目录有点长
TED Talk URL for This Video：
Mandy Len Catron: Falling in love is the easy part | TED Talk
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English Script
00:17
I published this article in the New York Times Modern Love column
in January of this year. “To Fall in Love With Anyone, Do This.” And the article
is about a psychological study designed to create romantic love
in the laboratory, and my own experience
trying the study myself one night last summer.
00:32
So the procedure is fairly simple: two strangers take turns asking each other
36 increasingly personal questions and then they stare into each other’s eyes without speaking for four minutes.
00:35
So here are a couple of sample questions.
00:44
Number 12: If you could wake up tomorrow
having gained any one quality or ability, what would it be?
00:50
Number 28: When did you last cry
in front of another person? By yourself?
00:52
As you can see, they really do
get more personal as they go along.
01:03
Number 30, I really like this one: Tell your partner
what you like about them; be very honest this time, saying things you might not say
to someone you just met.
01:44
So when I first came across this study
a few years earlier, one detail really stuck out to me, and that was the rumor
that two of the participants had gotten married six months later, and they’d invited the entire lab
to the ceremony. So I was of course very skeptical about this process of just
manufacturing romantic love, but of course I was intrigued. And when I got the chance
to try this study myself, with someone I knew
but not particularly well, I wasn’t expecting to fall in love. But then we did, and –
01:47
(Laughter)
01:53
And I thought it made a good story,
so I sent it to the Modern Love column a few months later.
02:20
Now, this was published in January, and now it is August, so I’m guessing that some of you
are probably wondering, are we still together? And the reason I think
you might be wondering this is because I have been asked this question again and again and again
for the past seven months. And this question is really
what I want to talk about today. But let’s come back to it.
02:21
(Laughter)
03:00
So the week before the article came out, I was very nervous. I had been working
on a book about love stories for the past few years, so I had gotten used to writing
about my own experiences with romantic love on my blog. But a blog post might get
a couple hundred views at the most, and those were usually
just my Facebook friends, and I figured my article
in the New York Times would probably get a few thousand views. And that felt like a lot of attention on a relatively new relationship. But as it turned out, I had no idea.
03:39
So the article was published online on a Friday evening, and by Saturday, this had happened
to the traffic on my blog. And by Sunday, both the Today Show
and Good Morning America had called. Within a month, the article
would receive over 8 million views, and I was, to say the least, underprepared for this sort of attention. It’s one thing to work up
the confidence to write honestly about your experiences with love, but it is another thing to discover that your love life
has made international news –
03:42
(Laughter)
03:47
and to realize
that people across the world are genuinely invested
in the status of your new relationship.
03:52
(Laughter)
04:30
And when people called or emailed,
which they did every day for weeks, they always asked the same question first: are you guys still together? In fact, as I was preparing this talk, I did a quick search of my email inbox for the phrase “Are you still together?” and several messages
popped up immediately. They were from students and journalists and friendly strangers like this one. I did radio interviews and they asked. I even gave a talk, and one woman
shouted up to the stage, “Hey Mandy, where’s your boyfriend?” And I promptly turned bright red.
05:01
I understand that this
is part of the deal. If you write about your relationship
in an international newspaper, you should expect people
to feel comfortable asking about it. But I just wasn’t prepared
for the scope of the response. The 36 questions seem
to have taken on a life of their own. In fact, the New York Times
published a follow-up article for Valentine’s Day, which featured readers’ experiences
of trying the study themselves, with varying degrees of success.
05:31
So my first impulse
in the face of all of this attention was to become very protective
of my own relationship. I said no to every request
for the two of us to do a media appearance together. I turned down TV interviews, and I said no to every request
for photos of the two us. I think I was afraid that we would become inadvertent icons
for the process of falling in love, a position I did not at all
feel qualified for.
05:49
And I get it: people didn’t just want to know
if the study worked, they wanted to know if it really worked: that is, if it was capable
of producing love that would last, not just a fling, but real love,
sustainable love.
07:22
But this was a question
I didn’t feel capable of answering. My own relationship
was only a few months old, and I felt like people were asking
the wrong question in the first place. What would knowing whether or not
we were still together really tell them? If the answer was no, would it make the experience
of doing these 36 questions any less worthwhile? Dr. Arthur Aron first wrote
about these questions in this study here in 1997, and here, the researcher’s goal
was not to produce romantic love. Instead, they wanted to foster interpersonal closeness
among college students, by using what Aron called “sustained, escalating, reciprocal,
personalistic self-disclosure.” Sounds romantic, doesn’t it? But the study did work. The participants
did feel closer after doing it, and several subsequent studies have also
used Aron’s fast friends protocol as a way to quickly create
trust and intimacy between strangers. They’ve used it between members
of the police and members of community, and they’ve used it between people
of opposing political ideologies. The original version of the story, the one that I tried last summer, that pairs the personal questions
with four minutes of eye contact, was referenced in this article, but unfortunately it was never published.
