顯示廣告
隱藏 ✕
看板 English
作者 ott (寶貝)
標題 Is It Time to Stop Waiting for Mr. Right?  
時間 2012年03月14日 Wed. PM 12:37:11


   
 
http://englishchinesetranslator.blogspot.com/2010/02/is-it-time-to-stop-waiting-for-mr-right.html

2.10.2010

Translation: Is it time to stop waiting for Mr. Right?
翻譯:白馬王子還沒出現?別等了


[圖]
 


Do women sabotage themselves by waiting for Prince Charming to sweep them off their feet? Is it time to stop pining for Mr. Right and start considering Mr. All Right? Journalist and NPR commentator Lori Gottlieb raises these questions and others in her new book, Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough (Dutton). TIME senior reporter Andrea Sachs discussed the dating scene with Gottlieb.

女人是否常因為等待白馬王子翩然出現,浪擲了青春年華?該放下心中對白馬王子的執著、考慮一下黑馬王子了嗎?羅莉戈特利是一位記者,同時也是美國國家公共廣播公司評論員,她在新書《結婚吧:退而求其次 接受黑馬王子》(暫譯)中提出上述問題,以及其他相關討論。時代雜誌資深記者安德莉亞薩克斯採訪戈特利,討論戀愛世界的種種現象。

What's your definition of settling?

您所謂的「退而求其次」是什麼意思呢?

Our culture views anything less than the perfect man to be settling, and so it's used ironically in the title. I do not advocate settling for somebody that you don't have passion and connection with. I'm saying he may be shorter than you imagined, he may be skinnier than you imagined, he may not meet every criterion on your checklist. That's what a lot of women consider settling. There was a study done that asked, If a guy had 80% of what you are looking for, would you marry him? And most women said no. A guy is a package deal, as are you. Many women throw out the guy because they don't like a part of the package. We're all flawed human beings. Recognizing that isn't settling.

在我們的文化裡,選擇白馬王子以外的人好像就是「退而求其次」,所以我書名中是諷刺的用法。我並不是鼓吹女性退而求其次接受自己並不喜歡或關係不密切的男人,我說的黑馬王子,指的是譬如說他比妳設定的理想身高要矮,比妳希望的體格瘦,也就是說他可能無法符合妳心目中理想對象的所有條件。很多女人覺得這樣就是所謂的「退而求其次」;曾經有份調查詢問女性:「若有個男人達到妳心中條件的80%,妳會嫁給他嗎?」大多數受訪者都回答「不會」。其實每個男人都像是成套出售的商品,我們女人也是;我們都只是凡人,難免有些地方不甚完美,而對這點有體認,絕非所謂的「退而求其次」。



Are women pickier than men?

女人比男人挑剔嗎?

When I asked men and women what they wanted in a partner, men were far more open-minded. They mostly talked about finding someone cute enough, kind, warm and interesting enough to talk to. Women got absurdly specific — he has to be successful but not a workaholic. He has to know how to order wine in a restaurant. He has to be stylish but not too into fashion in a feminine way. And the lists went on and on. Women seem to want one-stop shopping — a guy who's going to be her best friend, share all of her interests, stimulate her intellectually and sexually and connect deeply with her on every level. Men seemed more willing to accept that they may get certain things from their friendships, other things from their work colleagues and still others from their spouses. Guys don't care if you don't want to hear about the baseball game, but women might be disappointed if the guy doesn't want to hear the details of her book-club discussion. It gets to a point where no guy measures up, because no one human being can be everything to anyone.

當我問男性和女性希望另一半具備什麼特質時,男性通常心胸開放得多,大多說希望另一半姿色不錯,心地好、個性佳、聊得來就可以。而女人列出的條件常具體到不可思議的程度,她們會說希望對方事業有成但不是工作狂、上餐廳要知道點什麼酒、穿著打扮要有型,但又不能追求時尚到娘娘腔的程度;女人會列出數不清的條件,她們彷彿想要「一站購足」,想找個男人既是精神伴侶,又與自己志趣相投,在思想上跟床上都可以刺激她,每個層面都要十足契合。男人似乎較能接受有些東西他會從朋友那裡得到,有些東西則從同事那裡得到,而有些東西才從另一半得到。如果妳不想討論棒球比賽,男人不會在意;但如果男人不想聽女人講她參加讀書會討論的細節,女人會大感失望。如此一來根本沒有男人能符合女人的標準,因為沒有人能面面俱到。



Do women overestimate their own desirability? Is that part of it?

女人高估了自己的魅力嗎?這是一部分原因嗎?

I think they do. I talked to a lot of experts about this sort of sense of entitlement that women of our generation grew up with. I'm all for girl power and all of that, but I think that a lot of us are "yes women" to each other. We say, "You should hold out for the better guy. Oh yes, absolutely, you deserve the best." I think we do ourselves a disservice where we kind of inflate each other's egos to the point of unreality. Guess what? Most of us aren't all that, either. We have our good qualities, but some guy is going to have to put up with our flaws and give up certain things he may want in a partner too. Maybe he wanted someone with a better body or someone with a better sense of humor or someone less overly sensitive. There's nothing wrong with having high expectations. But there's a difference between having high expectations and having a completely unrealistic sense of what you can offer a partner and what he can offer you.

