按：试过用科学的力量帮自己脱单吗？本文摘自《读者文摘》2月刊，讲述的是作者如何通过问彼此36个问题和伴侣确定恋爱关系的故事。我在附录里专门收录了这36个问题（请叫我雷锋）。赶紧找人来一起玩这个问答游戏吧，答完说不定你就可以过节了。已经有伴侣的也可以试试，据说可以增进感情哦。对了，别忘了要“深情对视4分钟”。我只能帮你们到这儿了……

爱是选择，不是偶然

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Intimacy can be created by asking specific and personal questions
通过问具体而私人的问题可以创造亲密关系

How to Fall in Love

如何坠入爱河

by Mandy Len Catron From The New York Times

MORE THAN 20 YEARS ago, psychology professor Arthur Aron succeeded in making two strangers fall in love in his laboratory. Two years ago, I applied his technique in my own life, which is how I found myself standing on a bridge at midnight, staring into a man’s eyes for four minutes.

20多年前，心理学教授亚瑟·阿伦成功地让两个陌生人在他的实验室陷入爱河。两年前，我在自己的生活中运用了他的技巧，这就是为何我发现自己在午夜站在一座桥上，盯着一个男人的眼睛看了四分钟。

Let me explain. Earlier in the evening, that man and I were hanging out for the first time one-on-one. He was a university acquaintance I occasionally ran into at the climbing gym and had thought, What if? We were nursing our first beers when our conversation took an unexpected turn, and he said, “I suspect, given a few commonalities,
you could fall in love with anyone. If so, how do you choose someone?”

让我解释一下。那天晚上早些时候，那个男人和我第一次一对一出去玩。他是一个我在大学认识的人，偶尔会在攀岩健身房遇到，我思考过，如果我们在一起会怎样呢？当我们的谈话发生意外转变时，我们正在啜饮我们的第一杯啤酒，他说：“我怀疑，只要有几个共同点，你可以爱上任何人。如果是，你怎么选择那个人？”

nures: if you nurse a drink, especially an alcoholic one, you drink it very slowly
e.g. Oliver sat at the bar, nursing a bottle of beer.

“Actually, psychologists have tried making people fall in love,” I replied, remembering Aron’s study.

“实际上，心理学家已经尝试过让人们相爱，”我回答说，想起阿伦的研究。

I explained the study to my friend. A man and a woman enter the lab through separate doors. They sit face- to-face and ask each other a series of increasingly personal questions. Then they stare silently into each other’s eyes for exactly four minutes. Six months later, the two were married.

我向我的朋友解释了这项研究。男人和女人通过单独的门进入实验室。他们面对面坐着，问对方一系列越来越个人的问题。然后他们静静地凝视对方的眼睛四分钟。六个月后，两人结婚了。

“Let’s try it,” he said.

“让我们试试吧，”他说。

Let me acknowledge that, first, we were in a bar, not a lab. Second, we weren’t strangers. Not only that, but I see now that one neither suggests nor agrees to try an experiment designed to create romantic love if one isn’t open to this happening.

让我承认，首先，我们在一个酒吧，而不是一个实验室。第二，我们不是陌生人。不仅如此，我现在明白，如果一个人内心不希望制造浪漫爱情的话，那他既不会建议也不会同意尝试进行一个为此设计的实验。

I Googled Aron’s questions; there were 36. We spent the next two hours passing my iPhone across the table, alternately posing each question. They began innocuously: “Would you like to be famous? In what way?” And “When did you last sing to yourself? To some- one else?”

我用谷歌搜索了阿伦的问题，一共有36个。接下来我们花了两个小时把我的iPhone在桌上传来传去，交替地提出每个问题。他们开始是无伤大雅的：“你想出名吗？用什么方式？“和“你最后一次对自己唱歌是什么时候？对别人唱歌呢？”

But they quickly became probing.

但它们很快变得尖锐起来。

In response to the prompt “Name three things you and your partner appear to have in common,” he looked at me and said, “I think we’re both interested in each other.”

