文章转自我最最最最喜欢的Blog: Wait But Why 

https://waitbutwhy.com/
每篇文章都有中英文两个版本
如果你们喜欢,告诉我哈
你们喜欢的拖延症系列,戳👇

为什么虫子毁了你的生活?

生活是一幅画,你却生活在像素点中


如何选择你的人生伴侣 Part 1


情人节一向都有双重含义。对于那些有男女朋友的人,情人节代表“庆祝感情顺利节”,但是对于那些没有男朋友女朋友的人,这个日子代表着“看看你这个没人爱的可怜孩子节”。情人节是唯一一个可以犯众怒的节日。
一直到20世纪中期,圣诞节一直都是犹太孩子的噩梦,然后,犹太教的光明节变成了犹太圣诞节,解决了这个问题。那些比如哥伦布节和感恩节这种国家性的节日,每年都会惹到一群人,因为这些节日庆祝的都是多年之前的大屠杀。但是只有情人节,只有这个节日能够让如此多的一群人陷入抑郁之中。
当然了,我们周围的单身男女不乏那种对情人节不屑一顾,热爱单身的。但是对于大多数单身男女,这个节日感觉起来就像是这样子:
乍一看,科学似乎也验证了这个现象。一个最近的研究表明,结了婚的人平均开心水平高于离婚的人。但是仔细观察可以发现,如果你把结了婚的人按照他们的婚姻幸福指数分成两组,一组是“自我感觉婚姻悲惨的”,另一组是“自我婚姻幸福的”。我们可以发现,“自我感觉婚姻悲惨的”人,他们的幸福指数甚至低于那些单身的人;而那些“自我感觉婚姻幸福的”人,他们的幸福指数甚至高于我们的想象。所以换句话说,情人节有两种情侣,大概是这样子:
所以说么,那些对自己状态不满意的单身男女,都应该把自己摆在一个中等开心,还是有点希望的地方。因为他们可以通过自己的努力找到一个人步入快乐的恋爱世界。他们的任务表应该是这样子的:1.找到一个美女(帅哥)然后开始恋爱。但是对于那些婚姻不幸福的人,他们的任务表却要复杂一些:1.经历一场痛苦的分手;2.恢复疗伤;3.找到一个美女(帅哥)然后开始恋爱。从这个角度来看,你单身其实没那么差嘛。
那些研究婚姻幸福对人整体幸福感的结果很显然,毕竟我们讨论的可是你的人生伴侣啊。
如果你非要想象一下人生伴侣对自己的重要性的话,那么这就像是试图想象宇宙多么庞大,想象死亡多么可怕——这些事件对我们来说都太巨大了,以至于我们不能把这个体验内化为感受。于是,我们就不那么努力地想象这些事情,然后自己自欺欺人地认为人生伴侣对我们的意义没有那么大。
但是相比死亡和宇宙的大小,找到人生伴侣这件事完全是由你掌控的。所以,你一定要让自己意识到这个决定对你的人生是多么的重要,然后考虑到每一个应该考虑的因素,做好这个决定。
所以人生伴侣到底是多大一回事呢?
好,假设你能够活到90岁,那么减去你现在的年龄,就是你还剩下的能活的岁月。这些时间大多数都是和你的人生伴侣度过的。
笔者很肯定80岁以上的人不读WaitButWhy(我奶奶也不读)。所以不管你是谁,这都是一段很长很长的时间,几乎就是你生命的一大半。
(当然人们会离婚了,但是你估计不会这么想。一份研究表明,86%的年轻人都相信自己未来的婚姻会天长地久。我觉得年纪大一点的人可能会不同意。所以我们就假设你未来的人生都是和你的人生伴侣度过的。)
而且,当你在选择伴侣的时候,你也选择了你未来孩子的父亲或者母亲,他(她)会深刻影响你孩子的发展。你也选择了一个一起吃饭的“饭友”,你们未来要共进大约20,000顿饭。他(她)更是你的旅伴,你们将会一起去100多次度假。他(她)会是你的闲时玩伴,职业咨询师,退休牌友,而且,你还要听到他(她)嘟囔你18,000次。
真是累成狗。
所以从这个来说,婚姻其实是人生中最重要的事情。但是为什么那么多优秀,聪明,理智的人,都栽在了婚姻上,和一个不让他们开心的人度过余生呢?
