单身的重要性The Importance of Singlehood

The Importance of Singlehood单身的重要性

One of the most important preconditions of a good relationship is a satisfactory perspective on being single. The more we are happy to be on our own, the more we will be able to exercise the correct degree of caution around finding a new companion. The bedrock of true love is happy singledom. Unfortunately, our societies do very little to help us be calm or at ease in our own company. Singledom is framed as an involuntary, depressing and always, hopefully temporary state. The notion that someone might want or need to be on their own, perhaps for a long while, terrifying the world shaped by legions千军万马；军团of silently miserable couples who need confirmation that they have not chosen the wrong path.一段良好关系的最重要的先决条件之一是对单身有一个满意的看法。我们越是乐于独处，就越能在寻找新伴侣时保持正确的谨慎。真爱的基础是快乐的单身生活。不幸的是，我们的社会很少帮助我们在独处时保持冷静或放松。单身被框定为一种不由自主的、令人沮丧的、总是希望是暂时的状态。有人可能想要或需要独自生活，也许是很长一段时间，这种想法让这个世界感到恐惧，这个世界是由大量默默痛苦的夫妇塑造的，他们需要确认自己没有选择错误的道路。

To enforce the idea of what single people are missing, advertisers can never have enough of showing off tantalizing images of happy couples walking hand in hand on beaches. And most entertainment venues, holiday destinations and social occasions feel compelled to patronize光顾；惠顾, overcharge and otherwise demean anyone who has the impudence to venture out on their own. Unfortunately, being miserable while single fatally undermines our judgment about who we might get together with. When someone is starving, they will eat anything. Dostoevski wrote a harrowing short story about a famished child who eats a candle made of pig fat and we're equally liable, in emotional desperation, to run into the nearest nightclub to secure a chump we’ll be appalled to find beside us at daybreak. We eventually learn: being in an unsatisfactory relationship is clearly worse but is even more lonely than being alone. 为了让人们明白单身人士错过了什么，广告商总是不停地展示幸福的情侣们在海滩上手拉手散步的诱人照片，而大多数娱乐场所、度假胜地和社交场合都不得不光顾那些胆敢独自出门的人，收取过高的费用，甚至以其他方式贬低他们。不幸的是，单身时的痛苦会致命地削弱我们对对象的判断。当一个人饿了的时候，他们什么都吃。陀思妥耶夫斯基写了一个悲惨的短篇故事，讲的是一个饥饿的孩子吃了一根猪油做的蜡烛。在情绪绝望的时候，我们同样有可能跑到最近的夜总会去找一个傻乎乎的人，天亮时我们会惊讶地发现他就在我们身边。我们最终会明白：一段不令人满意的关系显然更糟糕，且比一个人更孤独。

The central challenge of being alone is coping with the fear of what singlehood means. Being alone is bearable in relation to how “normal”(that highly nebulous yet highly influential concept) the condition feels to us at any given point. It can either be a break from an honorably busy life or sure evidence that we are an unwanted, wretched, disgusting and emotionally diseased being. This is tricky, but ultimately very hopeful for it suggests that if only we could work on what being alone means to us, we could theoretically endure long periods alone. 单身的核心挑战是应对单身意味着什么的恐惧。在任何给定的时间点上，孤独对我们来说都是“正常”的(这是一个非常模糊但非常有影响力的概念)。它可以是忙碌生活中的短暂休息，也可以是我们是一个不受欢迎的、可怜的、令人厌恶的、情感上有疾病的人的确凿证据。这很棘手，但最终还是很有希望的，因为它表明，要是我们能弄清独处对我们意味着什么，理论上我们就能忍受长时间的独处。

To build ourselves a new mental model of what being alone should truly mean, we might rehearse a few of the following arguments. Despite what an unfriendly voice inside our heads might tell us: we are the ones who can choose whether or not to be alone, our solitude is willed rather than imposed. No one ever needs to be alone, so long as they don't mind who they are with, but we do mind. the wrong kind of company is a great deal lonelier for us than being by ourselves, that is, it's further from what matters to us, more grating in its insincerity and more of a reminder of disconnection and misunderstanding than is the conversation we can have in the quiet of our own minds. Being alone is not proof that we have been rejected by the world, it's a sign that we've taken a good look at the available options and have with wisdom done some rejecting ourselves.为了给自己建立一个关于独处的真正意义的新思维模式，我们可以排练一下下面的一些论点。虽然我们脑海中有一个不友好的声音可能会告诉我们:我们可以选择是否独处，我们的孤独是自愿的，而不是强加的。没有人需要独处，只要他们不介意和谁在一起，但我们确实介意。对我们来说，不合适的同伴比独处要孤独得多，也就是说，它离我们真正关心的事情更遥远，它的虚伪更令人讨厌，比我们在自己内心平静的对话更能提醒我们脱节和误解。孤独并不能证明我们被这个世界拒绝了，它只是一个迹象，表明我们已经好好审视了可用的选择，并明智地拒绝了自己。

 Another big thought is that we need to appreciate how long it will take to find someone, given how choosy we are. For very good reasons, we aren't just looking for anyone. The right candidate will be no less easy to find than a great job or a beautiful house. It might take many months, probably years. Expectations matter. If we regard a decade as a plausible time frame, then six months will skip by. There is no better guarantee of a successful relationship than knowing that we could and can manage perfectly well on our own. It means that we will only look for someone who can deeply contribute to our life, not someone who can do the laundry with us, or keep us company on Sunday evenings. This gives us the strength to back out of unsatisfactory unions as quickly as we should. Being in a couple can't and shouldn't mean that we are utterly reliant on the other for our self esteem or daily self management, or for the meeting of our domestic needs. 另一个重要的想法是，考虑到我们有多挑剔，我们需要意识到找到一个人需要多长时间。出于很好的理由，我们不是随便找个人。找到一个合适的候选人并不比找到一份好工作或一幢漂亮的房子更容易。这可能需要几个月，甚至几年。预期很重要。如果我们认为10年是一个合理的时间框架，那么6个月就会转瞬即逝。要想拥有一段成功的感情，最好的保证就是知道我们能够自己处理得很好。这意味着我们只会寻找对我们的生活有深刻贡献的人，而不是可以和我们一起洗衣服，或在周日晚上陪伴我们的人。这给了我们力量，让我们尽快退出不满意的关系。在一对夫妻中，不能也不应该意味着我们完全依赖于另一个人来获得自尊或日常自我管理，或满足我们的家庭需求。

When we have under our belt a significant experience of thriving on our own, we will be able to cope with the inevitable points at which even a very nice partner can't sustain us; we’ll be less demanding, more competent and more forensic in what we seek from a lover. It turns out that our willingness to stay on our own is what centrally predicts how likely we’ll be to find and bring to fruition a relationship with someone else. Being at ease with being single is the needed secure platform from which to make a sane and wise choice about who to create a joint life with.当我们有了靠自己茁壮成长的重要经历时，我们将能够应对不可避免的时刻，这些时刻即使是非常好的伴侣也无法支撑我们。我们对爱人的要求会更低，更有能力，更有鉴别力。事实证明，我们保持独立的意愿主要预测了我们找到并实现一段关系的可能性。坦然面对单身是一个必要的安全平台，在这个平台上，你可以理智而明智地选择与谁共同生活。