What Is Your Partner Really Thinking
你的另一半到底在想什么
Of course, we don’t officially have the slightest belief in mind reading: we scoff at the absurd idea that we might telepathically know what number between one and a million a stranger is thinking of or that we could place our hands on someone else’s skull and thereby intuit the precise details of what they dreamt of last night. But in relationships, whatever our professed scepticism, we very frequently proceed as if mind reading were not only possible but a standard requirement and possibility in love, something of whose absence we would have every right to complain with bitterness and surprise. In a great many ways, we simply assume that our partner must automatically be able to know the movements and preoccupations of our minds. And our expectations shows up in one of the standard ways in which we speak of the perfection of a lover in the initial days of rapture:
明面上，我们当然不相信读心术存在：通过心灵感应知道陌生人在想1到100万之间的哪一个数字，以及把手放在别人的头骨上就能凭直觉知道他们昨晚做梦的精确细节，这些荒谬的说法只会引人发笑。然而，无论我们先前如何不以为然，一进入恋爱，我们往往表现得好像读心不仅是可能的，而且在爱情里是标配、是可以实现的，如果没有，我们吃惊不满、加以指责也是理所应当。很多情况下，我们简单地假设另一半必须自动就能了解我们的心理活动和所思所虑。其实，我们的期望在最初热恋时已经显现，就是谈及恋人的完美时必会出现的描述之一：
they seem to know what we are thinking, without us needing to speak…
对方似乎不用我开口，就知道我在想什么……
But our superstitious commitment to mind-reading soon evolves into something darker as relationships proceed, for example when:
不过，随着关系的发展，我们对读心的迷信很快会往更黑暗的方向演变，例如：
- we get huffy that our partner didn’t realise that our off-colour comment was only a joke - we can’t imagine they could even think we’d like the bizarre birthday present they bought us - we’re offended that they like a book we’ve already decided is silly - we’re annoyed that they didn’t know we wouldn’t want to go to the mountains this summer - they can’t understood the mood we are in when we get back from having lunch with our mother We get worked up because we can’t conceive that certain ideas and feelings that are so vivid in our minds should not immediately be obvious to someone who professes to care for us.
我们因为恋人没有意识到我们的下流评论只是个玩笑而生气；我们难以置信对方竟然会以为我们喜欢他买的奇怪生日礼物；我们会反感对方喜欢我们觉得很蠢的书；我们恼怒于对方不知道这个夏天我们不想去山上；对方无法理解我们和母亲吃完午饭回来后的心情。我们情绪激动，是因为我们无法想象，在我们心中如此清晰的想法和感受，那些自称关心我们的人却不能立刻明了。
We quickly fall into believing that the partner’s incomprehension can only be explained in one way:
很快，我们就会相信，对方与我们没有默契只有一种方式可以解释：
it must come down to wilfulness or nastiness. And therefore, it seems only fair that we respond with one of our standard forms of punishment due to all those who should have known better:
这必然是因为对方任性妄为或没有良心。因此，好像只有对那些本该更加了解我们的人施以特定形式的惩罚才算公平：
a sulk - that paradoxical pattern of behaviour in which we refuse, for several hours or even a day or two, to reveal what is wrong to our confused partner because they should just know. The origins of our reckless hopes are, in a sense, extremely touching. When we were little a parent really did, at key moments, seem to know what we were thinking without us needing to speak. As if by magic, they guessed that we might want some milk. With a medium’s genius, they determined that we needed a bath or a nap or that a blanket was a bit scratchy for our cheek. And from this, an equation formed in our minds: whenever I am properly loved, I do not need to explain.
生闷气——一种自相矛盾的行为模式，在几个小时甚至一两天内拒绝告知困惑的伴侣问题出在哪里，因为他们就该明白。某种意义上，我们这种不讲道理的期望来源非常感人。在我们很小的时候，某些关键时刻，父母确实似乎不需要我们说话就知道我们在想什么。像变魔术一样，父母猜到我们想喝些牛奶。凭借灵媒般的天才，他们确定我们需要洗澡或小睡，或者是毯子有点扎我们的脸。由此，我们脑海中形成了一个等式：只要我被好好爱着，我就无需解释。
But however great our parents were at reading our minds, they had a huge advantage over our partners: we were - back then - really very simple. Our requirements were usefully few:
可是，无论我们的父母有多擅长读心，他们有一个我们的伴侣无法比拟的巨大优势：我们那时候真的很简单。我们的需求实在很少：
we needed only to be fed, bathed, slept, taken to the potty and entertained with a picture book or bit of string. But we had no advanced views on politics, we had no complicated opinions on interior design, our psyches didn’t register feint tremors of sarcasm or hypocrisy, we couldn’t be thrown off course by the pronunciation of a word. How much more complicated we have grown since then.
我们只需要喂食、洗澡、哄睡、带去如厕、用图画书或一截绳子逗乐。我们不会对政治有先进观点，不会对室内设计有复杂看法，不会因嘲讽或虚伪而心神不宁恍若战栗，不会因为一个单词的发音而失态。与幼时相比，我们已经变得复杂了太多。
We are now adults who can feel very strongly that a table must be placed symmetrically in a room twenty centimetres from the door to the kitchen; or we like it very much when or partner rolls up their sleeves but we hate them wearing a short-sleeved shirt, especially the green one; we like being teased (but only sometimes and never about our age); we are very critical of our mother but can’t allow anyone to mention her habit of being late; we come across as confident but think of ourselves as shy; we like art but have an aversion to museums; we love stone fruits but hate peaches; we talk a lot about politics but can’t stand reading newspapers. Our partner’s inability to know all this - fast and decisively - necessarily feels like an intimate insult and the complex task of explaining our thoughts and attitudes like an unreasonable imposition.
我们现在是大人了，很清楚桌子就该对称地摆放在房间里离门到厨房二十公分的地方；或者，我们很喜欢另一半挽起袖子，但是不喜欢对方穿短袖衬衫，尤其是那件绿色的；我们喜欢被人调侃（但只是某些时候，而且绝不能涉及年龄）；我们对母亲很挑剔，但不允许任何人提起她迟到的习惯；我们看起来自信，但自以为腼腆；我们喜欢艺术，但讨厌博物馆；我们偏爱核果，但讨厌桃子；我们常常谈论政治，但不爱看报纸。这一切，我们的伴侣如不能快速果断地了解，则像是一种亲密之人的羞辱，而要讲清我们复杂的想法和态度仿佛是一个无理的要求。
But once we accept that there is no such thing as mindreading, a central part of our relationship becomes the slow, careful process of piecing together - in one another’s company - what matters to us and why, with all the surprise and moments of genuine revelation this entails. We accept that there will be an immense amount we need to teach each other about who we are pretty much every day - while trusting that this is not an attack on the idea of love.
可是，一旦我们接受世上没有读心术的事实，我们关系的核心部分就变成了缓慢而谨慎的过程：在彼此的陪伴下，拼凑出对我们而言非比寻常之种种及背后的缘由，伴随着必然会发生的每一次出乎意料和真情流露的时刻。我们得接受，几乎每一天，我们都有很多关乎自我却互不了解的地方要教给彼此，并且相信这不代表彼此之间没有爱。
本期译制团：
翻译：Yashu
总校：小良哥
source: The School of Life