其实事实上,这个世界上有很多因素在冥冥中和我们对着干:
人们都不怎么了解自己对爱情应该期待什么
研究证明,单身的人对于自己对未来伴侣有何要求这件事,都不怎么了解。另一份研究证明,如果我们按照单身的人的要求为他们找到伴侣并介绍他们见面,这些人很多都会马上对自己的选择反悔。
其实这个并不令人吃惊,毕竟,大多数事情都是熟能生巧的。很多人就没有过几次恋爱经历,我们怎么能期望他们对此在行呢?对于大多数人来说,时间完全不够。而因为一个人对伴侣的要求在他单身的时候是不明确的,这一点让情况变得更糟糕。
社会价值观给了我们错误的期待
社会让我们不接受恋爱教育,完全跟着感觉走
如果你想经营自己的生意,那么传统理念都是你应该上商学院,然后创造一个经过深思熟虑的商业计划,并且经常对自己的商业计划进行改进和维护。这是符合逻辑的做法,因为如果你想做好一件事并且最小化损失,这就是你应该经过的准备过程。
但是如果一个人到大学去学习恋爱课程,如果他做出了详尽的寻找人生伴侣的计划,并且把自己的计划和进程严格地记录在电子表格里面,社会观念就会觉得你是 A)一个过分理智的机器人;B)太在意自己的爱情:C)简直是个怪人
不,当谈到约会这个问题的时候,我们的社会都觉得不应该过分思考,并且倾向于诸如“命运”,“相信自己的感觉”,“某事在人成事在天”这种态度。如果一个商人按照社会对我们的爱情期望去经商,他估计会赔的倾家荡产,就算他成功了,也完全是因为运气。这就是社会对我们爱情的指导。
社会让我们觉得“聪明地拓展自己的异性缘”是令人耻辱的
最近一项研究调查了是什么决定了我们如何选择异性,基于自己的偏好还是周围的机会。结果靠机会选择异性的占了一大半。我们的异性伴侣是什么样子的,“高矮胖瘦”“受教育程度”“呆萌还是吃货”,98%的情况都是由我们周围的可选对象决定的,而不是人们想象中的刚性需求。
换句话说,大家都是“有什么样子的就约什么样子的”,而不是“喜欢什么样子的约什么样子”。所以机遇这个结论,为了找到更好的人生伴侣,人们应该多去网上或者相亲事务所约会,或者其他什么别的方式,来增加自己的可选对象。
但是我们的社会觉得实在是不体面,而且人们都不愿意告诉大家自己在网上约会找男女朋友。体面的遇到另一半的方式是“在无意中碰到”,或者“被周围人介绍”。幸运的是,这种成见在随着时间消失,但是这种成见的存在就已经向我们展示了我们的社会对于爱情是多么的不理智。
社会催着我们恋爱结婚
在我们的世界里,一般规则是不要“太晚”结婚,“太晚”的界定从25到35不等。正确的规则应该是“你干什么都好,千万不要和错误的人结婚”。可惜的是,我们的社会宁愿要一个“37岁婚姻不幸福的两个孩子的妈妈”,也不愿意要一个“37岁单身女性”。这简直就是胡搞,很明显后者比前者更加接近幸福的婚姻,前者需要经历痛苦的离婚才能办到。
我们的生理特性给我们帮倒忙
人类的身体已经进化了好久,完全不理解和一个心有灵犀的人共度50年婚姻是什么样子
当我们遇到一个异性,对他(她)刚刚有一丝好感的时候,我们的身体就会觉得“好棒!来一发吧少年!”,然后用各种荷尔蒙轰炸我们的大脑,催促我们坠入爱河,然后承诺对方百年好合。只有我们对某个人不怎么感兴趣的时候,我们的大脑才能摆脱这样子的死循环。但是对于大多数情况,我们的态度都是模棱两可可上可不上,我们一般都会搞砸这个选择题,然后一不小心就订婚了。
生物钟是个贱人
如果一个女人想和自己的丈夫要一个孩子(不是领养),那么她就要考虑到自己身体的限制,在大约40岁之前怀孕。就这一点坑爹的事实就让女人寻找合适伴侣变得更难。要是我是女人的话,我宁愿和对的人领养一个孩子,也不愿意和错的人生一个。

所以说,如果有这么一群没有感情经历的人,周围的社会期望又是让他们随遇而安,无知是福,但是应该尽早结婚,然后再加上他们的荷尔蒙,你说会得到什么样子的结果?
