宋仲基宋慧乔离婚！3个TED演讲 带你重新认识婚姻和恋爱的真谛（附视频&演讲稿）

提示：本文共有 30546 个字，阅读大概需要 62 分钟。

点击上方精彩英文演讲，设为星标

每天一个英文演讲，让你从此与众不同

据韩媒报道，宋仲基和宋慧乔目前正在进行离婚调解，宋仲基通过法律代理人向公众表示抱歉，称希望二人圆满地结束离婚程序，而不是互相指责。早在2019年2月，有网友发现宋慧乔个人社交平台头像更换，并删除了一些照片，因此传出宋慧乔与宋仲基情变离婚的消息。

而宋慧乔在曝出婚变传闻后，多次出席公开活动时左手无名指都没有佩戴婚戒。不过，“双宋”经济公司在2月22日曾回应“婚变”传闻，称报道不实，今后也不会再回应。

在2019年5月，有网友发现宋仲基曾穿宋慧乔的衣服开工拍戏，衣服上面的英文意思也是很有寓意“每一刻都很特别”，被指是撒狗粮。而转眼到6月底，二人已进入离婚调解程序。

演员宋钟基发布官方声明，称正在向首尔家庭法院申请与宋慧乔调解离婚。宋仲基通过律师表示:“比起追究双方的对错，互相指责，我们更希望圆满地结束离婚程序。”另外宋仲基还说“对于私生活的事情，很难一一说出来”，“以后将摆脱伤痛，作为演员会尽全力用好的作品来报答大家”。

今天英语演讲君分享3个超受欢迎的TED演讲，让你重新认识婚姻和恋爱的真正意义所在。

最好的结婚对象其实是你自己

特蕾西·麦克米伦（Tracy McMillan），她是美国著名两性关系专家、情感问题专家，她的母亲是性工作者，父亲大半生在监狱度过，9岁前被超过20个家庭寄养。她曾以为结婚是依靠，三次失败的婚姻过后，她开始了对自我的思考。听离过3次婚的女人讲婚姻观：你希望别人爱你，就先爱自己。看完之后，你或许会在这个演讲中找到的一些共鸣。

上下滑动，查看双语演讲稿

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.

我小时候经常唱这么一首歌：翠西和某某，坐在树下，互相亲吻，先是爱情，再是婚姻，最后生了宝宝，推在婴儿车里，一家人其乐融融。感觉就像：“喔！原来如此，这就是生活，这就是感情呀。”爱情、婚姻、婴儿车，这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.

然而我长大后，这才是我的真实生活：稍微复杂了一点点，相爱、结婚、离婚，单身，再度坠入爱河，又结婚，共同抚养孩子，又离婚；又结婚，又离婚……你可以想象。

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，你数学或是阅读能力很好的话，你就会发现，我一共结了三次婚。对，三次，并且都离了。而这所应该代表的就是，我在感情上妥妥的是个失败者。从另一种角度看，确实如此，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?

因为在我眼中，真正发生的事情就是我一直在和错误的人结婚。和错误的人结婚，并不代表我选择了很差劲的对象，我的前两任丈夫都是很棒的人。现在也都娶了很棒的姑娘，虽然并不是我。现在我的第三任丈夫是我的Facebook好友。结果一切都还好，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，我第三次婚姻崩溃了以后，我意识到我为了有一段美好的感情，我几乎和眼前所有的人都结过婚，却唯独没有嫁给那个我应该嫁的人。而且，我一旦嫁给了那个人，我所有的感情都将是成功的,包括那些中途夭折的感情，也就是失败。

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.

既然我们今天谈论的是女人的创造，我就来说说创造感情吧。我从很多次经历中，很多很多的错误中，所发现的道理，改变了我的人生观和爱情观，即嫁给自己。

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，嫁给自己是什么意思呢？这是一个大的观念，几乎和婚姻观念等同，如果让我总结一下的话，就是要和你自己处对象，然后嫁给你自己。

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.

换句话说，就是向自己坦白一切，然后和自己建立关系，到了那一步，你就会意识到，你现在是完整的了。男人，女人，工作，环境，都将不会对你有任何影响。这些都不会使你更加完整，因为你已经是完整的了。这将改变你的人生。

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.

