教这一代人如何去爱

教这一代人如何去爱
ANDREW REINER
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最近在我任教的那所大学的餐厅吃饭时，我无意中听到两位学生谈心。“是啊，我也可能会结婚的，”其中一位吐露心声。“但至少要等到30岁，我事业有成的时候。”她随后咧嘴一笑。“在那之前？我还没玩够呢。”
这个女孩其实是在遵循一个脚本。越来越多的研究表明，许多千禧一代都想结婚——终有一天。
包括弗吉尼亚大学(University of Virginia)国家婚姻项目(National Marriage Project)在内的几家机构发起的一项研究显示，平均来说，千禧一代正在推迟婚龄至29岁（男性）和27岁（女性）。许多人，尤其是受过大学教育的千禧一代，把婚姻视为人生的“顶峰”，而不是“基石”。
然而，尽管他们对未来的婚姻做了种种设计，但其中许多人或许无法实现自己的结婚梦。他们的恋爱方式——先勾搭，再厮混——完全无视促成美满婚姻和幸福爱情的金科玉律：情感的脆弱性。
“如果我们想体验亲密关系，保持脆弱就是我们不得不承受的一个风险，”休斯顿大学(University of Houston)教授布林•布朗(Brené Brown)写道。布朗女士一直致力于研究脆弱的必要性，以及对脆弱失去敏感会导致什么后果等问题。
鉴于千禧一代的成长环境，他们对婚姻（甚或对爱情）看似乐观的态度或许不是福音，而是不祥之兆。
难怪许多千禧一代陷入这种困境，但这往往并非他们自己的过错。他们与爱情的终生联系是一支多么熟悉的配乐：从小时候起，这代人的耳朵就一直在经受流行文化的冲击，其蕴含的讯息是，性爱赋予社会威望，并且比其他任何东西都更为显著地居于一个人身份特性的中心位置。（你好，性爱周！）
然后是来自他们父母的再熟悉不过的歌词——父母动不动就怒发冲冠地向他们解释，为什么分数、实习经历，以及其他任何能够让简历看起来非比寻常的东西都要比恋爱关系重要得多。此外就是社交媒体构成的低音线，让我们直面一个事实：社交媒体简化了恋爱关系的复杂性。（密苏里大学的一项研究发现，在恋爱关系持续了3年或更少时间的人群中，每小时使用Facebook超过一次的人的恋情更容易受到侵蚀，包括不忠）。
且慢。难道等到30来岁，当一切都安定下来的时候，我们的情绪不是自然会变得更加成熟吗？不再是这样。密歇根大学(University of Michigan)社会心理学家萨拉•康拉特( Sara H. Konrath)主持的研究发现，自1980年以来，特别是过去10年，大学生自我描述的同感水平一直在下降，自尊和自恋的可量化水平则持续飙升。再加上勾搭行为激发的高度竞争反射（来自同伴的参加勾搭文化然后第一个分手的压力），以及外出疯玩孕育的不置可否的思维定式。其结果就是这一代人对恋爱关系惊恐万分，对爱情的基础知识一无所知。
在《性爱的终结：勾搭文化如何导致一代人不幸福，无法获得性满足，对性关系感到困惑》(The End of Sex: How Hookup Culture Is Leaving a Generation Unhappy, Sexually Unfulfilled, and Confused About Intimacy)一书中，唐娜•弗雷塔斯(Donna Freitas)详尽阐述了这种趋势如何导致历史上首次出现了这样一代人：他们不知道如何追求一位潜在伴侣，更遑论找到这样做的语言了。
如果这种对脆弱的恐惧仅仅是以笨拙的求爱开始和结束，那么这一切似乎没有什么害处，甚至还有些迷人。但它的利害关系其实要重大得多。
在课堂讨论中，我的学生经常坦言，他们希望恋爱关系在勾搭的过程中自然而然地展现出来。“毕竟，”一位学生最近说。“没有人想正儿八经地谈论这种事，”也就是那种想起来就可怕，阐明恋爱希望和期待的交谈。“这样做让你看起来特别渴望爱情的滋润。”
这种恐惧会引发布朗博士警示我们注意的那种危险先例：逃避脆弱会使我们丧失建立恋爱关系，以及让这种关系结成正果的机会。
此外，勾搭行为还会对情绪带来负面影响。这种性亲密必然导致“情感空虚，”弗雷塔斯博士写道。“在准备性爱的过程中，他们肯定在同一时间耗尽了自己的感受。”
这种动态不仅仅是指在大学聚会或俱乐部上用“喝了几杯酒激发起的勇气”去平息神经。它还指压制那些被视为障碍的情绪。这可能会开启一个危险的循环。
“我们不能选择性地麻木情绪，”布朗博士写道，“当我们麻木痛苦的情绪时，我们也麻木了积极的情绪。 ”
当我们扼杀经由催产素产生的亲密情感时，我们也就进一步降低了我们自己对爱情的敏感度。这种“爱情”荷尔蒙是在性高潮时被释放出来的，但它也会在拥抱或深情缠绵后涌入身体和大脑。然而，迪恩•欧宁胥(Dean Ornish)博士认为，如果我们拒绝这种分子反应，我们将承受巨大的危险。欧宁胥是非营利组织预防医学研究院(Preventive Medicine Research Institute)创始人，著有《爱情与生存：亲密关系具有治愈能力的科学依据》(Love and Survival: The Scientific Basis for the Healing Power of Intimacy)一书。
“就对我们的生存产生的影响而言，我不知道医学上还有什么其他因素能够胜过爱情和亲密关系的治愈功能，”欧宁胥博士写道。“饮食、吸烟、运动、紧张、遗传、药品和手术等因素都比不上。”
所以，现在赫然耸现出一个以前根本不需要问的问题：我们应该怎么教这一代人如何去爱？
正如我自己的许多学生声称的那样，他们并没有在家里或朋友间看到完美爱情的样板。一些校园咨询中心已经注意到这种好奇心和挫折感，并且举办了一些相关话题讲座，比如肯塔基大学(University of Kentucky)以健康的约会方式为主题举办了一场讲座，还有杜克大学(Duke University)的“如何恋爱”讲座。杜克大学原创的系列讲座共四个会场，其主题包括如何度过分手后的困难时期，如何确认有毒的浪漫关系，如何区分爱情和迷恋。一个衍生的研讨会将关注有色人种妇女的恋爱问题。