你得到的是大家错误地做出重大决定,极其错误地做出他们人生最重要的决定。让我们细数一下被这种模式坑了并且陷入痛苦恋爱关系的几类人:
浪漫过头小张:
“浪漫过头的小张”的失败之处在于,他觉得只要你足够爱一个人就可以结婚了。 诚然,浪漫是一段关系中的重要组成部分,而爱情也是最核心的成分。但是,如果一段关系缺了其他重要的东西,这段关系是走不远的。
那些浪漫过头的人,虽然有时候经常和自己的女朋友大吵特吵,但是还是忽略了内心对这种争执的抗议,然后自己告诉自己“所有事情的发生都是有原因的,我们的相遇也一定是冥冥之中注定的”,或者“我全身心地爱着他,这就足够了,我别的什么都不需要”。一旦浪漫过头的人找到了自己的“灵魂伴侣”,他们就开始忽略周围的一切,然后一直忠贞得守护自己未来50年的不幸婚姻。
被恐惧驾驭的小王
当你需要选择自己的人生伴侣时,让恐惧给你做决定是最不靠谱的。不幸的是,如果你过了一定年龄(有时候早到20多岁)还没有结婚,那么社会价值观就会开始在很多原先理智的人心中注入恐惧。这种社会(我们的父母,朋友)赋予我们的恐惧感,比如害怕自己成为朋友中最后一个单身的,比如害怕自己生孩子太晚,或者经常是害怕自己被别人品头论足,这些恐惧都在催促我们找一个“差不多就可以了”的人生伴侣。讽刺的是,我们真正应该害怕的是在不幸福中度过自己的后半生。那些被恐惧驾驭的人,为了躲避单身的恐惧,都被迫冒着这样子的风险。
人云亦云的小赵
“人云亦云的小赵”在做自己婚姻决策的时候,大都依靠着周围人的看法。选择自己人生伴侣,如此复杂的事情完全是自己一个人的,如人饮水,冷乱自知。除了虐待,两口子的事情别人真的没什么资格插足。
一种最让人唏嘘不已的例子,就是某个人迫于外界的压力和议论,和原本正确的人分手(宗教分歧经常就是一个原因)。他们为了家人或者朋友的意见,牺牲自己的感受和自己爱的人分手。
相反的情况也可能发生。有时候一个人仅仅因为“大家觉得他们挺相配”这种理由就和另外一个人在一起,实际上他们自己的问题多的是了。就算关上家门自己经常会非常沮丧,小赵还是让周围人的意见淹没了自己内心的声音。
肤浅的小刘
相比于自己人生伴侣感觉如何,“肤浅的小刘”更关心他的那些表面条件。她的爱人必须要有几个必须具备的特点,比如身高一定要多少,工作一定要体面,年收入一定要多少,要多么有成就,或者一些比如“必须是外国人”或者“必须会乐器”这种独特要求。
当然了,每个人对自己的伴侣都有大致的要求。但是那些虚荣心极强的人,就本末倒置把这些要求作为选择男女朋友的唯一标准,而对于那些“性格”“人品”这样子不能量化的标准睁一只眼闭一只眼。
如果你想要个词来形容这类找男女朋友像是填问卷一样的人,你可以叫他们“答题卡女”,或者“答题卡男”。我已经用这词很久了。
自私的小钱
小钱的自私有三种表现方式:
1)“不听我的话就滚”类型
这类人完全不能做出牺牲或者妥协。她就是觉得自己的需求意见想法凌驾于自己的伴侣之上,所以所有大事都要她说了算。短关系发展到最后,一般都是她继续自己单身的给自己拿主意的生活,然后旁边的男友若有若无地旁观。
这类人最好的下场就是和一个超级随和的人在一起。最差的下场,就是和一个没什么自尊心的耙耳朵在一起。她扼杀了夫妻作为一家人共同进步的机会,限制了家庭发展的潜力。
2)“我是主角”类型
这种人悲剧性的缺点就在于自恋的要死。他希望自己的爱人变身心理医生和他最虔诚的追随者,但是却不知道投桃报李赞美对方。每天晚上他和伴侣讨论今天发生的事情,但是大概90%都是关于他自己的,毕竟他是这段关系的主角啊!他的问题就是不知道从自己沉醉的世界中醒过来,最后只能和一个小跟班一样的人结婚,后50年都无聊的要死。
3)“为了需求结婚”类型
每个人都有需求,每个人都希望自己的需求得到满足。但是可怕的是“满足这个需求”成为寻找伴侣的主要原因,比如“她做饭给我吃”,“他要做个好父亲”,“他很有钱”,“她床上功夫很好”,“他帮我整理东西”之类。当然了上述这些都是非常大的优点,但是也就是这样了,它们只是优点而已。于是,在结婚了一两年之后,为了需求结婚的人已经习惯于被满足,原来的刺激感就烟消云散,婚姻生活开始变得平淡无奇。
以上这些人婚姻失败的原因,就是他们在寻找人生伴侣的时候,考虑的都是在日后婚姻中不那么重要的事情。他们考虑的事情可能最初会给他们刺激,但是并不是能够长久给他们带来快乐的因素。
那么,具体怎么样才能找到一个让你快乐的人生伴侣呢?请看第二部分。

How to Pick Your Life Partner Part 1
To a frustrated single person, life can often feel like this:
And at first glance, research seems to back this up, suggesting that married people are on average happier than single people and much happier than divorced people.1 But a closer analysis reveals that if you split up “married people” into two groups based on marriage quality, “people in self-assessed poor marriages are fairly miserable, and much less happy than unmarried people, and people in self-assessed good marriages are even more happy than the literature reports”.In other words, here’s what’s happening in reality:
Dissatisfied single people should actually consider themselves in a neutral, fairly hopeful position, compared to what their situation could be. A single person who would like to find a great relationship is one step away from it, with their to-do list reading, “1) Find a great relationship.” People in unhappy relationships, on the other hand, are threeleaps away, with a to-do list of “1) Go through a soul-crushing break-up. 2) Emotionally recover. 3) Find a great relationship.” Not as bad when you look at it that way, right?