到现在为止，我知道你们中间肯定有人在想，你们为什么要听一个离过三次婚的女人讲婚姻观。甚至她自己也是这么想的。我理解这样的想法。我对此想说的是，我从我的经验所学到的，当你改变你的内在的时候，越是困难之处，越是要迎难而上。

So let me tell you a little bit about the person I truly needed to marry: myself.

那么让我来讲讲那个我应该嫁的人，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.

我来自明尼阿波利斯，我妈妈是一个妓女，而且有酒瘾，在我三个月大的时候她就把我送到了寄养家庭。我的爸爸是一个罪犯，他是一个一心想赚钱的毒品走私犯和皮条客。其实他们俩都是一心想要钱的人。几乎在我一生中的所有时间里，他们都在蹲监狱。

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年监禁从监狱中出来，而我...在九岁以前，我在20多个寄养家庭中生活过。毕竟这里面有很多细节，你们只需要知道，从那样的童年中走过来，我只有一个目标，就是永远不被抛弃。而我达成这个目标的途径，将是结婚。这就是我为了达成这个目标将会做的事情。

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，我和一个我17岁时候认识的男人结了第一次婚，那时我19岁。他是一个很棒的男人，有着和睦的家庭，以及MBA的文凭。就像...你知道的，很适合的结婚对象。我当时很惊喜，当时就想着，我有家庭了，有归属了，真是太赞了。

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，五年以后我就离开了他。接着，十年之后，我又结婚了。对象是另一个很棒的男人，也就是我现在16岁儿子的父亲。我们现在关系也很好，因为他真的是一个很好的人。但是结婚四年以后，我还是离开了他。

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.

我对此并不真正感到骄傲，但是为了真正的嫁给自己，你就要对自己诚实，有时候甚至痛苦至极地面对自己已经做过的事情。所以，我对此并不感到骄傲。

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.

八年之后，在我40岁的时候，我又结婚了。我当时想着，这感觉真不错。让我来说说什么会让一个在24个寄养家庭中生活过的女孩儿感觉不错。一个在结婚后九周就开始约会的男人，重要的是，他开始和一个21岁的女孩儿约会。

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，如果不是这么悲惨的的话，还蛮有意思的。你会有种感觉，这也是我们俩现在还是Facebook好友的原因。所以，当我从现在的角度再去看我刚刚说的这个有着劣迹斑斑的感情经历的女人，我的想法就像是，我真的要嫁给她吗？这就是你想让我嫁的人？

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。因为嫁给自己并不是像同居那样，你不能约会一段时间再看情况做决定。你必须坚持到最后直到死亡把你们分开。

You are going to take vows. So here are the vows.

你将宣誓，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，你将嫁给你自己，无论贫穷与富贵。意思是你将无条件地爱自己。你不能说「等你去了好莱坞和藤街，我才嫁给你」，你也不能说「等你瘦了十磅以后我才会爱你」，你更不能说「如果你没有嫁给那个失败者，我才会爱你。既然已经嫁了，那么我觉得我们之间结束了」。当你嫁给你自己的时候，你走过长廊，走到你所在的位置。略微矛盾的地方在于，我发现爱那个就在原地的我是我走向目的地的唯一途径。

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，你将嫁给你自己，无论环境好与坏。这句话意思是，大部分人都会在更好的情况下爱自己，比如，我今天发型很赞，我爱我自己。这不是我要说的部分，我要说的是，在更坏的情况下，那种当人生辜负了你的时候，可能你无家可归，可能你没有从事喜欢的事业，可能你没有顺利地大学毕业，可能你没有找到想要的感情，可能事情没法向你想的方向发展，可能你和妈妈吵架了，可能你看了太多太现实的电视剧。无论发生了什么，都不重要。因为，当你嫁给了自己以后，你都将永远陪在自己身边，不管发生什么。

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，你将嫁给自己，无论生病与健康。这句话的意思是，你要原谅自己所犯过的错误。错误，并不代表失败，除非你不懂得吸取教训，除非你不成长。有句话是这样说的，你想要耐心，得到的却是在银行排长队。

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，生活不会给你你所想要的东西，它只会给你那些能让你建立你所想要的东西的人物，地方，和状况。并且，你知道，如果你第一次无法达成你想要的，生活会再给你一次机会。因为生活在那方面还是很慷慨的。

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，我在第一次婚姻中没有得到想要的，在第二次婚姻中也没有，但是，就像...也许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，我从「无论生病还是健康」中学到很多。我学会了在自己的床边，握着自己的手，照顾自己，安慰自己。我知道，我知道我是那个自己是那个可以依赖的人。

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.

