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I have had zero positive experiences.
在这方面我从来没有过成功的经验。
I go to the bathroom and I pull out my phone, and he has texted me, “I hope you’re enjoying your peecess.”
去洗手间的时候我掏出我的电话，看到了他发给我的短信，“祝你小便愉快。”
It may seem like there couldn’t be a worse time to be alive and single.
单身似乎是世界上最难熬的时光。
And then texted me asking me if he could come home with me.
他还问我他是否可以和我一起回家。
Just a slew of, like, poor dates, and, like, mediocre dates, and s***ty dates.
就是一连串差不多很糟糕的约会，平淡的约会，还有特别差劲的约会。
But the truth is that for as long as it’s been around, dating has always sucked.
然而，问题是，从古至今，约会从来都不是一件容易的事。
It’s the late 1800s. These are the presidents.
十九世纪晚期，这些是当时的各位总统。
This is how people dress. This is the music they listen to.
当时的人们穿这样的服饰，听这样的音乐。
And this is how single people get together.
这是单身的人们聚会的场景。
I see you’ve already chosen your corner.
看来你已经选好自己的座位了呀。
Better known as “calling,” it’s the predominant mode of courtship among the middle class.
这种约会通常称之为“calling”，是中产阶级发展恋情的主要方式。
The basic setup of calling was that a woman would have hours when she was receiving callers at home.
约会的基本设定都是一位女性在自己家里招待多位追求者，而且一招待就是数小时。
This is Moira Weigel.
这位是Moira Weigel。
I’m a junior fellow at Harvard University and the author of a book called Labor of Love: The Invention of Dating.
我是哈佛大学的初级研究员，同时也是这本《爱的劳动：约会的由来》的作者。
The basic script is that a man shows up at your house, asks whether you will see him,
那时的约会基本的情节就是一位男性来到你家门口，问你愿不愿意见他，
and then you sit together in a parlor and sort of spend time together,
然后你们在客厅共度一段时光，
with either direct or sort of from-the-next-room family supervision.
家长则当面或者在隔壁对你们两人进行考察。
Sounds super hot.
听着很刺激嘛。
At the time, 75% of Americans lived in small towns or on farms.
那时，美国75%的人口都住在小城镇里或者农场上。
If you think meeting someone at a bar is tough,
如果你觉得跟某人在酒吧见面很困难，
try finding a spouse in a town where you'd only encounter a handful of potential partners in your lifetime.
那你可以去城里找对象，在那里你一辈子也只能遇到几个潜在的追求者。
And while it may seem like the way we date is dictated by things like love and affection,
同时，表面上，我们约会的方式取决于爱和情感，
it was actually driven by something far less romantic: the industrial revolution.
实际上，决定这种方式的东西远不如我们想象的浪漫，它就是工业革命。
In America in the 1880s, 1890s,
十九世纪八九十年代，
you have these floods of migration both from the countryside to the city and from other countries to the United States.
大量人口从乡村涌入城市，从外国涌入美国。
As the country industrializes, urban populations explode.
随着工业化的推进和发展，美国的城市人口开始激增。
The population of New York increases seven times between 1850 and 1900, and Philadelphia’s goes up 12 times.
十九世纪后半叶，纽约的人口翻了7倍，费城的人口更是增长了11倍。
You only have people going out into public spaces and meeting and mixing in this way that we call dating
随着年轻人涌入城市，尤其是有偿劳动行业出现了女性的身影，
once you have lots of young people moving to cities and especially women entering the paid workforce.
越来越多的人以“约会”这种方式出入公共场所，在那里相聚、融合。
Many women step outside their homes to work for the first time,
很多女性都是第一次走出家门去工作，
and that gives them exposure to potential suitors in a way they never had before.
这也就给她们带来了前所未有的在潜在追求者面前露面的机会。
Courtship shifted from something that happened in private, tea and supervised small talk in your home,
求爱就从私密活动——在家里一边吃着茶点一边说着被家人监督的闲聊——
to activities that happened in public: going to restaurants, movies, and amusement parks.
变成了在公共场所的活动——下馆子、看电影、逛游乐场等等。
From that point on, in order to meet somebody, you had to spend money, and dating became entangled with the economy.
从那时起，要想约会就得花钱，约会就这样和经济牵连在了一起。
After World War II, the American economy flourished.
二战结束后，美国经济蓬勃发展。
Between 1940 and 1960, the GDP soared from $200 billion to $500 billion.
从1940年到1960年的二十年里，美国的GDP从2000亿美元增长到了5000亿美元。
The economic boom after World War II in the United States means that young people have much more disposable income than they’ve ever had.
二战后美国经济腾飞意味着年轻人有了更多的可支配收入。
By 1956, there were 13 million teens with an average income of $10.55 per week.
