已婚妇女希望所有的单身姑娘都知道这些有关爱情的事

I was in my senior year of college at the age of 21 when my friends started getting married. It kicked off a decade of what felt like every single woman I know, tying the knot, while I stayed single and bumbling around blind in the dark when it came to love and stuff like, you know, tricking a man into being my boyfriend for a span of months.

21岁的时候，我读大四，身边的朋友都陆陆续续结婚了。让我开始觉得这十年来，我认识的每一个单身姑娘都结婚了，而我仍是单身一人，在黑暗中盲目的摸索着爱情，比如骗一个男人做我几个月的男朋友。

The women I know who are married are the exact opposite of the "smug marrieds" that Helen Fielding describes in Bridget Jones's Diary. None of the married women I know encourage me to get myself a man in order to achieve happiness. In fact, most of them are really sensitive to the fact that we are in different places in our lives.

我认识的已婚女性与海伦·菲尔丁在《BJ单身日记》中描述的自鸣得意的已婚者完全相反。我认识的已婚女性都不鼓励我找个男人获得幸福。事实上，她们中的大多数人都对自己身处不同的处境而十分敏感。

These married friends of mine are far more likely to hit me up for details about the latest threesome I enjoyed than they are to volunteer sage advice from the lips of a married woman. What I'm saying here is that my married female friends are exactly the types of women who SHOULD be giving single women advice about love, s*x, and dating.

相比给我一些忠告，我的已婚朋友更愿意让我说一说我的"三人行"细节。我想说的就是：我的女性已婚朋友最适合给单身姑娘有关爱、性和约会的建议。

With that in mind (and also marriage on mind) I put a call out and asked the married women I know to share some advice for single women, like me, who might be looking in all the wrong places and in all the wrong ways for love that lasts a lifetime.

想到这一点（还有婚姻），我就打电话给我认识的一些已婚女性，让她们给像我一样的单身姑娘一点建议，因为我这样的单身姑娘可能在寻找一生长久的爱情方面找错了方向。

"Don't ever settle."

"永远都不要将就。"

"Don't have an affair with a married person."

"不要与已婚人士发展婚外情。"

"Marriage is a choice, literally every day, because you will change and they will change. Marriage is a promise to *continue to choose* that person. Don't get married if you're the kind of person to think about breaking up after every disagreement or fight - marriage isn't for you."

"婚姻是个选择，每一天都是，因为你将会改变，他们也会改变。婚姻是'继续选择'那个人的承诺。如果每次争吵或不和，你都想要分手，那千万不要结婚--因为你不适合。"

"Know thyself. And like thyself too."

"认识自己、喜欢自己。"

"My husband found that when he decided to get comfortable in his own skin, that's around the time I noticed him. When you stop trying to be different for other people and just be *you,* that's attractive."

"我的丈夫发现，当他决定安然面对自己处境的那一刻，我注意到了他。当你不再为了别人而改变自己，只是做自己的时候，你是最迷人的。"