最后，也同样重要的是，你嫁给你自己。当你嫁给自己的时候，就要拥有并掌握自己。那么，什么叫做「拥有并掌握自己」呢？我认为它的意思是,你希望别人怎样爱你，你就要像那样爱你自己。

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，一直有这样一种缺失感。我觉得我像是个半边人，缺失了什么东西一样。我开始了一段感情，希望能缓解我这一生都有的这种情绪，即：如果没有人爱我，我就是不完整的。而事实却是，如果我不学会爱我自己，我将永远无法感觉到自己是完整的。

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，嫁给自己这件事将改变你人生中的每个部分，你的生意，家庭关系，孩子，社交关系，朋友。因为在你嫁给自己的时候，会发生很大的转变，你将会以全新的方式去爱。你将会无条件地去爱别人，就像你爱自己的那样。没错，这世界就是需要更多这样的爱。

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.

当我嫁给自己的时候我就意识到，我已经拥有了我所需要的一切。我开始把点亮我的小角落这件事情看做自己的工作，那就是我的新工作。因为我现在并不需要什么。

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，当我开会的时候，我所想的就只有怎样帮助她来完成她的目标。在我的社交圈内，我就会想，我能带给这个人只有我能带给他的东西吗？而我在约会的时候，我就会想我能在一个小时内了解对方多少呢？这样就带给我了一个良性循环。

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.”

因为大家总是问我的感情生活，很八卦。答案是，我还在努力中。难道我们不都是吗？所以，我现在的处境是这样的，约三个月前，我和他第一次约会，这次约会中有30分钟，我都在关注我在他的陪伴下的感受，而不是他是否喜欢我。我发现我当时很放松，很开心。我在约会之后的反应就像「我真是天兴奋了，看，这就是向自己坦白真实的自己」。

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.

我在这次约会上完全没有努力去让别人喜欢我，比起他怎么看我，我更关心的是我自己怎么看我。并不是因为我自私，而是因为唯一一段我将会和别人拥有的感情就是我现在已经和自己拥有的这种感情。从现在到今后都是如此。后来发现，他很喜欢我，我们也还在约会。这非常酷也非常激动人心，不过鉴于我已经结了三次婚，所以还是慢点。

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.

重点在于，我没有想从他或者从婚姻中得到安全感，以及一个婴儿车。我只是为了一段感情而来，我并不会迫不及待想听到“你愿意嫁给我吗？”。因为尽管这样的语言很有煽动性，尤其是对于像我这样的人。我也并不需要从他那里听到这样的话，因为我已经听到自己这样说过了。

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，就像是我带我自己去了高山之巅或者深海之底，我单膝跪下说“我永远都不会离开你”。现在，我终于嫁给了那个我一直想共度一生的人，我自己。

Thank you.

谢谢

这才是爱情应有的样子

谈论爱情时，大家最常用到的词语往往有“坠入爱河”，“神魂颠倒”，“茶不思饭不想”，“相思成灾”，“情难自控”“痛并快乐着”等等， 我们是否想过这些词语是否给了我们一些负面的心理暗示,让很多人从中误解和曲解了爱情感受和含义呢？我们是否能有更好的词语或比喻来谈论爱情呢？Mandy Len Catron女士在TED舞台上分享的一种更好的方式来谈论爱情，让爱情回归其应有的样子。

上下滑动，查看双语演讲稿

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， 我想讨论一下我们谈论爱情的方法。说得更明确一些，就是讨论一下我们谈论爱情时犯的错误。

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.

我们大多数人在一生中会不止一次坠入爱河，而在语言中，我们使用“坠入”一词，很大程度上也形容了恋爱的体验。

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.

我不知道你们怎么想的，但我脑海中所浮现的画面完全和卡通片一样：有一个人，他走在人行道上，不经意间走过一个井口，然后“扑通”一声跌进了下水道。

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 --我这样想象是因为“坠入”与“跳入”不同。“坠入”是意外的，是不可控制的。它的发生是未经自己允许的。而这就是我们讨论一段新恋情时的描述方式。

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.我是作家也是英语老师，这意味着我靠咬文嚼字为生。你可以说我的工作就是告诉别人日常用语是很要紧的，而我想指出的是，有很多用来形容爱情的比喻，甚至可能是大多数，都是有问题的。

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.所以说， 我们会“坠入”爱河。爱情突如其来。我们不能自拔。我们痴狂迷醉。我们被热情灼烧。爱情使人癫狂，也使我们患病。我们的心在滴血，然后支离破碎。所以说，这种比喻将恋爱经历等同于极暴力和病态。

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 --事实真是如此。而这些比喻把我们定位成某种未知、不可避免的事件的受害者。其中我最喜欢的单词 “smitten”，是“smite”的过去分词。如果在词典里查询这个单词……

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.

