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The writer is a science commentator
作者是一位科学评论员
The scientist Helen Fisher once revealed how she ended up marrying the love of her life at 75. After months of chaste socialising, she and her beau played a game of pool, each having written down on a cocktail napkin what they wanted as a prize if they won.
科学家海伦•费舍尔(Helen Fisher)曾透露，她是如何在75岁时嫁给她一生挚爱的。经过几个月的纯洁社交后，她和她的男友玩了一局台球，每个人都在鸡尾酒餐巾纸上写下了他们获胜后想要的奖品。
After he triumphantly potted the winning ball, she opened his napkin to reveal the words: “sex and clarity”. Her napkin read: “a real kiss”. The eventual arc of their relationship — from friends to bed mates to spouses — would have been little surprise to Fisher, an anthropologist who studied the science of love and attraction. Both friendship and lust, she believed, could blossom into romantic love and then a deeper attachment.
在他得意洋洋地打进制胜球后，她打开他的餐巾纸，发现上面写着“性和关系的明确”。她的餐巾纸上写着“一个真正的吻”。他们的关系最终的发展轨迹——从朋友到床伴再到夫妻——对费舍尔来说并不令人意外，她是一位研究爱情和吸引力科学的人类学家。她相信，友谊和欲望都可以发展成浪漫的爱情，然后进一步形成更深的依恋。
Fisher, who died of endometrial cancer last month aged 79, left a striking legacy: legitimising love as a subject worthy of scholarly inquiry while somehow not diminishing its magic. Early on, science did not quite know what to make of her: as she told it, a reviewer rejected one of her papers on the basis that love was a supernatural phenomenon. Her punchy response was a string of books bearing such titles as The Sex Contract: The Evolution of Human Behavior and Anatomy of Love: the Natural History of Monogamy, Adultery and Divorce.
费舍尔上个月因子宫内膜癌去世，享年79岁，留下了令人瞩目的遗产：将爱情作为值得学术研究的主题合法化，同时又不减弱其魔力。早期，科学界对她有些摸不着头脑：据她所说，一位审稿人以爱情是超自然现象为由拒绝了她的一篇论文。她的有力回应是一系列书籍，如《性契约：人类行为的进化》和《爱的解剖：一夫一妻制、通奸和离婚的自然历史》。
In 2005, while at Rutgers University in New Jersey, Fisher and colleagues used MRI technology to scan the brains of the besotted. Photos of a sweetheart, she found, prompted a rush of dopamine in the brain. Love was indeed not supernatural: it was an all-consuming, primal, hard-wired drive, akin to hunger and thirst, especially for the rejected. Being in love, she memorably quipped, was like having someone “camping inside your head”.
2005年，费舍尔和同事在新泽西(New Jersey)的罗格斯大学(Rutgers University)使用MRI技术扫描了热恋者的大脑。她发现，恋人的照片会引发大脑中多巴胺的激增。爱情确实不是超自然的：它是一种全身心的、原始的、与生俱来的驱动力，类似于饥饿和口渴，尤其是对于被拒绝的人来说。她曾经形象地说，恋爱就像有人“在你的脑海中露营”。
Fisher spent her career trying to figure out what we all long to know: how do we find that special someone who triggers our circuits? She divided people into four personality types, which she tied to their brain chemistry: risk-taking “explorers”; rule-loving “builders”; logical and analytical “directors”; and imaginative, empathetic “negotiators”. If you met your partner through match.com, you probably have Fisher to thank: the dating site, which she advised from 2005 until her death, used her inventory to play Cupid to millions.
费舍尔在她的职业生涯中一直试图弄清楚我们都渴望知道的事情：我们如何找到那个能触发我们情感回路的特别的人？她将人们分为四种性格类型，并将其与大脑化学联系起来：喜欢冒险的“探险家”；热爱规则的“建设者”；逻辑严密、善于分析的“主管”；富有想象力和同理心的“谈判者”。如果你是通过match.com认识了你的伴侣，你可能要感谢费舍尔：这家约会网站从2005年到她去世一直接受她的建议，利用她的研究成果为数百万人扮演丘比特的角色。
Importantly, she took her insights out of the laboratory, dispensing unstuffy advice in Ted talks and interviews. Go ahead and use artificial intelligence in online dating to write a profile, she said in a podcast earlier this year: it can boost your confidence about making initial contact. “Then you go out, and your ancient human brain kicks into action . . . and you assess [potential partners] the way you always did,” she reassured.
重要的是，她把她的见解带出了实验室，在Ted演讲和采访中提供了不拘束的建议。她在今年早些时候的一次播客中说，可以在在线约会中使用人工智能来撰写个人资料，这可以增强你对初次联系的信心。她安慰道：“然后你出去，你古老的人脑开始行动……你会像往常一样评估[潜在伴侣]。”
She also advised online daters not to binge. Infinite choice simply paralyses our ancient brains. Her tip: pick between five and nine potential matches who are “in the ballpark” and give them a go. And don’t give up too soon; just because they don’t roar at your first joke doesn’t mean they lack a GSOH. Always a progressive, she praised younger generations, including those in polyamorous relationships, for taking longer to settle down. But there was also wise counsel to those in long-established relationships casting around to recall the passion of the early days. Staying together, she insisted, entailed working at all three phases of love that she identified: sex-based lust, romantic love and then attachment.
她还建议在线约会者不要过度沉迷。无限的选择只会让我们古老的大脑瘫痪。她的建议是，在“合适范围内”选择五到九个潜在的匹配对象，并试一试。不要太快放弃；他们不会因为你的第一个笑话而不激动，并不意味着他们缺乏幽默感(GSOH)。作为一个进步的人，她赞扬了年轻一代，包括那些进行多元关系的人，因为他们需要更长时间来安定下来。但她也给那些在长期关系中寻找早期激情的人提供了明智的建议。她坚持认为，维持关系需要在她所确定的三个阶段中努力：基于性欲的欲望、浪漫的爱情，然后是依恋。
“Have sex,” she advised bluntly, on the same podcast. “Don’t tell me you don’t have time. You have time to get your hair cut.” To sustain romantic love, share novel experiences; maybe take up a new hobby together. As for attachment: hug, kiss and sit next to each other on the sofa when you watch TV. Closeness stokes the feel-good chemicals that keep couples roped companionably together.
在同一档播客中，她直言不讳地建议：“做爱吧。别告诉我你没时间。你有时间去理发。”为了维持浪漫的爱情，分享新奇的经历，也许一起培养一个新的爱好。至于依恋，当你们一起看电视时，拥抱、亲吻并肩坐在沙发上。亲密会激发让情侣之间保持愉悦关系的化学物质。
Still haven’t finalised your weekend plans? It’s time to cancel the haircut.
周末计划还没敲定吗？是时候取消理发了。