All the research on how vastly happiness varies between happy and unhappy marriages makes perfect sense, of course. It’s your life partner.
Thinking about how overwhelmingly important it is to pick the right life partner is like thinking about how huge the universe really is or how terrifying death really is—it’s too intense to internalize the reality of it, so we just don’t think about it that hard and remain in slight denial about the magnitude of the situation.
But unlike death and the universe’s size, picking a life partner is fully in your control, so it’s critical to make yourself entirely clear on how big a deal the decision really is and to thoroughly analyze the most important factors in making it.
So how big a deal is it?
Well, start by subtracting your age from 90. If you live a long life, that’s about the number of years you’re going to spend with your current or future life partner, give or take a few.
I’m pretty sure no one over 80 reads Wait But Why, so no matter who you are, that’s a lot of time—and almost the entirety of the rest of your one existence.
(Sure, people get divorced, but you don’t think you will. A recent study shows that 86% of young people assume their current or future marriage will be forever, and I doubt older people feel much differently. So we’ll proceed under that assumption.)
And when you choose a life partner, you’re choosing a lot of things, including your parenting partner and someone who will deeply influence your children, your eating companion for about 20,000 meals, your travel companion for about 100 vacations, your primary leisure time and retirement friend, your career therapist, and someone whose day you’ll hear about 18,000 times.
Intense shit.
So given that this is by far the most important thing in life to get right, how is it possible that so many good, smart, otherwise-logical people end up choosing a life partnership that leaves them dissatisfied and unhappy?
Well as it turns out, there are a bunch of factors working against us:
People tend to be bad at knowing what they want from a relationship
Studies have shown people to be generally bad, when single, at predicting what later turn out to be their actual relationship preferences. One study found that speed daters questioned about their relationship preferences usually prove themselves wrong just minutes later with what they show to prefer in the actual event.4
This shouldn’t be a surprise—in life, you usually don’t get good at something until you’ve done it a bunch of times. Unfortunately, not many people have a chance to be in more than a few, if any, serious relationships before they make their big decision. There’s just not enough time. And given that a person’s partnership persona and relationship needs are often quite different from the way they are as a single person, it’s hard as a single person to really know what you want or need from a relationship.