你会发现它既可译为“惨痛的折磨”，又可以译为“被迷得神魂颠倒”。这个单词常使我联想到一段特殊文字，那就是《圣经·旧约》。

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.仅在《出埃及记》中，就16次提及这个单词，它被《圣经》用来形容一位愤怒的神的复仇。

Here we are using the same word to talk about love that we use to explain a plague of locusts.而如今这个用来形容爱情的词，原本是拿来形容蝗灾的。

Right?对吧？

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?

所以为什么会这样？我们怎么会将爱情和伤痛与苦难混为一谈？还有我们为何会讨论这种美好假象，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.这些问题很难回答，但我有一些理论。若想解释清楚，我想着重谈谈这样一个比喻，那就是将爱情喻为疯狂。

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.

一开始研究浪漫爱情的时候，我发现这种比喻无处不在。西方历史文化中，有许多文字将爱情比喻为精神疾病。以下是几个例子。

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·莎士比亚说过：“爱情不过是一种疯狂。”出自《皆大欢喜》。哲学家尼采说过：“爱情中总是有些疯狂的。”还有“你的爱，你的爱让我如此痴狂……”

from the great philosopher, Beyoncé Knowles.上句出自伟大的“哲学家”，碧昂斯·诺里斯。

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.

我在二十岁的时候经历了初恋，那是一段自始至终都非常凌乱的恋情。刚开始几年还是长途异地恋，所以对我来说意味着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.我还记得一个特别的瞬间。当时我在南美，坐在一间旅社的床上，看着我爱着的人冲出门外。当时很晚了，将近午夜，我们在晚饭时发生了争吵，当我们回到房间后，他把东西扔到包里，径直冲出了房间。我已不记得当时争吵的目的，但我清楚记得我看着他离开时的感受。

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.我当时22岁，第一次来到发展中国家，而且我孤身一人。距离我回家还有一周，我记得我所在的那个小镇的名字，也记得我要飞离南美的出发地城市的名字，但我并不知道怎么走。我没有向导书也没有多少钱，而且我不会讲西班牙语。

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.比我更有冒险精神的人，可能会把这视为一次很好的锻炼经历，但我却不知所措。我就坐在那儿。然后嚎啕大哭。但在慌乱中，我脑海中的一个声音告诉我：“天啊，这很戏剧化哦。我一定是把爱情表现的淋漓尽致了。”

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.因为我内心深处是渴望在爱情中受伤的。这对于现在的我说很奇怪，但对于22岁的我，我渴望一次戏剧性的经历，那个瞬间我很不理性、很气愤、很绝望，而更奇怪的是，我认为某种程度上，它证明了我对离我而去那个人的爱。

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."可能在某些时候想疯狂一些，因为我以为爱情就应该是这样。其实这不应该使人惊讶，因为根据维基百科，有8部电影，14首歌，2张专辑，和一本小说都命名为《疯狂爱情》。

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."

半小时后，他回来了。我们复合了。接下来，在旅行中我们度过了愉快的一周。然后我回到家，我想，“这可真是既糟糕又美好。这一定是真正的爱情吧。”

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.我期盼着能在初恋中感受到疯狂，显然，这个期望被很好的满足了。不过这样爱着一个人，好像我的全部都取决于他回馈的爱，对自己是很不好的，对他也一样。

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.不过我觉得这段爱情经历并不是非常罕见。我们大多数人在恋情的早期都会感受到些许疯狂。事实上，研究表明这是正常现象，因为， 从神经学角度来说，恋情和精神疾病并没有特别大的区别。这是真的。

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.一个1999年的实验通过验血，确认了新情侣的血清素水平和另一群人的血清素水平相似，那就是强迫症患者。

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.没错，低水平的血清素与季节性情感障碍以及抑郁症都有关联。由此证明，心情和行为的变化与爱情是有关的。也有其他研究确认大多数感情是这样开始的。

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对恋爱对象的强迫性回忆，就好像别人在你的脑海中安营扎寨。

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.我们在初恋都有这样的感受。但幸运的是，这感受不会持续很久，通常只有几个月到一两年。

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.