在回应题目“举出你和你的伴侣似乎有共同点的三件事情，”他看着我，说，“我想我们都对彼此感兴趣。”

I grinned and gulped my beer as he listed two more commonalities I then promptly forgot. We exchanged stories about the last time we’d each cried and confessed the one thing we’d like to ask a fortune-teller. We explained our relationships with our mothers. I liked learning about myself through my answers, but I liked learning things about him even more.

我咧嘴笑着喝了一大口啤酒，他列出了另外两个共同点，但我很快忘了。我们交流了我们最近一次哭泣的故事，并承认了我们想问算命先生的一件事。我们解释了我们与母亲的关系。我喜欢通过我的答案了解自己，但我更喜欢了解他的事情。

We all have a narrative of ourselves that we offer up to strangers and acquaintances, but Aron’s questions make it impossible to rely on that narrative. The moments I found most uncomfortable were not when I had to make confessions about myself but when I had to venture opinions about my partner. Such as: “Tell your partner what you like about them; be very honest this time, saying things you might not say to someone you’ve just met.”

我们都有自己的一套提供给陌生人和熟人叙事，但是阿隆的问题使得我们不可能依靠那套叙事。我发现最不舒服的时刻不是当我不得不对坦白自己，而是当我不得不勇敢说出对我的伴侣的意见时。如：“告诉你的伴侣你喜欢他们什么；这一次要非常诚实，说你可能不会对你刚遇到的人说的话。”

It’s astounding, really, to hear what someone admires in you. I don’t know why we don’t thoughtfully compliment one another all the time.

听别人说喜欢你什么真的是令人震惊的。我不知道为什么我们不总是体贴地互相称赞。

We finished at midnight. Looking around the bar, I felt as if I had just woken up. “That wasn’t so bad,” I said. “Definitely less uncomfortable than the staring into each other’s eyes part would be.”

我们在午夜结束了问答。看着酒吧，我感觉好像我刚刚从睡梦中醒来。 “那没什么糟糕，”我说。 “绝对不会比‘盯着对方的眼睛’更不舒服。”

He hesitated and asked, “Do you think we should do that, too?”

他犹豫了一下，问：“你认为我们也应该这样做吗？”

“Here?” I looked around the bar. It seemed too weird, too public.

“在这儿？”我环顾着酒吧。如果对视的话看起来太奇怪了，太公开了。

"We could stand on the bridge,” he said, turning towards the window.

“我们可以站在桥上，”他说着，转向窗户。

The night was warm. We walked to the highest point, then turned to
face each other.

夜很温暖。我们走到最高点，然后转身面对对方。

“OK,” I said, inhaling sharply.

“”好吧，“我说，急剧地吸了口气。

“OK,” he said, smiling.

“好吧，”他微笑着说。

I’ve skied steep slopes and hung from a rock face, but staring into someone’s eyes for four silent minutes was one of the more thrilling and terrifying experiences of my life.

我曾滑过陡峭的斜坡，曾在一块岩石表面上挂着，但盯着某人的眼睛沉默地看4分钟是我生命中更令人震惊和可怕的经历之一。

I KNOW THE EYES are said to be the windows to the soul, but the real crux of the moment was not just that I was really seeing someone but that I was seeing someone really seeing me. Once the terror subsided, I arrived somewhere unexpected.

我知道眼睛被称为灵魂的窗户，但那个时刻真正关键的不仅是我真的看着某人，而是我看到有人真的看到我。一旦恐怖消失，我到达了意想不到的地方。

I felt brave and in a state of wonder. Part of that wonder was at my own vulnerability, and part was the weird kind of wonder you get from saying a word over and over until it loses its meaning and becomes what it actually is: an assemblage of sounds.