07:45
So a few months ago, I was giving a talk at a small liberal arts college, and a student came up to me afterwards and he said, kind of shyly, “So, I tried your study,
and it didn’t work.” He seemed a little mystified by this. “You mean, you didn’t fall in love
with the person you did it with?” I asked.
07:52
“Well…” He paused. “I think she just wants to be friends.”
08:04
“But did you become
better friends?” I asked. “Did you feel like you got to really
know each other after doing the study?” He nodded.
08:06
“So, then it worked,” I said.
08:17
I don’t think this is the answer
he was looking for. In fact, I don’t think this is the answer
that any of us are looking for when it comes to love.
09:54
I first came across this study when I was 29 and I was going through
a really difficult breakup. I had been in the relationship
since I was 20, which was basically my entire adult life, and he was my first real love, and I had no idea how or if
I could make a life without him. So I turned to science. I researched everything I could find
about the science of romantic love, and I think I was hoping that it might
somehow inoculate me from heartache. I don’t know if I realized
this at the time – I thought I was just doing research
for this book I was writing – but it seems really obvious in retrospect. I hoped that if I armed myself
with the knowledge of romantic love, I might never have to feel
as terrible and lonely as I did then. And all this knowledge
has been useful in some ways. I am more patient with love.
I am more relaxed. I am more confident
about asking for what I want. But I can also see myself more clearly, and I can see that what I want
is sometimes more than can reasonably be asked for. What I want from love is a guarantee, not just that I am loved today and that I will be loved tomorrow, but that I will continue to be loved
by the person I love indefinitely. Maybe it’s this possibility of a guarantee that people were really asking about when they wanted to know
if we were still together.
10:53
So the story that the media told
about the 36 questions was that there might be
a shortcut to falling in love. There might be a way to somehow
mitigate some of the risk involved, and this is a very appealing story, because falling in love feels amazing, but it’s also terrifying. The moment you admit to loving someone, you admit to having a lot to lose, and it’s true that these questions
do provide a mechanism for getting to know someone quickly, which is also a mechanism for being known, and I think this is the thing
that most of us really want from love: to be known, to be seen, to be understood. But I think when it comes to love, we are too willing to accept
the short version of the story. The version of the story that asks,
“Are you still together?” and is content with a yes or no answer.
11:36
So rather than that question, I would propose we ask
some more difficult questions, questions like: How do you decide who deserves your love and who does not? How do you stay in love
when things get difficult, and how do you know
when to just cut and run? How do you live with the doubt that inevitably creeps
into every relationship, or even harder, how do you live with your partner’s doubt? I don’t necessarily know
the answers to these questions, but I think they’re an important start
at having a more thoughtful conversation about what it means to love someone.
11:56
So, if you want it, the short version of the story
of my relationship is this: a year ago, an acquaintance
and I did a study designed to create romantic love, and we fell in love, and we are still together, and I am so glad.
13:10
But falling in love is not
the same thing as staying in love. Falling in love is the easy part. So at the end of my article, I wrote,
“Love didn’t happen to us. We’re in love because we each
made the choice to be.” And I cringe a little
when I read that now, not because it isn’t true, but because at the time,
I really hadn’t considered everything that was contained
in that choice. I didn’t consider how many times
we would each have to make that choice, and how many times I will continue
to have to make that choice without knowing whether or not
he will always choose me. I want it to be enough to have asked
and answered 36 questions, and to have chosen to love someone
so generous and kind and fun and to have broadcast that choice
in the biggest newspaper in America. But what I have done instead
is turn my relationship into the kind of myth
I don’t quite believe in. And what I want, what perhaps
I will spend my life wanting, is for that myth to be true.
13:19
I want the happy ending
implied by the title to my article, which is, incidentally, the only part of the article
that I didn’t actually write.
13:23
(Laughter)
13:37
But what I have instead is the chance
to make the choice to love someone, and the hope that he will choose
to love me back, and it is terrifying, but that’s the deal with love.
13:39
Thank you.
