TED演講:為何相愛容易相守難
你知道嗎，問任何人36個問題，你就會愛上他(她)。曼迪·倫·卡特倫嘗試了這個實驗，真的見效了，她還就此寫了一篇熱文(沒準(zhǔn)你母親都給你轉(zhuǎn)發(fā)過)。但是，這是真愛嗎?這樣的關(guān)系能不能維持下去呢?相愛和相守到底有何不同?
00:11
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.
00:30
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.
00:46
So here are a couple of sample questions.
00:49
Number 12: If you could wake up tomorrow having gained any one quality or ability, what would it be?
00:57
Number 28: When did you last cry in front of another person? By yourself?
01:03
As you can see, they really do get more personal as they go along.
01:07
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.
01:19
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 --
01:58
(Laughter)
02:00
And I thought it made a good story, so I sent it to the Modern Love column a few months later.
02:06
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.
02:32
(Laughter)
02:35
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.
03:15
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 --
03:53
(Laughter)
03:54
and to realize that people across the world are genuinely invested in the status of your new relationship.
04:03
(Laughter)
04:05
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.
04:44
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.
05:15
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.
05:47
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.
06:06
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.
07:37
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.
08:01
"Well..." He paused. "I think she just wants to be friends."
08:08
"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.
08:17
"So, then it worked," I said.
08:20
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.
08:31
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.
10:09
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.
11:08
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.
11:51
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.
12:10
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.
13:24
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.
13:34
(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.
13:50
Thank you.
中文：
00:11