我感到勇敢，而且处于一个神奇的状态。这个奇迹的一部分是我自己的脆弱，一部分是那种不同寻常的神奇，它来自一遍又一遍地说一个字，直到它失去了意义，并成为它真实的存在：一个声音的集合。

So it was with the eye. The sentiment associated with that clump of nerves fell away, and I was struck by its astounding biological reality: the spherical nature of the eyeball, the visible musculature of the iris, and the smooth wet glass of the cornea. It was strange and exquisite.

眼睛也是一样神奇。与神经丛相关的情绪消失了，我惊奇的是其惊人的生物现实：眼球的球形性质，虹膜的可见肌肉组织和角膜光滑湿润的镜面。这是奇怪而精致的。

When the timer buzzed, I was surprised – and a little relieved.

当定时器嗡嗡作响，我感到惊讶——同时有点释然。

Most of us think about love as something that happens to us. But this study assumes that love is an action, that what matters to my partner matters to me because we have at least three things in common, because we have close relationships with our mothers, and because he let me look at him.

我们大多数人认为爱是一种偶然发生于我们身上的东西。但是，这项研究假设爱情是一种行为，对我的伴侣来说重要的事对我很重要，因为我们至少有三个共同点，因为我们都与我们的母亲有着密切的关系，因为他让我看着他。

It’s true you can’t choose who loves you, and you can’t create romantic feelings based on convenience alone. Science tells us our pheromones and hormones do a lot of the work.

没错，你不能选择谁爱你，你不能基于便利独自创造浪漫的感觉。科学告诉我们我们的信息素和荷尔蒙起了很大作用。

But despite this, I’ve begun to think love is a more pliable thing than we make it out to be. Arthur Aron’s study taught me that it’s possible – simple, even – to generate trust and intimacy, the feelings love needs to thrive.

但是，尽管如此，我开始认为爱是一件比我们所感觉的更易受影响的事情。 亚瑟·阿伦的研究告诉我，产生信任和亲密，这种爱情茁壮成长所需要的情感，是有可能——甚至是简单的。

You’re probably wondering if he and I fell in love. We did. Although it’s hard to credit the study entirely, it did give us a way into a relationship that feels deliberate.

你可能想知道他和我是否相爱了。我们确实相爱了。虽然很难完全信任这项研究，但它确实为我们进入一段从容不迫的关系提供了方法。

Love didn’t happen to us. We’re in love because we each made the choice to be.

爱不是偶然发生在我们身上。我们相爱是因为我们每个人都做出了爱的选择。

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附录：
亚瑟·阿伦的36个问题，拿走不谢：

Set I

1）Given the choice of anyone in the world, whom would you want as a dinner guest?

1）如果世界上任何人可供选择，你想邀请谁共进晚餐？

2）Would you like to be famous? In what way?

2）你想出名吗？用什么方式？

3）Before making a telephone call, do you ever rehearse what you are going to say? Why?

3）打电话之前，你会不会排练你要说什么？为什么？

4）What would constitute a “perfect” day for you?

4）对你来说什么会构成“完美”的一天？

5）When did you last sing to yourself? To someone else?

5）你最后一次对自己唱歌是什么时候？对别人唱歌呢？

6、If you were able to live to the age of 90 and retain either the mind or body of a 30-year-old for the last 60 years of your life, which would you want?

6）如果你能活到90岁，并在你生命的最后60年保持30岁的心灵或身体，你想要哪一个？

7）Do you have a secret hunch about how you will die?

7）对于你会怎么死你有没有秘密的预感？

8）Name three things you and your partner appear to have in common.

8）举出你和你的伴侣似乎有共同点的三件事。

9）For what in your life do you feel most grateful?

9）对于你生活中你最感恩的是什么？

10）If you could change anything about the way you were raised, what would it be?

10）如果你能改变你被养大的方式，你希望改变什么？

11）Take four minutes and tell your partner your life story in as much detail as possible.

11）花四分钟，尽可能详细地告诉你的伴侣你一生的故事。

12）If you could wake up tomorrow having gained any one quality or ability, what would it be?

12）如果你明天一觉醒来能够拥有任何一种品质或能力，你希望是什么？

Set II

13）If a crystal ball could tell you the truth about yourself, your life, the future or anything else, what would you want to know?