Chinese script
00:17
今年1月份 我将这篇文章发表在
《纽约时报》“现代爱情”专栏。 《想爱上某人，你要这么做》 这篇文章讲的是一项心理学研究， 如何在实验室创造出浪漫的爱情， 我自己在去年一个夏夜 也完成了这项试验。
00:32
过程很简单： 两个陌生人轮流问对方
36个问题，问题越来越私人化， 然后四目相对， 一言不发地对视4分钟。
00:35
我选出了其中几个问题。
00:44
问题12:如果你明早醒来
能获得一项品质或能力， 你希望是什么？
00:50
问题28:你上一次当着
别人的面哭是什么时候？ （上一次）独自哭泣呢？
00:52
如大家所见，
这些问题的确越来越私人化。
01:03
问题30，我很喜欢这一个： 告诉对面的人，你喜欢他（她）什么， 要非常诚实， 说一些你也许不会对
初次见面的人说的话。
01:44
因此当我几年前偶然听说
这个实验的时候， 有一个细节真的打动了我， 我听到传言，说有两个参加实验的人 在半年后结婚了， 他俩邀请了整个实验团队去参加婚礼。 当然，我非常怀疑 这种完全人造的浪漫爱情， 但同时我也很好奇。 当我自己也有机会去完成这个实验时 ——和一个我认识但不是很熟的人—— 我完全没想到我们会陷入爱河。 但是我们真的陷进去了，而且——
01:47
（笑声）
01:53
我认为这是一个精彩的故事，
所以几个月后，我将它发给了 “现代爱情”专栏。
02:20
今年一月，文章发表了， 现在是八月份， 所以我想你们中间肯定有人在想， 我俩是不是还在一起？ 我之所以知道你们想问， 是因为过去七个月里， 我已经被问了无数次。 我今天真的想回答这个问题。 但是让我们先说说别的。
02:21
（笑声）
03:00
在文章发表前一周， 我非常紧张。 我一直在写一本关于爱情的书， 已经好几年了， 我已经习惯于在我的博客上 分享我自己的爱情经历。 然而博客可能最多只有几百人在看， 而且大多数是我“脸书”上的好友， 而我发表到《纽约时报》上的文章， 可能会有几千人看。 对一段刚刚确定的关系而言， 关注的人有点太多了
（不是件好事儿）。 但对随之而来的事情，我毫无准备。
03:39
这篇文章上线 是在一个周五的晚上， 到周六的时候，我的博客访问量
（暴涨）成了这个样子。 到周日的时候， 《今日秀》和《早安美国》
都给我打电话了。 一个月之内，这篇文章
被点击超过800万次， 所以，对我而言， 我对如此高的关注度毫无准备。 鼓起勇气，如实写出 自己的恋爱经历是一回事； 而发现自己的爱情故事 成为国际新闻就是另一回事了。
03:42
（笑声）
03:47
更别说全世界人民 都在关注你的新恋情进展了。
03:52
（笑声）
04:30
人们每天给我打电话，发邮件，
持续了好几周， 他们都会问同样的问题： 你们还在一起吗？ 实际上，在我准备这次演讲时， 我在收件箱里搜索句子， “你们还在一起吗？” 蹦出来好多结果。 问的人有学生，有记者， 还有善意的陌生人，就像这一位。 我参加电台访谈节目，他们也会问我。 甚至有一次我在做演讲，
有一位女士大叫着跑上台， “嘿，曼迪，你的男朋友呢？” 我立刻就脸红了。
05:01
我能理解他们的反应。 既然你在一家国际性的报纸上
写出自己的爱情故事， 你就应该预料到
大家会毫无顾忌地问这问那。 但我只是没想到反响会如此之大。 这36个问题仿佛有了自己的生命力。 实际上，《纽约时报》为情人节又发表了 一篇后续文章， 讲的是读者们自己进行实验的经历， 他们的成功率各不相同。
05:31
所以面对如此多的关注，
我的第一反应 就是要保护我的恋爱关系。 对于所有要我俩共同接受采访的媒体， 我都拒绝了。 我不接受电视采访， 我拒绝提供两人的合照。 我觉得我是害怕被贴上 对待爱情太过随意的标签， 我接受不了这种评价。
05:49
我明白： 人们不光想知道这实验有没有效， 他们还想知道这实验会不会真的成功： 也就是说，刻意制造出来的
爱情能否持久， 不是昙花一现，而是能持续下去的真爱。
07:22
但这个问题我没办法回答。 因为我的感情也才开始几个月而已， 而且我觉得这个问题问得不对。 知道我俩是否在一起
能起什么作用呢？ 如果我们分手了， 是不是意味着做这36道题 就没什么意义了呢？ 这些问题最初是亚瑟·阿伦博士 在1997年的这项研究中设计出来的， 当时，研究者的目的
并不是要制造爱情。 而是想增进 大学生之间的人际关系， 通过阿伦所谓的 “持续的、不断深入的、
双向的、自我人格剖析”。 听起来真是浪漫啊，不是吗？ 但这项研究确实有效。 参与者确实感觉比实验前更亲密了， 随后的几项研究同样使用了