今年1月份 我將這篇文章發(fā)表在 《紐約時報》“現(xiàn)代愛情”專欄。 《想愛上某人，你要這么做》 這篇文章講的是一項心理學(xué)研究， 如何在實驗室創(chuàng)造出浪漫的愛情， 我自己在去年一個夏夜 也完成了這項試驗。
00:30
過程很簡單： 兩個陌生人輪流問對方 36個問題，問題越來越私人化， 然后四目相對， 一言不發(fā)地對視4分鐘。
00:46
我選出了其中幾個問題。
00:49
問題12:如果你明早醒來 能獲得一項品質(zhì)或能力， 你希望是什么?
00:57
問題28:你上一次當(dāng)著 別人的面哭是什么時候? (上一次)獨自哭泣呢?
01:03
如大家所見， 這些問題的確越來越私人化。
01:07
問題30，我很喜歡這一個： 告訴對面的人，你喜歡他(她)什么， 要非常誠實， 說一些你也許不會對 初次見面的人說的話。
01:19
因此當(dāng)我?guī)啄昵芭既宦犝f 這個實驗的時候， 有一個細(xì)節(jié)真的打動了我， 我聽到傳言，說有兩個參加實驗的人 在半年后結(jié)婚了， 他倆邀請了整個實驗團(tuán)隊去參加婚禮。 當(dāng)然，我非常懷疑 這種完全人造的浪漫愛情， 但同時我也很好奇。 當(dāng)我自己也有機(jī)會去完成這個實驗時 ——和一個我認(rèn)識但不是很熟的人—— 我完全沒想到我們會陷入愛河。 但是我們真的陷進(jìn)去了，而且——
01:58
(笑聲)
02:00
我認(rèn)為這是一個精彩的故事， 所以幾個月后，我將它發(fā)給了 “現(xiàn)代愛情”專欄。
02:06
今年一月，文章發(fā)表了， 現(xiàn)在是八月份， 所以我想你們中間肯定有人在想， 我倆是不是還在一起? 我之所以知道你們想問， 是因為過去七個月里， 我已經(jīng)被問了無數(shù)次。 我今天真的想回答這個問題。 但是讓我們先說說別的。
02:32
(笑聲)
02:35
在文章發(fā)表前一周， 我非常緊張。 我一直在寫一本關(guān)于愛情的書， 已經(jīng)好幾年了， 我已經(jīng)習(xí)慣于在我的博客上 分享我自己的愛情經(jīng)歷。 然而博客可能最多只有幾百人在看， 而且大多數(shù)是我“臉書”上的好友， 而我發(fā)表到《紐約時報》上的文章， 可能會有幾千人看。 對一段剛剛確定的關(guān)系而言， 關(guān)注的人有點太多了 (不是件好事兒)。 但對隨之而來的事情，我毫無準(zhǔn)備。
03:15
這篇文章上線 是在一個周五的晚上， 到周六的時候，我的博客訪問量 (暴漲)成了這個樣子。 到周日的時候， 《今日秀》和《早安美國》 都給我打電話了。 一個月之內(nèi)，這篇文章 被點擊超過800萬次， 所以，對我而言， 我對如此高的關(guān)注度毫無準(zhǔn)備。 鼓起勇氣，如實寫出 自己的戀愛經(jīng)歷是一回事; 而發(fā)現(xiàn)自己的愛情故事 成為國際新聞就是另一回事了。
03:53
(笑聲)
03:54
更別說全世界人民 都在關(guān)注你的新戀情進(jìn)展了。
04:03
(笑聲)
04:05
人們每天給我打電話，發(fā)郵件， 持續(xù)了好幾周， 他們都會問同樣的問題： 你們還在一起嗎? 實際上，在我準(zhǔn)備這次演講時， 我在收件箱里搜索句子， “你們還在一起嗎?” 蹦出來好多結(jié)果。 問的人有學(xué)生，有記者， 還有善意的陌生人，就像這一位。 我參加電臺訪談節(jié)目，他們也會問我。 甚至有一次我在做演講， 有一位女士大叫著跑上臺， “嘿，曼迪，你的男朋友呢?” 我立刻就臉紅了。
04:44
我能理解他們的反應(yīng)。 既然你在一家國際性的報紙上 寫出自己的愛情故事， 你就應(yīng)該預(yù)料到 大家會毫無顧忌地問這問那。 但我只是沒想到反響會如此之大。 這36個問題仿佛有了自己的生命力。 實際上，《紐約時報》為情人節(jié)又發(fā)表了 一篇后續(xù)文章， 講的是讀者們自己進(jìn)行實驗的經(jīng)歷， 他們的成功率各不相同。
05:15
所以面對如此多的關(guān)注， 我的第一反應(yīng) 就是要保護(hù)我的戀愛關(guān)系。 對于所有要我倆共同接受采訪的媒體， 我都拒絕了。 我不接受電視采訪， 我拒絕提供兩人的合照。 我覺得我是害怕被貼上 對待愛情太過隨意的標(biāo)簽， 我接受不了這種評價。
05:47
我明白： 人們不光想知道這實驗有沒有效， 他們還想知道這實驗會不會真的成功： 也就是說，刻意制造出來的 愛情能否持久， 不是曇花一現(xiàn)，而是能持續(xù)下去的真愛。
06:06
但這個問題我沒辦法回答。 因為我的感情也才開始幾個月而已， 而且我覺得這個問題問得不對。 知道我倆是否在一起 能起什么作用呢? 如果我們分手了， 是不是意味著做這36道題 就沒什么意義了呢? 這些問題最初是亞瑟·阿倫博士 在1997年的這項研究中設(shè)計出來的， 當(dāng)時，研究者的目的 并不是要制造愛情。 而是想增進(jìn) 大學(xué)生之間的人際關(guān)系， 通過阿倫所謂的 “持續(xù)的、不斷深入的、 雙向的、自我人格剖析”。 聽起來真是浪漫啊，不是嗎? 但這項研究確實有效。 參與者確實感覺比實驗前更親密了， 隨后的幾項研究同樣使用了 阿倫的快速交友模式， 以此來在陌生人之間 迅速地建立信任，消除隔閡。 他們將這種方法 用在警察和社區(qū)成員之間， 用在持不同政見的人群之間。 這個故事的初始版本， 也就是我去年夏天完成的， 將私人問題和4分鐘眼神交流 結(jié)合在一起， 在這篇文章里也提到了， 但不幸的是這篇文章從未被發(fā)表。