当我从南美回来的时候，我在我的房间里独自待了很久，查看我的邮箱，非常渴望得到我爱的那个男人的消息。

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.

我决定：如果我的朋友不理解我的困境，那我也不需要这些友谊。所以我和大多数好友断绝了联系，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.但我感觉我必须要感受痛苦，因为通过我的痛苦，才可以证明我对他的爱。如果我可以证明，那我们终将会在一起。

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.这才是真正的疯狂，因为并没有明确规定，受苦受难就一定能得到回报，但在爱情里我们却觉得这是对的。

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.

我们的爱情体验 既是生理上的，又是文化上的。生理通过激发我们大脑的激励反馈，告诉我们爱情是美好的。然而在吵架或分手后，它又告诉我们爱情是痛苦的，这时候神经反馈是无效的。

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.事实上，你可能听说过，从神经学的角度来说，经历分手和戒毒过程非常相似，这点我感到很舒心。

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.

我们的文化利用语言来塑造与加强对于爱的观念。现在的情况是，我们将其等同于痛苦、癖嗜和痴狂。这好像是一个有趣的反馈循环。

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.爱情很伟大，但有时也让我们痛苦，我们用词句和故事来表达这点，然后这些文字又使得我们盲目期待爱情就应是伟大而痛苦的。

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.而对我来说有趣的是，这一切都发生在一个鼓励终生一夫一妻制的文化里。这好像是说我们想两者兼得：我们既想让爱情疯狂一些，我们又想让它持续一生。这听起来糟透了。

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.

要缓解这种情况，我们要不改变我们的文化，要不改变我们的期望。请各位想象一下，所有人的爱情都没那么被动。想象我们少一些固执，心胸变得更宽广、更开放，我们不再“坠入”爱河，我们“步入”爱河。

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.

我知道这个要求有点高，但我并不是第一个提出这点的人。在《我们赖以生存的隐喻》一书中，语言学家马克·约翰逊和乔治·拉克夫提出了一个非常有趣的方法来解决这一矛盾，那就是改变我们的比喻。

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.他们认为，比喻真的可以左右我们感受世界的方式，而它们甚至可以成为我们未来行动的指引，就像是自我实现的预言。

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.

约翰逊和拉克夫提出了爱情的一种新比喻：爱情是一个合作完成的艺术品。我很喜欢这种看待爱情的方式。语言学家运用比喻是有很多内涵的，其实就是说喻体中包含了本体的几乎一切含义与概念。

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.而约翰逊和拉克夫的比喻涉及到了合作创作艺术品的所有含义：努力、妥协、耐心、共同的目标等等。这些概念与我们在长期恋情中做出的精神投入很契合，但它们同样适用于其它各种恋爱关系——短期的、随意的恋情，多角恋，非一夫一妻制，无性恋……因为这种比喻在恋爱的体验中赋予了更多复杂的概念。

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.所以假如爱情是合作完成的艺术品，那么爱情就是一种美学体验。爱情是无法预测的，爱情是创造性的，爱情需要沟通，需要规矩，爱情是令人沮丧的，会造成很多精神压力。而爱情中既有快乐，也有痛苦。而最终，每次爱情经历都是不同的。

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.

当我还年轻的时候，我从来没想过我可以从爱情中寻求更多，或者说我不需要全盘接受爱情给我提供的感受。

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?

当14岁的朱丽叶第一次见到……或者说，当14岁的朱丽叶不能和罗密欧在一起，她才认识罗密欧四天时间，她不觉得失落或痛苦。她怎么了？她想寻死。对吧？

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.大家回忆一下，戏剧演到这里的时候是五幕中的第三幕，罗密欧并没有死，他还活着，他很健康，他只是被驱逐出城了。我明白16世纪的维罗纳和当今的北美非常不同，然而当我第一次读到这部戏剧，同样也在14岁，我觉得能够感受朱丽叶的痛苦。

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.

把爱情当作一个与我所爱的人共同创造的东西，而不是一个不经我控制或同意就发生在我身上的东西，这想法非常激动人心。这依然很难做到。

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.爱情有时候还是让我陷入疯狂与痛苦，而当我感到特别沮丧时，我必须提醒自己：在这段关系中，我的任务是与伴侣交流，沟通我们想共同创造的东西。其实这也不容易，但它已经比另一种方式要好很多了，那就是将爱情当作疯狂的体验。

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.