可以這麼說沒錯。我曾與許多專家討論,談及我們這一代女性自幼便極具權利意識;我絕對認同女權等觀念,但我覺得很多女人面對女性同胞時,都是「沒問題小姐」,我們總是跟身邊的女性說「沒問題,妳應該等待更好的男人」或「沒問題,妳當然值得最好的」。我認為當我們女人把彼此捧上天時,其實反而傷害了女人,因為你知道嗎,大部分女性也並非十全十美,我們是有好的地方,但也得找到一個男人願意忍受我們的某些缺陷,並放棄追尋一些他其實很希望另一半有的特質。他可能其實希望另一半身材更好、更幽默、或不要這麼過度敏感。理想崇高並非壞事,但若妳對自己跟另一半究竟可為彼此帶來什麼缺乏實際認知,這就是另一碼事了。



You write about women in their 20s having more power. What do you mean by that?

您在書中提到,女性在二十幾歲時最有權力,請問您的意思是?

Women in their 20s have the most power in that they're at the top of the totem pole in the dating hierarchy. They're the most desired age group biologically — in terms of childbearing ability, in terms of their appearance and also just in their attitude. When you're in your late 20s, you feel very confident and very on top of the world, and you haven't become jaded by being out there dating for 15 years. I'm not saying this to scare women, but I just think people need to be aware of it, because when you are in your late 20s, you think, Oh, even when I'm 38, someone will see how special and charming and lovely I am. And they might, but it's going to be a lot easier when you are 28 if you give the really good guys that are available to you a chance. Because those guys are going to be married by the time you are 38.

女人在二十幾歲時最有權力,因為這時她們在戀愛金字塔的頂端。以生物學的角度來看,這個年齡層的女性最受青睞,這是以她們的生育能力、外貌及心態來看。當妳二十幾歲、還不到三十歲時,妳極度自信,志得意滿,也還沒因為已經在戀愛中奮戰了十五年而疲憊不堪;我這樣講不是要嚇女性同胞,只是希望大家可以意識到這點,因為三十歲前妳會覺得,我到三十八歲還是會有人覺得我特別、迷人又可愛的;可能確實如此,但妳在二十八歲時給心儀的單身男性機會,成功的機率絕對比較大,因為等到妳三十八歲,這些好男人都已經結婚了。



How did writing this book change you and your own situation?

寫這本書是否改變了您和您的感情生活?

There's a short bald guy with a bow tie on the cover, emblematic of what happened to my dating life. There was a guy on Match.com that I didn't even want to e-mail because he was wearing a bow tie in his profile, and I said, What kind of dork wears a bow tie? And then I thought his career sounded boring because it said he was in real estate. I just made all these assumptions. I think a lot of us do that, whether it's online or in the real world. So Evan, my dating coach, really encouraged me to e-mail this guy because of the other things that were good about his profile. I did, and I ended up really connecting with him and we ended up dating for a few months. I was very, very happy in that relationship. What I did learn was that I can be genuinely attracted to people that I make assumptions about, and it's really helped me to not do that because I never would have ended up in a relationship with this guy. I was hugely bummed when it ended. Still am.

這本書的封面上,有個禿頭男人,脖子上打了個領結,這個圖就是在講我之前的一段感情。我在Match.com戀愛交友網站上看到一個男人,我當時連寄信給他都不想,因為他在大頭照裡打了個領結,我那時候還說:打領結感覺真蠢!然後我看到他的個人資料顯示他從事房仲業,又覺得他的職業聽起來十分無趣,我就這樣作了很多假想,我想不管在網路上或現實生活中,很多人都會這樣;但我的戀愛顧問艾文卻鼓勵我寄電子郵件給他,因為他個人資料中有些部分看起來相當不錯。所以我就寄信給他,後來我們真的開始聯絡,交往了幾個月,在那段感情中我非常快樂。因此我了解到,有些我本來持有預設看法的人,其實我是有可能喜歡他們的,不再先作假設真的讓我受益良多,因為若非如此,我就沒有機會跟這個男人在一起了;我們分手時我十分難過,至今也仍然惋惜。


[圖]
 



作者/Author: Andrea Sachs
出處/Source: Time Magazine
試譯者/Translator: 汪芃 Miranda Wang miranda0503@gmail.com
若有中英翻譯需求,歡迎聯繫。Feel free to contact me for English-Chinese translation requests.
以電子郵件傳送這篇文章
BlogThis!
分享至 Twitter
分享至 Facebook




[圖]
 






 
 

--
※ 編輯: ott 時間: 2012-03-14 12:47:01
※ 看板: English 文章推薦值: 0 目前人氣: 0 累積人氣: 124 
分享網址: 複製 已複製
guest
x)推文 r)回覆 e)編輯 d)刪除 M)收藏 ^x)轉錄 同主題: =)首篇 [)上篇 ])下篇