I was in my senior year of college at the age of 21 when my friends started getting married. It kicked off a decade of what felt like every single woman I know, tying the knot, while I stayed single and bumbling around blind in the dark when it came to love and stuff like, you know, tricking a man into being my boyfriend for a span of months.
21岁的时候,我读大四,身边的朋友都陆陆续续结婚了。让我开始觉得这十年来,我认识的每一个单身姑娘都结婚了,而我仍是单身一人,在黑暗中盲目的摸索着爱情,比如骗一个男人做我几个月的男朋友。
The women I know who are married are the exact opposite of the "smug marrieds" that Helen Fielding describes in Bridget Jones's Diary. None of the married women I know encourage me to get myself a man in order to achieve happiness. In fact, most of them are really sensitive to the fact that we are in different places in our lives.
我认识的已婚女性与海伦·菲尔丁在《BJ单身日记》中描述的自鸣得意的已婚者完全相反。我认识的已婚女性都不鼓励我找个男人获得幸福。事实上,她们中的大多数人都对自己身处不同的处境而十分敏感。
These married friends of mine are far more likely to hit me up for details about the latest threesome I enjoyed than they are to volunteer sage advice from the lips of a married woman. What I'm saying here is that my married female friends are exactly the types of women who SHOULD be giving single women advice about love, s*x, and dating.
相比给我一些忠告,我的已婚朋友更愿意让我说一说我的"三人行"细节。我想说的就是:我的女性已婚朋友最适合给单身姑娘有关爱、性和约会的建议。
With that in mind (and also marriage on mind) I put a call out and asked the married women I know to share some advice for single women, like me, who might be looking in all the wrong places and in all the wrong ways for love that lasts a lifetime.
想到这一点(还有婚姻),我就打电话给我认识的一些已婚女性,让她们给像我一样的单身姑娘一点建议,因为我这样的单身姑娘可能在寻找一生长久的爱情方面找错了方向。
"Don't ever settle."
"永远都不要将就。"
"Don't have an affair with a married person."
"不要与已婚人士发展婚外情。"
"Marriage is a choice, literally every day, because you will change and they will change. Marriage is a promise to *continue to choose* that person. Don't get married if you're the kind of person to think about breaking up after every disagreement or fight - marriage isn't for you."
"婚姻是个选择,每一天都是,因为你将会改变,他们也会改变。婚姻是'继续选择'那个人的承诺。如果每次争吵或不和,你都想要分手,那千万不要结婚--因为你不适合。"
"Know thyself. And like thyself too."
"认识自己、喜欢自己。"
"My husband found that when he decided to get comfortable in his own skin, that's around the time I noticed him. When you stop trying to be different for other people and just be *you,* that's attractive."
"我的丈夫发现,当他决定安然面对自己处境的那一刻,我注意到了他。当你不再为了别人而改变自己,只是做自己的时候,你是最迷人的。"
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