阿伦的快速交友模式， 以此来在陌生人之间
迅速地建立信任，消除隔阂。 他们将这种方法
用在警察和社区成员之间， 用在持*的人群之间。 这个故事的初始版本， 也就是我去年夏天完成的， 将私人问题和4分钟眼神交流
结合在一起， 在这篇文章里也提到了， 但不幸的是这篇文章从未被发表。
07:45
几个月前，我在一所小型文理学院 做演讲， 演讲结束后，一名男生过来找我， 他怯生生地说， “嗯，我试过你的方法了，但是不管用。” 他看起来很迷茫的样子。 “你的意思是，你没有爱上
跟你一起做实验的那个人？”我问。
07:52
“也许……”他停顿了一下。 “我觉得她只想与我做朋友。”
08:04
“但你们的关系是不是
比以前更好了？”我又问。 “你有没有觉得实验之后，
你俩对彼此的了解都有所加深？” 他点了点头。
08:06
“那么，这个实验就是管用的。”我说
08:17
我知道这不是他想得到的答案。 事实上，我认为这不是任何人
想要得到的答案， 尤其是他们在寻找爱情的时候。
09:54
我第一次完成这个实验的时候 是29岁， 当时我正在经历一场非常痛苦的分手。 这段感情是从我20岁时开始的， 几乎贯穿了我成年后的所有岁月， 他是我第一个真正爱的人， 我无法想象没有他的人生会是怎样。 于是我求助于科学。 我研究了所有我能找到的
关于爱情的科学资料， 我觉得我当时是想以此来疗伤。 我不知道当时我有没有
意识到这一点—— 我认为自己只是在为写的书做研究—— 但事后回想，当时确实是想借此疗伤。 我当时希望用爱情的知识武装自己， 也许失恋带来的伤害和孤独感
就不会那么强烈。 这些知识最后都或多或少发挥了作用， 我对爱情更加有耐心。
我变得不那么执着。 我也更加有自信去追求自己想要的。 但同时我也能更加清晰地认识自己， 我发现我想要的很多， 有时候甚至是一些只能意会的东西。 我希望爱情是一种保障， 并不仅仅是今天被爱， 或者明天被爱， 而是被我爱的这个人永远地爱下去。 也许大家关心我俩是不是还在一起 真正的原因在于 大家都想看看
这种保障是否真的存在。
10:53
因此媒体对这36道题的故事
感兴趣的真正原因 在于大家好奇：爱情是否存在捷径。 也许存在某种方法，
可以降低爱情的风险， 而这个实验本身，
也非常吸引人， 因为爱上某人的感觉非常奇妙， 但同时也让人感到害怕。 当你承认爱上某人的那一刻起， 也就意味着你要放弃很多东西， 但这些问题的确提供了一种 快速了解一个人的途径， 同时也提供了你被人了解的途径， 我想，我们大多数人
都希望从爱情中获得以下东西： 被了解，被关注，被理解。 但我也认为，当谈到爱情时， 我们有时太过简单粗暴， 简单到只想问“你们是否还在一起？”， 而这个问题只用是和否就可以回答。
11:36
因此相对这个问题， 我建议大家问一些更深的问题， 比如： 你如何确定谁值得你爱？ 谁不值得？ 当遇到困难时你如何维系爱情， 你如何判断何时该分手，
各走各的路？ 你如何处理 每段感情都可能出现的信任问题， 甚至比这更难一点， 你如何处理伴侣的不信任？ 我不一定知道这些问题的答案， 但我认为，我们以
更加成熟的方式来讨论爱情 会是一个不错的开始。
11:56
当然，如果你们坚持想要知道 我的爱情故事缩略版，
我满足你们： 一年前，我和一个熟人进行了一次实验， 看爱情能否被制造出来， 结果我们相爱了， 现在也没有分开， 我非常开心。
13:10
但坠入爱河与维持爱情是两回事。 相爱容易相守难。 所以在文章结尾，我写到，
“爱情不是从天而降的。 我们相爱是因为我们选择了相爱。” 再读这句话时，我有点不好意思， 不是因为这句话不对， 而是当时，
我对选择相爱意味着什么， 并没有考虑得那么周全。 我没有考虑，有多少次
我们本应该下定决心相爱， 以及在不知道对方
是否选择我的前提下， 未来我还需要下多少次决心。 我希望通过36个问题的问和答， 通过选择一个如此慷慨、
善良、风趣的人相爱， 通过将我的选择在全美最大的报纸上曝光，
已经足够我认定这个选择了。 然而我所做的却是将我的爱情 变成了一个
我自己都不怎么相信的神话故事。 我现在追求的，
也许我一辈子都会去追求的， 就是让这个神话成真。
13:19
我希望一个幸福的结局，
就像我文章标题所暗示的， 顺便说一句， 整篇文章只有那个标题不是我写的。
13:23
（笑声）
13:37
但是我有机会去选择我爱的人， 也希望他能爱我， 这事儿挺让人害怕的， 但这就是爱情。
13:39
谢谢大家。
My Abstract
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