伊利诺伊大学厄巴纳-香槟分校(University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign)心理咨询中心助理主任特里萨•本森(Theresa Benson)声称，开展这些项目的时机已经成熟。本森博士带领20位本科生开发和组织数个专题研讨会。其中一个名为“大学约会：揭开约会场景”的研讨会致力于帮助学生掌握一些基本的恋爱技能，比如如何邀请异性外出，约会时应做些什么，并且让他们知道恋爱关系有其多面性，比如“劈腿”的问题。
本森博士说，“学生或许没有学习过人际交往技巧，他们不会进行面对面沟通。”这番话或许是在试探性地表述这种趋势。学生甚至需要这些研讨会这一事实本身就很能说明问题：学生们得像学写字母连体一样，从零开始学习最基本的恋爱技能。
也许这就是大学课堂可以介入的地方。鉴于这代学生凡事以简历为动力，学校最好增加一个以爱情为主题，并且计入学分的研讨会。这门课程可以跨越多个学科：性关系生物学，求爱的多文化历史，脆弱心理学和社会学。
这样的建议听起来非常牵强。但对于高等院校来说，这是一个践行其对外宣称的办学宗旨的机会——许多高校在招生时声称，他们不仅仅致力于培养学生的头脑，还会帮助学生塑造完整的人格。现在是时候让学生品尝爱情的滋味了。
安德鲁·莱纳(Andrew Reiner)在陶森大学(Towson University)荣誉学院和英文系教写作课。
本文最初发表于2014年2月9日。
翻译：任文科
Love, Actually
Teaching Generation Y the Basics of a Strong Relationship
By ANDREW REINERFEB. 7, 2014
I RECENTLY OVERHEARD two students talking in a dining hall at the university where I teach. “Yeah, I might get married, too,” one confided. “But not until I’m at least 30 and have a career.” Then she grinned. “Until then? I’m going to party it up.”
This young woman was practically following a script. An increasing number of studies show that many millennials want to marry — someday.
Generation Y is postponing marriage until, on average, age 29 for men and 27 for women. College-educated millennials in particular view it as a “capstone” to their lives rather than as a “cornerstone,” according to a report whose sponsors include the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia.
Yet for all of their future designs on marriage, many of them may not get there. Their romance operandi — hooking up and hanging out — flouts the golden rule of what makes marriages and love work: emotional vulnerability.
“Staying vulnerable is a risk we have to take if we want to experience connection,” writes Brené Brown, a University of Houston researcher whose work focuses on the need for vulnerability and what happens when we desensitize ourselves to it.
Given the way members of Generation Y have been conditioned, their seemingly blithe attitude about marriage, perhaps even about love, may become less of a boon and more of a bust.
It’s no wonder, really, that many millennials are in this predicament, often at no fault of their own. Their lifelong associations with love are a familiar soundtrack: Since early childhood their ears have been subjected to thumping messages in the popular culture that sex confers social cachet and, more than anything else, belongs front and center in their identities. (Helloooo, Sex Week!)