到1956年，平均周收入在10.55美元的青少年就有1300万——
That’s the same amount of disposable income an entire family had 15 years prior.
而这一收入是15年前整个美国家庭才有的收入——
And they wanted to spend it.
他们则希望把这些钱花出去。
Unlike previous generations that were expected to help support their families, this new generation had time for leisure and recreation.
以往人们要拿这些收入养家，这些年轻一代则有了休闲娱乐的时间。
This consumer-driven period was about affluence, and the dating scene closely reflected that economic prosperity:
这种消费驱动的时代从侧面反映了社会的繁荣，约会的形式就密切体现了当时美国经济的繁荣程度：
shiny new cars, rock ’n’ roll, drive-in movie theaters — and don’t forget about going steady.
时髦的新车、摇滚、免下车电影院——别忘了再接再厉啊。
There was no looking back after that ...
社会仍在继续向前发展——
a disposable income and access to technology democratized dating for decades to come.
可支配收入的增加，技术的普及让接下来几十年的约会都变得更加民主了。
# We’re riding on the internet, cyberspace set free, hello, virtual reality. #
# 我们在网上飞车，开放的网络，你好，虚拟世界。#
Access to the internet meant access to more people.
互联网意味着更广的交际圈。
From 1995 to 2005, the number of internet users worldwide increased from 16 million to almost 1 billion.
从1995年到2005年，全球互联网用户的数量从1600万增长到了将近10亿。
As with every previous era of dating history, there's sort of this new economic sphere,
通约会发展史上任何时期一样，互联网时代的约会也对经济产生了影响，
and romance and flirtation becomes part of how it gets commercialized.
恋爱、勾搭使经济逐渐走向了商品化的道路。
So chat rooms about sex or the opportunity to flirt with people online is a big part of what's appealing about AOL.
性聊天室、在网上和他人调情成了AOL公司的产品吸引用户的很大一个因素。
By 1999, there were already 2,500 dating websites.
到1999年，约会网站的数目已经有2500个之多。
But the big moment came around 2010, when mobile phones started changing the way people connect.
而在2010年左右，随着手机开始改变人们之间的联系方式开始，约会也迎来了空前的发展机遇。
Because in the ’90s, I think there's still this sense that the internet is sort of, you know, it’s cyberspace.
因为在我看来啊，九十年代人们还是会觉得互联网就是个虚拟世界，
It's this other universe that lives in your desktop and that you go to sometimes and chat with a stranger.
就是个放在你桌面上可以让你偶尔能跟陌生人聊聊天的另一个世界。
Once everyone is carrying a computer on their person at almost all times and our physical and digital lives are interwoven,
所以一旦每个人都能随身佩戴电脑，一旦我们的现实生活和数字化生活交缠在一起，
that really changes the dynamics.
这些变化就会冲击之前的平衡。
It’s no surprise that dating piggybacked on this explosive growth. Dating apps, dating apps, dating apps.
约会方式会借助互联网的飞速发展这一点不足为奇。约会软件。约会软件。约会软件。
According to a recent survey, 77% of Americans own a smartphone and 15% of American adults use dating apps.
最近的一项调查显示，77%的美国人都有只能手机，15%的成年美国人都会使用约会软件。
Grindr launched in 2009, Tinder in 2012, and now there are hundreds of dating apps to choose from.
约会软件Grindr诞生于2009年，Tinder创立于2012年，现在已经有成百上千个约会软件可供用户选择了。
So meeting new people has never been easier.
因此，认识新朋友从来没有今天这么容易过。
But does that make us any happier? Dating is kind of a necessary evil.
然而，我们因此变得更幸福了吗？约会可以说是无可避免的灾祸。
The thing about online dating is that you don’t trust anyone.
网上约会的问题是大家彼此缺乏信任。
You get to pin your top hate or like, and this guy “hates abstinence.”
用户需要填写喜好方面的信息，那个人填的是“讨厌禁欲”。
Every new technology, every new kind of social practice, inspires anxiety about how folks are meeting and pairing up.
每一种新技术，每一种新的社会活动的出现都会激起人们对大家要如何认识，如何配对的焦虑。
So dating still kind of sucks. But that’s nothing new.
也就是说，现在的约会和过去相比并没有太多长进，但这早已不是什么新鲜事了。
My name's Tian, I'm gonna be 25. I'm looking for someone who...comes from a long line of European nobility.
我是Tian，我马上就25了，我想找一个欧洲贵族世家的人。
Absolutely, that is critical for me.
当然了，这一点是最关键的。
Someone whose family has land holdings across, ideally, the south of France.
希望她的家庭有庄园，最好是在法国南部，
And will take me vacationing in their summer castle.
能够带我去她们家的避暑城堡度假。
I'm interested in going to bed early, to wake up even earlier.
我喜欢早睡早起。
