评论
打印
One of the most important preconditions of a good relationship is a satisfactory perspective on being single.
与他人形成良好关系最重要的前提之一，是正确地理解单身。
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.
我们越能享受单身，越能在寻找新伴侣的问题上正确地保持谨慎。
The bedrock of true love is happy singledom.
幸福的单身是寻找真爱的基石。
Unfortunately, our societies do very little to help us be calm or at ease in our own company.
不幸的是，我们的社会很难让我们冷静或轻松地面对单身。
Singledom is framed as an involuntary, depressing and always hopefully temporary state.
单身被定义为一种非自愿的、令人压抑的、希望马上会过去的状态。
The notion that someone might want or need to be on their own, perhaps for a long while, terrifies a world shaped by legions of silently miserable couples who need confirmation that they have not chosen the wrong path.
有人可能会想要或需要长时间单身，但这让我们的世界感到恐惧，因为世界上存在大量沉默且痛苦的伴侣，他们急需确认自己选择的道路是正确的。
To enforce the idea of what single people are missing, advertisers can never have enough of showing off tantalising images of happy couples walking hand in hand on beaches - and most entertainment venues, holiday destinations and social occasions feel compelled to patronise, overcharge and otherwise demean anyone who has had the impudence to venture out on their own.
为了强化单身人群不完整的理念，广告商不停炫耀幸福的情侣携手走在海滩上的诱人画面——大多数娱乐场所、度假胜地和社交场合都会用高人一等的态度、多收费用，或者其他方式贬低那些“厚颜无耻地”独自冒险的人。
Unfortunately, being miserable while single fatally undermines our judgement about who we might get together with.
不幸的是，单身时遭遇的痛苦会严重削弱我们对未来潜在伴侣的判断。
When someone is starving, they will eat anything (Dostoevsky 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 day break.
挨饿的人什么都吃（陀思妥耶夫斯基写了一个令人痛心的短篇小说，讲述了一个饥饿的孩子吃用猪油做的蜡烛的故事）；在绝望的情绪下，我们同样有可能跑到最近的夜总会去找一个笨蛋，然后在黎明时惊恐地发现他躺在我们身边。
We eventually learn: being in an unsatisfactory relationship is clearly worse, that is, even more lonely, than being alone.
我们最终明白：一段不健康的关系显然比单身要更糟糕，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 honourably busy life, or sure evidence that we are an unwanted, wretched, disgusting and emotionally diseased being.
单身最大的挑战在于应对单身的含义给我们带来的恐惧：单身是否可以忍受，取决于我们在各种时刻觉得它有多“正常”；它要么是让我们从令人敬佩的忙碌生活中解脱出来，要么是证明我们不受欢迎、可悲、令人厌恶，还患有情感疾病。
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.
这很难解，但结果是充满希望的，因为它表明，只要我们能够努力弄清楚单身对我们来说意味着什么，理论上我们就可以忍受很长一段时间的单身生活。
To build ourselves a new mental model of what being alone should truly mean, we might rehearse a few of the following arguments.
为了给自己建立新的心理模型，让我们明白单身到底意味着什么，我们或许可以思考以下几个想法。
Despite what an unfriendly voice inside our heads might tell us, we are the ones who can chose whether or not to be alone.
尽管我们头脑中可能有一个不友好的声音，但选择是否单身的人是我们自己。
Our solitude is willed rather than imposed.
我们是自愿单身，而不是别人强迫的。
No one ever needs to be alone so long as they don't mind who they are with.
只要不介意和谁在一起，任何人都能找到伴侣。
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.
但我们介意：对我们来说，糟糕的陪伴比单身要孤独得多，也就是说，它与我们真正关心的事情相去甚远，更不真诚，也更像是在提醒我们什么是分离和误解，而不是让我们可以在头脑中安静地交谈。
