Romanticism emerged as an ideology in Europe in the mid 18th century in the minds of poets, artists and philosophers.

浪漫主義在十八世紀中葉的歐洲，作為一種意識型態出現在詩人、藝術家與哲學家的腦中。

And it's now conquered the world.

而它現在已然征服了全世界。

No single relationship ever follows the romantic template exactly.

沒有人的情愛關係完全遵循著浪漫主義的模板。

But it's broad outlines are frequently present, nevertheless.

然而整體的大致架構卻時常出現。

And can be summed up as follows:

整個架構可以總結為下面幾點：

Romanticism is deeply hopeful about marriage.

浪漫主義對婚姻有著深厚的期望。

Romanticism took marriage, hitherto seen as practical and emotionally temperate union, and fused it together with a passionate love story to create a unique proposition of a life-long, passionate love marriage.

浪漫主義將迄今為止被視為實用取向且須節制感情的婚姻關係，與激情的愛情故事互相結合後產生出一種對婚姻的獨特主張，認為婚姻應要彼此終生奉獻，且充滿了激情的愛戀。

Along the way romanticism united love and sex.

於此同時，浪漫主義將愛情與性行為結合在了一起。

Previously people had imagined that they could have sex with characters they didn't love, and that they could love someone without having extraordinary sex with them.

於此之前人們覺得自己能與沒有愛情感受的他人交媾，且就算沒有豐富的性生活亦能愛著對方。

Romanticism elevated sex to the supreme expression of love.

浪漫主義則將性愛昇華為愛情的最終表現。

Frequent, mutually satisfying sex became the bellwether of the health of any relationship.

頻繁且雙方皆滿足的性愛成為了任何情愛關係健康與否的風向標。

Without necessarily meaning to, romanticism made infrequent sex and adultery into catastrophes.

雖然並非有意為之，但浪漫主義便因此將非頻繁性愛與通姦轉變為某種情感關係中的災難。

Romanticism proposed that true love must mean an end to all loneliness.

浪漫主義提倡真愛能夠終結所有的孤寂。

The right partner must, it promised, understand us entirely, possibly without needing even to speak to us.

它斷言正確的伴侶必須完全理解我們，甚至就算沒有與我們談話也辦得到。

They would intuit our souls.

他們能與我們心心相印。

Romantics put a special premium on the idea that our partner might understand us without needing to say anything.

浪漫主義者特別看重我們的伴侶即便在什麼都還未說出口的情況下便能瞭解我們。

Romanticism believed that choosing a partner should be about letting oneself be guided by feelings, rather than practical considerations.

浪漫主義相信人在選擇伴侶時應該遵循自己內心的感受，而非實際的考量。

You know you're in love because you have a special feeling.

你會因為感受到特別的感覺而知道自己身陷戀愛之中。

Romanticism has manifested a powerful disdain for practicalities and money.

浪漫主義特別蔑視對實用性與金錢上的考量。

It feels cold or, as we say, unromantic to say you know you're with the right person because the two of you make an excellent financial fit, or because you cherish the things like bathroom etiquette and attitudes to punctuality.

如果你是因為兩人的財力相當，或是覺得對方用浴習慣或做事準時而覺得自己遇到了對的另一半，浪漫主義者會覺得你的想法冷血，或是如我們所說的，不夠浪漫。

Romanticism believes that true love is synonymous with accepting everything about someone.

浪漫主義相信真愛就是要接受對方的一切。

The idea that one's partner or oneself may need to change is taken to be a sign that the relationship is on the rocks.

光是有想要另一半或是自己改變來遷就的彼此的想法，就顯示了兩人感情以岌岌可危。

"You're going to have to change" is a last ditch threat.

「你必須做出改變」則簡直是最後的威脅。

This template of love is a historical creation.

這樣的愛情範本是歷史發展下的產物。

It's a hugely beautiful and often enjoyable one.

它光鮮亮麗，通常亦讓人心醉。

But we can state boldly: romanticism has been a disaster for relationships.

但我們可以大膽地說：羅曼主義是情愛關係的災難。

It's an intellectual and spiritual movement which has had a devastating impact on the ability of ordinary people to lead successful emotional lives.

這是一個對普通人過上成功情感生活的能力，產生破壞性影響的知識與精神運動。

The salvation of love lies in overcoming a succession of errors within romanticism.

