It sounds romantic, if a little sad.

這聽起來很浪漫，雖然也有點悲傷

The love affair happened a year ago, but still the excess thought remain loyal to every detail of the story.

雖然是一年前的愛情故事，如今仍然對那些點點滴滴保留著幻想。

Maybe they've moved to another country,

或許他們去了其他國家，

perhaps they married someone else,

或許他們和其他人結婚了，

maybe they're dead.

或許他們去世了。

None of it matters.

這些都不重要了。

The most famous fictional love affair of the 18th century,

18世紀最著名的一部愛情小說，

Goethe's Sorrows of Young Werther, is a hugely sympathetic study of this kind of romantic fixation.

歌德的《少年維特的煩惱》，它對迷戀這種浪漫做了同情性的研究。

The hero Werther, an ardent young student falls passionately in love with a charming and beautiful woman named Charlotte.

英雄維特，是一個熱情的年輕學生，他瘋狂愛上了充滿魅力且美麗的 Charlotte。

She likes him but doesn't love him back.

她也喜歡他但是並不對他的愛做回應。

In part, because she's married to someone else.

部分原因是，她已經嫁人了。

There are plenty of other nice women who are single, attractive and interested in Werther,

維特周圍還有很多美麗的單身女性對他感興趣，

but he has no time for them.

但是他都不願意在她們身上花時間。

The only one he cares for is Charlotte,

他的眼裡只有 Charlotte，

the one who doesn't care for him.

偏偏 Charlotte 眼裡卻沒有他。

Eventually, unable to have Charlotte's love, Werther decides to kill himself.

最終，因為沒能得到Charlotte的愛，維特決定自殺。

The novel proved hugely charming to its original audiences, who praise it for its deep and pure understanding of love.

這部小說對最初的那些讀者充滿吸引力，他們讚許這種深沉且純潔的對愛的理解。

This sort of unrequited passion so often celebrated in literature and society more generally.

這種不求回報的對愛的熱情常常在文學作品和社會上受到稱讚。

May sounds generous and in that sense, loving.

總的來說，聽起來更加充滿愛意。

But, a devotion to an unrequited situation is in truth

但是，獻身於不求回報的愛這種局面確實

a clever way of ensuring that we won't end up in a relationship at all.

是一種聰明的方式可以確保我們完全不會陷入一段感情。

That we won't ever need to suffer the realities of love.

所以我們就不會受到愛情現實的折磨。

Fixation on an absent other allows us to be publicly committed to love while privately sheltered from any of its more arduous demands.

迷戀不愛我們的人讓我們可以公開地愛同時可以偷偷躲避掉愛情所需要的付出。

The fear of love may be motivated by a range of factors:

造成對愛恐懼的原因有很多：

A squeamishness surround hope,a self-hatred which makes someone else's love feel eerie, or a fear of self-revelation which breeds a reluctance to let anyone into the secret part of ourselves.

太過敏感小心，

The fears are serious and deserve sympathy,

自我的厭惡，這就讓別人的愛變得很怪異，

but they're generally not the issues that a romantically fixated person ever wants to discuss.

或者是對自我暴露的恐懼，導致不願讓任何人了解不為人知的那一部分自己。

They prefer to keep the spotlight on the unresponsive ex rather than on their motives for continuing to dwell on them.

這種恐懼是確實存在並且值得同情的，

The way to unfixate is not to tell ourselves that we never like the person.

但是有著浪漫情結的人都不願意談論這個話題。

It's to get very serious and specific about what the attraction was based on.

他們更願意關注沒有回應的前任而不是關注於繼續追求的動機。

And then come to see that the qualities we had admire in the ex, must necessarily exist in other people

解除這種迷戀的方法並不是告訴我們自己我們從來沒有愛過這個人。

who don't have the set of problems that make the original relationship impossible.

而是很認真仔細地思考他們為什麼對我們有這麼大吸引力。

The careful investigation of the character of one person, paradoxically, but very liberatingly shows that we could in fact, also love someone else.

然後看到我們所欣賞前任具有的好品質，其他人必然也要有

This is not an exercise in getting us to give up on what we really want.

他們會讓這段感情成為可能。

The liberating move is to see that what we want has to exist in places beyond the pain and juicing character we originally identified it in.

對一個人特點仔細的了解，

We should gently recognize that being disappointed and abandoned has its curious satisfactions.

雖然自相矛盾，但是卻告訴我們，其實我們也可以愛上別人。

It is, in an emotional sense, a very safe position to be in indeed.

這並不是在讓我們練習放棄真正想要的。

Yet true love isn't to be acquited with pinning for an absent figure.

邁出這一步是為了讓我們知道天涯何處無芳草，沒有必要單戀那隻帶刺的玫瑰。

It means daring to engage with a truely frightening prospect.

我們應該稍稍承認失望和感覺被拋棄會有種難以理解的滿足感。

A person who is available and thinks:

在情感層面，這就確實處於比較安全的位置。

despite our strong background supposition to the contrary, that we're really rather nice.

然而真愛不會在渴望一個不存在的戀人中得到結果。

that is perhaps the only sort of challenge that probably deserves the lyrical and grand word, romantic.

它意味著勇於面對真正可怕的前景。