这种爱情不是为了赢取或者失去某人的爱慕，而是需要你相信你的伴侣，而且当遇到信任危机时冷静交流，虽说听起来很容易，但这实际上是挺革命性、颠覆性的。

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.

因为你可以不再纠结于自身，不再纠缠自己在爱情中的得与失，而开始思考你可以做出什么贡献。

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."这种爱情让我们可以这样说：“嘿，我们之间的合作不是很好。可能这不适合我们吧。”或者说，“这段爱情比我预计的要短一些，但它还是挺美好的吧。”

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.一个合作完成的艺术品的魅力所在，就是它不会自己描绘或塑造自己。这种爱情让我们主动决定它的美。

Thank you.谢谢！

数学家才是最会谈恋爱的一帮人

2018年过去了，你的单身问题解决了吗？世界那么大，难道你只能一个人孤单到天明？或许，数学可以帮你解决这些问题！英语演讲君在观看TED演讲视频的时候，发现了一位复杂理论学家(complexity theorist) Hannah Fry的一个精彩演讲，她用10多分钟的时间，带着独有的英伦风趣，告诉我们数学与爱情的亲密关系。原来数学家是世界上谈恋爱最成功的一帮人！解完几个数学题之后，他们就成功地“约了炮”、选择了最好的伴侣，还能一辈子不离婚~~我读书少，数学家你不要骗我！::>_<::

上下滑动，查看双语演讲稿

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.今天我想要和大家谈谈 关于爱情的数学。我想大家都同意数学家在寻找真爱上特别在行。

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.但那并不只是因为我们 精力充沛的性格、超凡的对话技巧， 和炫丽的笔盒。也是因为我们真的 花了许多时间精力在数学上，计算如何找到完美的伴侣。

Now, in my favorite paper on the subject, which is entitled,Why I Don’t Have a Girlfriend --

现在，在此学科中我最爱的论文，名为「为甚么我没有女友」

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 试着 计算他寻得真爱的机会。现在，Peter 不是一个非常贪心的人。在英国所有适宜的女性对象中，Peter 所看的， 就只是那个住在他附近的对象、某个处于适宜的年龄阶段的女人、某个拥有大学文凭、某个他很有可能相处地不错的对象、某个有魅力的女子，以及......某个认为 他也富有魅力的对象。

And comes up with an estimate of 26 women in the whole of the UK.结果他估计在全英国 大概有 26 位此类女性。

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.这看来很不妙，不是吗，Peter？我们好好思考一下这件事，在无数聪明外星 生命形式存在的情况下，那是少于 400 倍数的估计呀。那也给了 Peter 一个在某晚遇见一个特别的女子28 万 5 千之 1 的机会。我想，那就是为什么数学家不再怎么想 晚上出去约会了的原因了吧。

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.重点是，我个人其实并不同意这种悲观的看法，因为我知道，如同你们所有所知道的，爱情并不是这样发生的。人类的情感不是那样地秩序井然、 干净利落、逻辑清晰，和容易预测。但我也知道那并不意谓著数学无法提供帮助，因为爱情，如同生命中多数的事物一般， 充斥着许多规律，而数学最终就是 那研究规律的学说。从预测天候，到 预测股票市场的开高走低，到星球的运转，或都市的发展。如果我们对自己诚实的话， 上述那些东西，没有一个是井然有序以及容易预测的。因为我相信，数学的力量非常强大， 以至于它让我们得以以新方法，重新看待任何事物。就算是和爱情一般神秘的东西也是。为了试着说服你们数学的神妙用处，我想要给大家三个最重要的 在数学上可以验证的爱情秘诀。

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：如何赢得线上交友的机会。我最爱的线上交友网站是OkCupid （网站名：好吧，丘比特），这并不仅仅因为这网站 是由一群数学家所架设的。因为他们是数学家，他们已经蒐集了近乎这十年来所有 该网站使用者的资料。他们试着寻找我们在线上谈论自己的方式的模式，以及我们和他人互动的模式。他们发现了一些重要的有趣结果。但我特别喜欢的结果之一是在线上交友网站上你的魅力程度并无法 预测你的受欢迎程度，事实上，让人们觉得你很丑可以让你拥有优势。