13）如果一个水晶球可以告诉你关于你自己、你的生活、未来或任何其他事实的真相，你想知道什么？

14）Is there something that you’ve dreamed of doing for a long time? Why haven’t you done it?

14）你有长久以来梦想去做的事情吗？你为什么没有做？

15）What is the greatest accomplishment of your life?

15）你生命中最伟大的成就是什么？

16）What do you value most in a friendship?

16）你在友谊中最重视什么？

17）What is your most treasured memory?

17）你最珍贵的记忆是什么？

18）What is your most terrible memory?

18）你最可怕的记忆是什么？

19）If you knew that in one year you would die suddenly, would you change anything about the way you are now living? Why?

19）如果你知道在一年内你会突然死亡，你会改变你现在生活的方式吗？为什么？

20）What does friendship mean to you?

20）友谊对你意味着什么？

21）What roles do love and affection play in your life?

21）爱和情感在你的生活中扮演什么角色？

22）Alternate sharing something you consider a positive characteristic of your partner. Share a total of five items.

22）交替分享你认为伴侣身上具备的积极特征。分享五个。

23）How close and warm is your family? Do you feel your childhood was happier than most other people’s?

23）你的家庭有多亲密和温暖？你觉得你的童年比大多数人更快乐吗？

24）How do you feel about your relationship with your mother?

24）你觉得你和妈妈的关系如何？

Set III

25）Make three true “we” statements each. For instance, “We are both in this room feeling … ”

25）每人准确地用“我们”造三句话。例如，“我们都在这个房间感觉...”

26）Complete this sentence: “I wish I had someone with whom I could share … ”

26）完成这句话：“我希望我有人和我分享...”

27）If you were going to become a close friend with your partner, please share what would be important for him or her to know.

27）如果你要和你的伴侣成为亲密的朋友，请分享他或她需要知道的重要的事情。

28）Tell your partner what you like about them; be very honest this time, saying things that you might not say to someone you’ve just met.

28）告诉你的伴侣你喜欢他们什么；这一次非常诚实，说你可能不会对你刚遇到的人说的话。

29）Share with your partner an embarrassing moment in your life.

29）与你的伴侣分享你生活中的一个尴尬时刻。

30）When did you last cry in front of another person? By yourself?

30）你最近一次什么时候在另一个人面前哭泣？一个人哭是什么时候？

31）Tell your partner something that you like about them already.

31）告诉你的伴侣一些你已经喜欢他们的地方。

32）What, if anything, is too serious to be joked about?

32）什么事是太严重而不能开玩笑的事（如果有的话）？

33）If you were to die this evening with no opportunity to communicate with anyone, what would you most regret not having told someone? Why haven’t you told them yet?

33）如果你今天晚上没有机会与任何人交流就要死了，你最后悔没有告诉某人什么？你为什么没有告诉他们？

34）Your house, containing everything you own, catches fire. After saving your loved ones and pets, you have time to safely make a final dash to save any one item. What would it be? Why?

34）你的房子，包含你拥有的一切，着火了。保护好你的亲人和宠物后，你有时间冲回去安全地救出最后一样东西。它会是什么？为什么？

35）Of all the people in your family, whose death would you find most disturbing? Why?

35）在你家所有人中，谁的死亡会让你最感到不安？为什么？

36）Share a personal problem and ask your partner’s advice on how he or she might handle it. Also, ask your partner to reflect back to you how you seem to be feeling about the problem you have chosen.

36）分享一个私人的问题，并询问您的伴侣会如何处理它。另外，请你的伴侣向你反映你对你所选择的问题看起来有何感觉。

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原文出处：读者文摘杂志

译者：安东Anton

本译文仅供个人研习、欣赏语言之用，谢绝任何转载及用于任何商业用途。本译文所涉法律后果均由本人承担。本人同意简书平台在接获有关著作权人的通知后，删除文章。