Society has it all wrong and gives us terrible advice
 Society encourages us to stay uneducated and let romance be our guide.
If you’re running a business, conventional wisdom states that you’re a much more effective business owner if you study business in school, create well thought-out business plans, and analyze your business’s performance diligently. This is logical, because that’s the way you proceed when you want to do something well and minimize mistakes.
But if someone went to school to learn about how to pick a life partner and take part in a healthy relationship, if they charted out a detailed plan of action to find one, and if they kept their progress organized rigorously in a spreadsheet, society says they’re A) an over-rational robot, B) way too concerned about this, and C) a huge weirdo.
No, when it comes to dating, society frowns upon thinking too much about it, instead opting for things like relying on fate, going with your gut, and hoping for the best. If a business owner took society’s dating advice for her business, she’d probably fail, and if she succeeded, it would be partially due to good luck—and that’s how society wants us to approach dating.
Society places a stigma on intelligently expanding our search for potential partners.
In a study on what governs our dating choices more, our preferences or our current opportunities, opportunities wins hands down—our dating choices are“98% a response…to market conditions and just 2% immutable desires. Proposals to date tall, short, fat, thin, professional, clerical, educated, uneducated people are all more than nine-tenths governed by what’s on offer that night.”5
In other words, people end up picking from whatever pool of options they have, no matter how poorly matched they might be to those candidates. The obvious conclusion to draw here is that outside of serious socialites, everyone looking for a life partner should be doing a lot of online dating, speed dating, and other systems created to broaden the candidate pool in an intelligent way.
But good old society frowns upon that, and people are often still timid to say they met their spouse on a dating site. The respectable way to meet a life partner is by dumb luck, by bumping into them randomly or being introduced to them from within your little pool. Fortunately, this stigma is diminishing with time, but that it’s there at all is a reflection of how illogical the socially accepted dating rulebook is.
Society rushes us.
In our world, the major rule is to get married before you’re too old—and “too old” varies from 25 – 35, depending on where you live. The rule should be “whatever you do, don’t marry the wrong person,” but society frowns much more upon a 37-year-old single person than it does an unhappily married 37-year-old with two children. It makes no sense—the former is one step away from a happy marriage, while the latter must either settle for permanent unhappiness or endure a messy divorce just to catch up to where the single person is.
Our Biology Is Doing Us No Favors
 Human biology evolved a long time ago and doesn’t understand the concept of having a deep connection with a life partner for 50 years.
When we start seeing someone and feel the slightest twinge of excitement, our biology gets into “okay let’s do this” mode and bombards us with chemicals designed to get us to mate (lust), fall in love (the Honeymoon Phase), and then commit for the long run (attachment). Our brains can usually override this process if we’re just not that into someone, but for all those middle ground cases where the right move is probably to move on and find something better, we often succumb to the chemical roller coaster and end up getting engaged.
 Biological clocks are a bitch.
For a woman who wants to have biological children with her husband, she has one very real limitation in play, which is the need to pick the right life partner by forty, give or take. This is just a shitty fact and makes an already hard process one notch more stressful. Still, if it were me, I’d rather adopt children with the right life partner than have biological children with the wrong one.
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So when you take a bunch of people who aren’t that good at knowing what they want in a relationship, surround them with a society that tells them they have to find a life partner but that they should under-think, under-explore, and hurry up, and combine that with biology that drugs us as we try to figure it out and promises to stop producing children before too long, what do you get?
A frenzy of big decisions for bad reasons and a lot of people messing up the most important decision of their life. Let’s take a look at some of the common types of people who fall victim to all of this and end up in unhappy relationships:
Overly Romantic Ronald
Overly Romantic Ronald’s downfall is believing that love is enough reason on its own to marry someone. Romance can be a great part of a relationship, and love is a key ingredient in a happy marriage, but without a bunch of other important things, it’s simply not enough.