07:37
幾個月前，我在一所小型文理學(xué)院 做演講， 演講結(jié)束后，一名男生過來找我， 他怯生生地說， “嗯，我試過你的方法了，但是不管用。” 他看起來很迷茫的樣子。 “你的意思是，你沒有愛上 跟你一起做實驗的那個人?”我問。
08:01
“也許……”他停頓了一下。 “我覺得她只想與我做朋友。”
08:08
“但你們的關(guān)系是不是 比以前更好了?”我又問。 “你有沒有覺得實驗之后， 你倆對彼此的了解都有所加深?” 他點了點頭。
08:17
“那么，這個實驗就是管用的。”我說
08:20
我知道這不是他想得到的答案。 事實上，我認(rèn)為這不是任何人 想要得到的答案， 尤其是他們在尋找愛情的時候。
08:31
我第一次完成這個實驗的時候 是29歲， 當(dāng)時我正在經(jīng)歷一場非常痛苦的分手。 這段感情是從我20歲時開始的， 幾乎貫穿了我成年后的所有歲月， 他是我第一個真正愛的人， 我無法想象沒有他的人生會是怎樣。 于是我求助于科學(xué)。 我研究了所有我能找到的 關(guān)于愛情的科學(xué)資料， 我覺得我當(dāng)時是想以此來療傷。 我不知道當(dāng)時我有沒有 意識到這一點—— 我認(rèn)為自己只是在為寫的書做研究—— 但事后回想，當(dāng)時確實是想借此療傷。 我當(dāng)時希望用愛情的知識武裝自己， 也許失戀帶來的傷害和孤獨感 就不會那么強(qiáng)烈。 這些知識最后都或多或少發(fā)揮了作用， 我對愛情更加有耐心。 我變得不那么執(zhí)著。 我也更加有自信去追求自己想要的。 但同時我也能更加清晰地認(rèn)識自己， 我發(fā)現(xiàn)我想要的`很多， 有時候甚
至是一些只能意會的東西。 我希望愛情是一種保障， 并不僅僅是今天被愛， 或者明天被愛， 而是被我愛的這個人永遠(yuǎn)地愛下去。 也許大家關(guān)心我倆是不是還在一起 真正的原因在于 大家都想看看 這種保障是否真的存在。
10:09
因此媒體對這36道題的故事 感興趣的真正原因 在于大家好奇：愛情是否存在捷徑。 也許存在某種方法， 可以降低愛情的風(fēng)險， 而這個實驗本身， 也非常吸引人， 因為愛上某人的感覺非常奇妙， 但同時也讓人感到害怕。 當(dāng)你承認(rèn)愛上某人的那一刻起， 也就意味著你要放棄很多東西， 但這些問題的確提供了一種 快速了解一個人的途徑， 同時也提供了你被人了解的途徑， 我想，我們大多數(shù)人 都希望從愛情中獲得以下東西： 被了解，被關(guān)注，被理解。 但我也認(rèn)為，當(dāng)談到愛情時， 我們有時太過簡單粗暴， 簡單到只想問“你們是否還在一起?”， 而這個問題只用是和否就可以回答。
11:08
因此相對這個問題， 我建議大家問一些更深的問題， 比如： 你如何確定誰值得你愛? 誰不值得? 當(dāng)遇到困難時你如何維系愛情， 你如何判斷何時該分手， 各走各的路? 你如何處理 每段感情都可能出現(xiàn)的信任問題， 甚至比這更難一點， 你如何處理伴侶的不信任? 我不一定知道這些問題的答案， 但我認(rèn)為，我們以 更加成熟的方式來討論愛情 會是一個不錯的開始。
11:51
當(dāng)然，如果你們堅持想要知道 我的愛情故事縮略版， 我滿足你們： 一年前，我和一個熟人進(jìn)行了一次實驗， 看愛情能否被制造出來， 結(jié)果我們相愛了， 現(xiàn)在也沒有分開， 我非常開心。
12:10
但墜入愛河與維持愛情是兩回事。 相愛容易相守難。 所以在文章結(jié)尾，我寫到， “愛情不是從天而降的。 我們相愛是因為我們選擇了相愛。” 再讀這句話時，我有點不好意思， 不是因為這句話不對， 而是當(dāng)時， 我對選擇相愛意味著什么， 并沒有考慮得那么周全。 我沒有考慮，有多少次 我們本應(yīng)該下定決心相愛， 以及在不知道對方 是否選擇我的前提下， 未來我還需要下多少次決心。 我希望通過36個問題的問和答， 通過選擇一個如此慷慨、 善良、風(fēng)趣的人相愛， 通過將我的選擇在全美最大的報紙上曝光， 已經(jīng)足夠我認(rèn)定這個選擇了。 然而我所做的卻是將我的愛情 變成了一個 我自己都不怎么相信的神話故事。 我現(xiàn)在追求的， 也許我一輩子都會去追求的， 就是讓這個神話成真。
13:24
我希望一個幸福的結(jié)局， 就像我文章標(biāo)題所暗示的， 順便說一句， 整篇文章只有那個標(biāo)題不是我寫的。
13:34
(笑聲)
13:37
但是我有機(jī)會去選擇我愛的人， 也希望他能愛我， 這事兒挺讓人害怕的， 但這就是愛情。
13:50
謝謝大家。
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