要拯救愛情觀，我們必須克服浪漫主義內部的一連串錯誤。

These are some of the myths of romanticism.

以下是浪漫主義中的一些迷思。

That we should meet a person of extraordinary inner and outer beauty and immediately feel a special attraction to them and they to us.

我們需要遇到一個在內在與外在都具有非凡魅力的人，並在相遇的一瞬間便感受到對方有特殊的吸引力，而對方亦對我們有相同的感受。

We should have highly satisfying sex, not only at the start, but forever.

我們需要保持令人滿足的性愛活動，不但在一開始如此，還要永遠持續下去。

We should never be attracted to anyone else.

我們不應該被任何的其他人所吸引。

We should understand one another intuitively.

我們需要能靠直覺瞭解彼此。

We don't need an education in love.

我們不需要有人教我們怎麼去愛。

We may need to train to become a pilot or brain surgeon, but not a lover.

我們需要經過訓練才能成為飛行員或腦科醫師，但愛是不用訓練的。

We'll pick that up along the way by following our feelings.

我們只要遵循感覺便能自己在摸索的途中學會。

We should have no secrets and spend constant time together.

我們與另一半之間不應該有任何秘密，且應該時時刻刻都在一起。

Work won't get in the way.

工作也不會成為阻礙。

We should raise a family without any loss of sexual or emotional intensity.

我們應該要生兒育女，而且不能降低彼此性方面或情感方面的相處密度。

Our lover must be our soulmate, best friend, co-parent, co-chauffeur, accountant, household manager and spiritual guide.

我們的戀人必須同時是我們的靈魂伴侶、摯友、孩子的爸媽、司機、會計、家計經理和精神導師。

If we question these assumptions of the romantic view of love, it's not in order to destroy love, but to save it.

我們之所以質疑這些對愛情觀的浪漫假設，並不是因為我們想搗毀愛情觀，而是我們想拯救它。

We need to piece together a post-romantic theory of couples because in order to make a relationship last we have to be disloyal to the romantic emotions that get us into it in the first place.

我們必須拼湊出為伴侶們所設計的後浪漫主義理論，因為若要讓情感關係細水長流，我們勢必得違抗讓我們陷入愛戀的浪漫情愫。

We need to replace the romantic template with a psychologically mature vision of love we might call "classical", and which encourages in us a range of unfamiliar, but hopefully effective, attitudes.

我們需要將浪漫範本以一個在心理學上更加成熟的版本 (我們或許可以叫它「經典」愛情) 替代，並激勵我們以較不熟悉，但希望更加有效的態度來面對愛情。

For example: That it's normal that love and sex may not always belong together.

舉例來說：愛情與性愛並不總是同一回事，這是很正常的。

That discussing money, early on, up front, in a serious way, is not a betrayal of love.

在交往前期直接地以正經的方式討論金錢並不是對愛情的背叛。

That realizing that we're rather flawed, and our partner is too, is a huge benefit to a couple because it increases the amount of tolerance and generosity in circulation.

察覺到我們與伴侶都是有缺陷的凡人，對雙方來說皆有巨大的好處，因為如此便能對彼此更為寬容與慷慨。

That we will never find everything in one person, nor they in us, not because of some unique flaw, but because that's just the way human nature is.

我們不可能在一個人身上看到想要的所有特質，而對方看我們也是如此，而這不是因為彼此有什麼特別的缺陷，而是人類的本質就是如此。

That we need to make amends and often rather artificial sounding efforts to understand one another.

我們需要做出修正，而且得做出往往聽起來相當刻意的努力才能理解彼此。

That intuition can't get us where we need to go.

直覺並沒辦法讓我們走得多遠。

And that spending two hours discussing whether bathroom towels should be hung up or can be left on the floor is neither trivial nor unserious.

花上兩個小時討論浴室裡的毛巾究竟應該掛起來，還是丟在地上就好並不是什麼瑣碎或可笑的事情。

There is a special dignity around issues of laundry and time keeping.

洗衣服與省時方面的問題是有特別的意義的。

All these attitudes and more belong to a new, more hopeful, post-romantic future for love.

這些態度才是屬於一個全新、更加充滿希望的後浪漫主義未來戀愛觀。

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