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.让我向各位展示这是怎么一回事。在 OkCupid 的一个自愿栏目中，你可以评价人们的魅力值，从 1 到 5 。现在，如果我们比较这个分数， 平均分数，有多少人收到讯息，你就可以开始理解在一个线上约会网站上 魅力指数与受欢迎程度有关。

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 ...这是 OkCupid 得到的图表。一件重要的值得注意的事是并不是越有魅力的人， 收到的讯息越多。问题是，为什么上面的这些人比下面这些人要受欢迎得多，即便他们都有相同的魅力值？原因是，并不是直观的外貌是重要的。让我来谈谈他们的发现， 以一个案例说明。如果你拿 Portia de Rossi 为例，每个人都同意 Portia de Rossi 是个非常美丽的女人，没有人觉得她丑，但她也不是超级名模。如果你拿某个人，比如 Sarah Jessica Parker （译注：欲望城市女主角）来和她比较许多人，包括我自己，我应该会说，Sarah Jessica Parker 魅力极为出众，有可能是地表上最美丽的物种之一。但许多其他人，比如，大多数的网友。

seem to think that she looks a bit like a horse.似乎都认为她看起来像马。

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.如果你问人们他们觉得自己有多美，Sarah Jessica Parker 或 Portia de Rossi你要他们给自己打分，从 1 到 5，我猜他们也会大约给一个 和大家都差不多的数字。但是人们投票的方式各自不同。因此 Portia 的分数会聚集在 4 分左右，因为所有人都同意，她非常美丽，然而人们对 Sarah Jessica Parker 却有截然不同的意见。她的分差悬殊很大。然而事实上，就是那分差别具意义，那差异让你在交友网站上受欢迎。所以那意味着如果有些人认为你别具魅力，你最好有其他人认为你是个丑八怪。那远优于所有人认为你是邻家的可爱女孩。

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,当你们开始思考一下 这些寄送讯息的人的话，这开始变得合理些了。这么说吧，假设你认为那个人很美，但你同时猜想其他人并不会 和你有同样的审美观。那就意味着，你的竞争对手略少，这就给你增加了额外的动机 去与他/她认识。与之相对的情况是， 你认为某人很有吸引力，但你猜想所有其他的人 都认为那人很有吸引力，嗯，让我们面对事实 为什么要自取其辱呢？这就是最有趣的部分。因为当人们去选择他们 在交友网站上使用的照片时，他们总是试图最小化其他人认为不吸引人之处的可能性。最经典的例子是， 那些体重略重的人故意选择一个 剪裁非常不正确的照片。

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.例如那些秃头的男士，故意去选择他们带着帽子的照片。但你的行为是与你的目标相悖的，如果你想要在网上交友成功。你真的应该，去选择 让你看起来与众不同的照片，即便你认为某些人会对此失去兴趣。因为那些喜欢你的人 无论如何都会去喜欢你，而那些不重要的路人 只是渲染你的优势。

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，最高秘诀 2 号：如何选择完美的伴侣。让我们想像你的约会精彩成功，但问题来了 你如何将那成功的约会转变成长期的幸福，尤其是，你要如何选择 在哪个时刻安定下来？一般来说， 并不建议人们立刻与第一个出现对你表达好感的人结婚。但是，一般来说，如果你想要 最大化你未来数十年幸福婚姻的机会，你也不愿等待太久。我最喜欢的作家珍．奥斯汀这样说：「一个未婚的 27 岁女子就别指望再能感受或触动爱情了。」

Thanks a lot, Jane.What do you know about love?这太严重了，珍， 你对爱了解多少呢？

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.那么问题来了，你怎么知道哪个时刻 是该要安定下来的时刻，毕竟生命中你有很多可能的对象？幸好，我们可以运用一点数学来帮助我们计算解决这个问题，这理论名叫 「最优停止理论」。那么让我们来想像一下，你在 15 岁的时候开始交往，理想状态下，你在 35 岁的时候会结婚。你的人生中有很多潜在的约会对象，他们都有各自的优点。规则是，你一旦跳进婚姻，你就不能继续前进寻找 你可能可以有的对象，你也不能回头来改变你的主意。我个人的经验看来，一般人们不希望在被拒绝又过了多年后被找回来， 也许只有我这样想。

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.数学告诉我们你应该拒绝认为会和 在你人生约会周期前 37% 时段出现的任何人 有严肃认真的婚姻关系。

