《美食祈禱和戀愛》Chapter 22 (43):我也想找個伴兒

One obvious topic still needs to be addressed concerning my whole pursuit of pleasure thing in Italy: What about sex?

關於我在意大利追求快樂一事，顯然還有件事得提提：性的問題怎麼說？

To answer that question simply: I don't want to have any while I'm here.

爲了回答這個問題，我只能說：我人在此地的時候，不想有任何性關係。

To answer it more thoroughly and honestly—of course, sometimes I do desperately want to have some, but I've decided to sit this particular game out for a while. I don't want to get involved with anybody. Of course I do miss being kissed because I love kissing. (I complain about this so much to Sofie that the other day she finally said in exasperation, "For God's sake, Liz—if it gets bad enough, I'll kiss you.") But I'm not going to do anything about it for now. When I get lonely these days, I think: So be lonely, Liz. Learn your way around loneliness. Make a map of it. Sit with it, for once in your life. Welcome to the human experience. But never again use another person's body or emotions as a scratching post for your own unfulfilled yearnings.

更徹底、更誠實的回答是——當然，有時我確實很渴望，但我已決定暫時不參加這項特定活動。我不想跟任何人扯上關係。我自然懷念親吻，因爲我喜歡親吻（有一天我向蘇菲滔滔不絕地抱怨起這件事，最後她憤怒地說：“看在老天爺的份兒上，小莉——假如情況太糟，就讓我親你吧。”）但目前我不去做任何事。近來我若覺得寂寞，我就想：那就寂寞吧，小莉。學學處理寂寞，爲寂寞做計劃。一輩子就這麼一次，與它並肩而坐。接受這種人生體驗。別再利用他人的身體或感情，來抒發你未滿足的渴望。

It's a kind of emergency life-saving policy, more than anything else. I got started early in life with the pursuit of sexual and romantic pleasure. I barely had an adolescence before I had my first boyfriend, and I have consistently had a boy or a man (or sometimes both) in my life ever since I was fifteen years old. That was—oh, let's see—about nineteen years ago, now. That's almost two solid decades I have been entwined in some kind of drama with some kind of guy. Each overlapping the next, with never so much as a week's breather in between. And I can't help but think that's been something of a liability on my path to maturity.

這是一種緊急時期的求生方針，尤甚於其他任何事情。早在人生初期，我即已開始追求性與浪漫之樂。我在交往第一個男友前幾乎沒有青春期，而打從十五歲起，我一貫有男孩或男人（有時兩者）做伴。那大約是——喔，十九年前的事了。足足有二十個年頭，我一直與某男子糾結於某場戲劇當中。情事彼此重疊，之間從沒有一個星期的喘息時間。我不禁要想，這在我的成熟道路上多少造成阻礙。

Moreover, I have boundary issues with men. Or maybe that's not fair to say. To have issues with boundaries, one must have boundaries in the first place, right? But I disappear into the person I love. I am the permeable membrane. If I love you, you can have everything. You can have my time, my devotion, my ass, my money, my family, my dog, my dog's money, my dog's time—everything. If I love you, I will carry for you all your pain, I will assume for you all your debts (in every definition of the word), I will protect you from your own insecurity, I will project upon you all sorts of good qualities that you have never actually cultivated in yourself and I will buy Christmas presents for your entire family. I will give you the sun and the rain, and if they are not available, I will give you a sun check and a rain check. I will give you all this and more, until I get so exhausted and depleted that the only way I can recover my energy is by becoming infatuated with someone else.

再者，我跟男人之間有分界的問題。或許這麼說不公平。照說有分界問題，理當一開始就有“界線”，對吧？但我卻是整個消失而成爲我愛的那個人。我是可滲透的薄膜。我若愛你，你即可擁有一切。你能擁有我的時間、我的忠誠、我的屁股、我的金錢、我的家人、我的狗、我的狗的金錢、我的狗的時間——一切的一切。我若愛你，我會扛起你所有的痛苦，爲你承擔所有的債務（就每一種定義而言），我將保護你免於不安，把你從未在自己身上養成的各種優秀品質投射給你，買聖誕禮物給你的全家人。我會給你雨和太陽，假使沒辦法立刻給你的話，我會改天給你。除了這些，我還會給你更多更多，直到我筋疲力竭，耗盡心力，只能靠迷戀另一個人才能再使我恢復精力。

I do not relay these facts about myself with pride, but this is how it's always been.

我並非引以自豪地說明這些關於我本身的事實，但事情一貫如此。

Some time after I'd left my husband, I was at a party and a guy I barely knew said to me, "You know, you seem like a completely different person, now that you're with this new boyfriend. You used to look like your husband, but now you look like David. You even dress like him and talk like him. You know how some people look like their dogs? I think maybe you always look like your men."

離開我先生一段時間後，在一次派對上，有個我不太熟悉的男子對我說 “你知道嗎？現在你跟你的新男友在一起，似乎完全變了個人。從前你跟你先生看起來很像，但現在的你看上去活像大衛。你甚至連穿着、講話都像他。你知道有些人跟他們養的狗看起來很像吧？我想或許你一向跟你的男人很像。”

Dear God, I could use a little break from this cycle, to give myself some space to discover what I look like and talk like when I'm not trying to merge with someone. And also, let's be honest—it might be a generous public service for me to leave intimacy alone for a while. When I scan back on my romantic record, it doesn't look so good. It's been one catastrophe after another. How many more different types of men can I keep trying to love, and continue to fail? Think of it this way—if you'd had ten serious traffic accidents in a row, wouldn't they eventually take your driver's license away? Wouldn't you kind of want them to?

天啊，我真該暫時擺脫這種循環，稍事休息，給自己一些空間去發現，在我不試着與他人融爲一體時，我自己看起來、說起話來的樣子。還有，讓我們都誠實點吧——暫時把親密關係放在一旁，或許在我來說是一種慷慨的公共服務。當我回顧我的浪漫史，發現其看起來並不怎麼好。可說是一個接着一個災難。還能再有幾種不同類型的男人讓我繼續嘗試去愛，然後繼續失敗？這樣想吧 ——你若連 續出十場重大車禍，難道最後不會被吊銷駕照？難道你不會多少希望駕照被吊銷？

There's a final reason I'm hesitant to get involved with someone else. I still happen to be in love with David, and I don't think that's fair to the next guy. I don't even know if David and I are totally broken up yet. We were still hanging around each other a lot before I left for Italy, though we hadn't slept together in a long time. But we were still admitting that we both harbored hopes that maybe someday . . .

我之所以對捲入另一段感情有所遲疑，還有最後一個原因。我碰巧還愛着大衛，我想這對下一個男人來說不公平。我甚至不曉得大衛與我是否完全分手。在我動身前往意大利之前，我們仍常彼此消磨時間，儘管我們已有很長一段時間未同牀共枕。但我們依然承認，我們倆都仍抱着希望，或許有一天……

I don't know.

我不曉得。