一段對話,他們的積極或消極程度是多少。這些算式,取決於當他們獨處時各自的情緒,當他們和伴侶在一起時候的情緒,但最重要的是,取決於丈夫和妻子相互間的影響。
—END—
關注公眾號之後