The overly romantic person repeatedly ignores the little voice that tries to speak up when he and his girlfriend are fighting constantly or when he seems to feel much worse about himself these days than he used to before the relationship, shutting the voice down with thoughts like “Everything happens for a reason and the way we met couldn’t have just been coincidence” and “I’m totally in love with her, and that’s all that matters”—once an overly romantic person believes he’s found his soul mate, he stops questioning things, and he’ll hang onto that belief all the way through his 50 years of unhappy marriage.
Fear-Driven Frida
Fear is one of the worst possible decision-makers when it comes to picking the right life partner. Unfortunately, the way society is set up, fear starts infecting all kinds of otherwise-rational people, sometimes as early as the mid-twenties. The types of fear our society (and parents, and friends) inflict upon us—fear of being the last single friend, fear of being an older parent, sometimes just fear of being judged or talked about—are the types that lead us to settle for a not-so-great partnership. The irony is that the only rational fear we should feel is the fear of spending the latter two thirds of life unhappily, with the wrong person—the exact fate the fear-driven people risk because they’re trying to be risk-averse.
Externally-Influenced Ed
Externally-Influenced Ed lets other people play way too big a part in the life partner decision. The choosing of a life partner is deeply personal, enormously complicated, different for everyone, and almost impossible to understand from the outside, no matter how well you know someone. As such, other people’s opinions and preferences really have noplace getting involved, other than an extreme case involving mistreatment or abuse.
The saddest example of this is someone breaking up with a person who would have been the right life partner because of external disapproval or a factor the chooser doesn’t actually care about (religion is a common one) but feels compelled to stick to for the sake of family insistence or expectations.
It can also happen the opposite way, where everyone in someone’s life is thrilled with his relationship because it looks great from the outside, and even though it’s not actually that great from the inside, Ed listens to others over his own gut and ties the knot.
Shallow Sharon
Shallow Sharon is more concerned with the on-paper description of her life partner than the inner personality beneath it. There are a bunch of boxes that she needs to have checked—things like his height, job prestige, wealth-level, accomplishments, or maybe a novelty item like being foreign or having a specific talent.
Everyone has certain on-paper boxes they’d like checked, but a strongly ego-driven person prioritizes appearances and résumés above even the quality of her connection with her potential life partner when weighing things.
If you want a fun new term, a significant other whom you suspect was chosen more because of the boxes they checked than for their personality underneath is a “scan-tron boyfriend” or a “scan-tron wife,” etc.—because they correctly fill out all the bubbles. I’ve gotten some good mileage out of that one.
Selfish Stanley
The selfish come in three, sometimes-overlapping varieties:
1) The “My Way or the Highway” Type
This person cannot handle sacrifice or compromise. She believes her needs and desires and opinions are simply more important than her partner’s, and she needs to get her way in almost any big decision. In the end, she doesn’t want a legitimate partnership, she wants to keep her single life and have someone there to keep her company.
This person inevitably ends up with at best a super easy-going person, and at worst, a pushover with a self-esteem issue, and sacrifices a chance to be part of a team of equals, almost certainly limiting the potential quality of her marriage.
2) The Main Character
The Main Character’s tragic flaw is being massively self-absorbed. He wants a life partner who serves as both his therapist and biggest admirer, but is mostly uninterested in returning either favor. Each night, he and his partner discuss their days, but 90% of the discussion centers around his day—after all, he’s the main character of the relationship. The issue for him is that by being incapable of tearing himself away from his personal world, he ends up with a sidekick as his life partner, which makes for a pretty boring 50 years.
3) The Needs-Driven
Everyone has needs, and everyone likes those needs to be met, but problems arise when the meeting of needs—she cooks for me, he’ll be a great father, she’ll make a great wife, he’s rich, she keeps me organized, he’s great in bed—becomes the main grounds for choosing someone as a life partner. Those listed things are all great perks, but that’s all they are—perks. And after a year of marriage, when the needs-driven person is now totally accustomed to having her needs met and it’s no longer exciting, there better be a lot more good parts of the relationship she’s chosen or she’s in for a dull ride.


The main reason most of the above types end up in unhappy relationships is that they’re consumed by a motivating force that doesn’t take into account the reality of what a life partnership is and what makes it a happy thing.
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