Then there’s the familiar lyrics from their parents — rants about why grades, internships and anything else that makes their résumés appear more extraordinary trump romantic relationships. And the constant bass line of social media, which, let’s face it, trivializes the complexity of romantic relationships. (One study out of the University of Missouri found that people in romantic relationships of three years or less who use Facebook more than once an hour are more likely to experience relational corrosion, including infidelity.)
But wait a minute. Don’t we naturally become more emotionally mature by the time we’re ready to settle down in our 30s? Not as much anymore. Research led by the social psychologist Sara H. Konrath at the University of Michigan has shown that college students’ self-described levels of empathy have declined since 1980, especially so in the past 10 years, as quantifiable levels of self-esteem and narcissism have skyrocketed. Add to this the hypercompetitive reflex that hooking up triggers (the peer pressure to take part in the hookup culture and then to be first to unhook) and the noncommittal mind-set that hanging out breeds. The result is a generation that’s terrified of and clueless about the A B C’s of romantic intimacy.
In “The End of Sex: How Hookup Culture Is Leaving a Generation Unhappy, Sexually Unfulfilled, and Confused About Intimacy,” Donna Freitas chronicles the ways in which this trend is creating the first generation in history that has no idea how to court a potential partner, let alone find the language to do so.
If this fear of vulnerability began and ended with mere bumbling attempts at courtship, then all of this might seem harmless, charming even. But so much more is at stake.
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During class discussions, my students often admit to hoping that relationships will simply unfold through hooking up. “After all,” one student recently said, “nobody wants to have The Talk,” the dreaded confrontation that clarifies romantic hopes and expectations. “You come off as too needy.”
This fear sets up the dicey precedent Dr. Brown warns us about: Dodging vulnerability cheats us of the chance to not just create intimacy but also to make relationships work.
Then there’s the emotional fallout of hooking up. This kind of sexual intimacy inevitably leads to becoming “emotionally empty,” writes Dr. Freitas. “In gearing themselves up for sex, they must at the same time drain themselves of feeling.”
This dynamic is about more than simply quelling nerves with “liquid courage” at college parties or clubs. It’s about swallowing back emotions that are perceived as annoying obstacles. And this can start a dangerous cycle.
“We cannot selectively numb emotions,” writes Dr. Brown. “When we numb the painful emotions, we also numb the positive emotions.”
We further desensitize ourselves to love when we stifle the bonding feelings that spring forth from oxytocin. This “love” hormone is released during orgasm, but it also floods the body and brain after hugging or affectionate touching. Yet we deny such molecular reactions at great peril, according to Dr. Dean Ornish, founder of the nonprofit Preventive Medicine Research Institute and author of “Love and Survival: The Scientific Basis for the Healing Power of Intimacy.”
“I am not aware of any other factor in medicine that has a greater impact on our survival than the healing power of love and intimacy,” Dr. Ornish writes. “Not diet, not smoking, not exercise, not stress, not genetics, not drugs, not surgery.”
So, the question that has never needed asking before now looms large: How do we teach a generation how to love?
As many of my own students have professed, they aren’t exactly seeing their ideal of love modeled at home or among friends. Some campus counseling centers have picked up on this curiosity and frustration, offering workshops on related topics, such as the one at the University of Kentucky on healthy dating or at Duke University on “How to Be in Love.” Duke’s original series featured four sessions, including surviving breakups, recognizing toxic romance and discerning between love and infatuation. A spinoff seminar will focus on relationship issues for women of color.
The time has arrived for such programs, says Theresa Benson, assistant director of the counseling center at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Dr. Benson oversees a staff of 20 undergraduates who develop and lead the workshops. One, “College Dating: Uncovering the Dating Scene,” helps students learn essentials like how to ask someone out, what to do on a date and the many faces of relationships, including polyamory.
When Dr. Benson says that “students may not be learning the interpersonal skills to communicate face to face,” she may be couching this trend a bit too tentatively. That there is even a need for these workshops speaks volumes: The most elemental skills of romantic intimacy are going the way of cursive handwriting.
Perhaps this is where college classrooms can step in. For this résumé-driven generation, schools would do well to add a grade-based seminar about love. The course could cross many academic disciplines: the biology of intimacy; the multicultural history of courtship; the psychology and sociology of vulnerability.
Such a proposal may sound far-fetched. But this is an opportunity for colleges to walk the talk of their marketing messages, which tout developing not just the minds of students but the whole person. It’s time for students to feel the love.
Andrew Reiner teaches writing in the Honors College and English department at Towson University.
A version of this article appears in print on February 9, 2014, on page ED26 of Education Life with the headline: Love, Actually.