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.接着，你要选择下一个人，那个比你以前约会对象都好的人。这里举个例子。如果你这么做，从数学证明来看 可以认为，事实上这可能是最好的选择来最大化你找到完美伴侣的机会。现在不幸的是，我必须告诉你 这个方法也是有风险的。比如，想像一下，假设你的完美伴侣出现在你约会历程的前 37%那就很不幸了， 你会拒绝他们。

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.如果你相信数学，恐怕你不会再找到比你以往见过更好的对象，你就会持续拒绝每个人 然后孤独终老。

Probably surrounded by cats ...可能会被猫咪包围

nibbling at your remains.一点点啃食你的遗骸。

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，另一个风险是， 让我们想像，相反的，你约会历程前 37% 里第一个对象极度愚蠢、无聊又很糟糕。没关系，因为你还处于拒绝对象的阶段，没问题，你可以拒绝他们。但想像一下，下一个出现的人只是没那么无聊、愚蠢，

than everybody that you’ve seen before.Now, if you are following the maths, I’m afraid you have to marry them ...比你以前的对象都略好那么一点。如果你遵循数学， 恐怕你要和他们结婚。

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.然后沈浸在一段， 实话说，次优的关系中。很抱歉。但我认为，机会还是有的贺曼公司迎合市场需求出售这样的情人节贺卡。

My darling husband, you are marginally less terrible than the first 37 percent of people I dated."「我亲爱的丈夫，你没有我约会历程中前 37% 的男士 那么糟糕。」It’s actually more romantic than I normally manage.这比一般的贺卡浪漫很多。

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.这个数学方法不能保证 100% 的成功率，但也没有更好的策略了。事实上，在动物界， 某个特定种类的鱼遵循使用这样的策略。在交配期，牠们拒绝出现在前 37% 的每个求婚者，接着牠们选择 37% 后出现的下一个比所见过的鱼体型更加庞大，更加结实的鱼。我想作为人类 我们潜意识里也在做同样的选择。我们给自己更多时间寻找，在我们年轻的时候 感受婚恋市场。我们只有在 20 岁年龄段的中后期才会很真寻找潜在的结婚对象。我想这证明了， 即使不确定是否需要，每个人的大脑 都预配了点数学能力。

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，上述就是最高秘诀 2 号。现在，最高秘诀 3 号：如何避免离婚。好的，让我们想像一下 你找到了你的完美对象，你和他/她进入了一生的婚姻关系。我假设每个人都不希望离婚，当然，也许除了 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，现代婚姻一个悲伤的事实就是美国离婚率高达 50%，世界其他国家也离这个数据不远。当然，你可以认为婚姻破裂的原因不是数学运算理想的数据源。一方面来说，很难了解到你该去测量什么 或者是你该去量化什么。但这并没有阻止心理学家 John Gottman 做这样的研究。Gottman 观察了数百对夫妇的对谈尽可能录下来所有资讯。记录了对话的内容、皮肤的传导性、面部表情、心跳、血压，基本上除了「太太永远是对的」 以外的所有东西，当然，太太永远是对的。但是，Gottman 和他的团队发现最能够准确预测这对夫妻是否未来会离婚的是双方在对话过程中 积极还是消极。

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.

那些离婚风险很低的夫妻在 Gottman 的测试中得到了 更多正面而不是负面的分数。相反的，在糟糕的关系中，我是指那些可能离婚的夫妻，他们发现自己沈浸在消极的漩涡中。就用这些非常简单的方法，Gottman 和他的团队能够准确预测一对夫妻是否会离婚,准确率高达 90%。但是，直到他与 数学家 James Murray 联手，他们才真正找出那些消极漩涡是 如何产生，为什么产生的。结果是他们发现我认为不可思议太令人惊叹 的简单而有趣。这些算式，他们用来预测 妻子或是丈夫是如何去回应他们下一段对话，他们的积极或消极程度是多少。这些算式，取决于当他们独处时各自的情绪，当他们和伴侣在一起时候的情绪，但最重要的是，取决于丈夫和妻子相互间的影响。

—END—

关注公众号之后

看到此处说明本文对你还是有帮助的，关于“宋仲基宋慧乔离婚！3个TED演讲 带你重新认识婚姻和恋爱的真谛（附视频&演讲稿）”留言是大家的经验之谈相信也会对你有益，推荐继续阅读下面的相关内容，与本文相关度极高！