A Common Habit That Costs Us Friends
一个让我们失去朋友的常见习惯
Just in time for my final year of college, a number of independently-moving disasters all converged to create an almost perfect rock-bottom scenario. On top of it, I lost all my friends.
就在我大学最后一年，一系列看似无关的灾难接踵而至，几乎把我推向了人生的谷底。更糟糕的是，我失去了所有的朋友。
I was studying a subject I didn’t care about, with a GPA of two-point-something (and falling), and I just couldn’t see myself ever doing it for a living. Since my cleverness was always my main source of self-esteem, my unprecedented academic troubles translated to an unprecedented collapse of personal confidence. In addition to this, my dad was sick, my sister was overseas, my cat was dead, terrorists had attacked New York City and my mom was trying to hold us all together.
我当时学的是我根本不感兴趣的专业，平均绩点只有两点多（而且还在下滑），我完全无法想象自己将来能靠这个谋生。我的聪明才智一直是我自尊的主要来源，所以这次前所未有的学业挫折让我自信心也彻底崩溃了。除此之外，我爸爸生病了，姐姐在国外，我的猫死了，纽约遭到恐怖袭击，妈妈则要努力维系我们全家人的生计。
As if by conspiracy, my best friends all moved away around that time. One had already gone, after his employment had dried up here, to live with his parents in Calgary. Not long after, another pair of them went to work menial jobs at a ski resort in the Rockies. Then a fourth one, whom I’d introduced to those two, thought it sounded pretty good and joined them.
仿佛是事先串通好的一样，我最好的朋友们都在那时搬走了。其中一个朋友在本地失业后，已经搬回卡尔加里和父母一起住了。不久之后，另外两个朋友也去了落基山脉的一个滑雪胜地做些零工。然后，我介绍给那两个人的第四个朋友觉得这听起来不错，也加入了他们。
So within a few months, I ended up with no confidence, a fragmented family, and a bleak future on the career front. What I needed most during this period was friends, and fate chose this time to show me what it was like, for the first time, to have none.
短短几个月内，我便失去了所有自信，家庭支离破碎，事业前景也一片黯淡。那段时间我 最 需要的就是朋友，而命运却偏偏在这个时候让我第一次体会到了孤身一人的滋味。
Given this unlikely collision of circumstances in my friends’ lives, I’m tempted to argue that it wasn’t my fault that I ended up friendless. But I know now that it was — I was taking an enormous risk by living with a particular habit, and you may be doing it too. In fact, I think it’s something millions of people do.
鉴于朋友们生活中这些看似不太可能发生的巧合，我一度想辩解说，我最终失去朋友并非我的错。但我现在明白，确实是我的错——我当时因为某种习惯而冒了巨大的风险，而你可能也在做着同样的事情。事实上，我认为有数百万人都在这样做。
The delicate structures that keep us together
维系我们在一起的微妙结构
You might be wondering why I only had four friends to lose. I actually had many more than four friends. However, these four were not only my best friends, but they each occupied critical points in my network of people.
你或许会好奇，为什么我只有四个朋友可以失去。事实上，我的朋友远不止四个。然而，这四个朋友不仅是我 最好的 朋友，而且他们在我的社交圈中都占据着至关重要的位置。
We all have friends that we know only through certain other friends. Suddenly, I didn’t see my high school friends anymore because we all congregated around friend A. I didn’t see my former work friends anymore because we all kept in touch via get-togethers at friend B’s house. Friends E, F, G and H were great people and I liked them, but it we never made plans together without friend C. Friend D knows everybody — and I thought I did too, until he was gone.
我们每个人都有一些只通过特定朋友认识的朋友。突然间，我不再见到我的高中朋友了，因为我们都聚集在朋友 A 身边。我也不再见到我以前的同事，因为我们都通过在朋友 B 家聚会保持联系。朋友 E、F、G 和 H 都是很棒的人，我很喜欢他们，但我们从来没有在没有朋友 C 的情况下一起计划过。朋友 D 认识所有人——我也以为自己认识所有人，直到他离开。
I had no idea how fragile this structure was until it was broken and no longer attached to me. There were still people in the city that I was friends with, and could have hung out with, but it would have taken an uncharacteristically forward act of reaching out on my part, and that just wasn’t something I had ever learned to do.
直到它破碎，与我分离，我才意识到这层关系有多么脆弱。城里还有一些我的朋友，我本来可以和他们一起出去玩，但这需要我做出一个与我性格不符的主动举动，而我从来不会这样做。
Why had I never learned to reach out? Because I never needed to — there were always enough people in my life who did take the initiative to propose the plans, invite me to things, and call to see how I was doing. I almost never initiated things, because I already had more invitations for socializing than I wanted to accept, and I did like spending a lot of time alone. What had felt like social abundance was actually the growth of a dangerous habit: depending on others to create my social life for me.
为什么我一直没学会主动与人交往？因为我从来不需要——生活中总有那么多人 主动 提出活动安排，邀请我参加各种活动，还会打电话问候我。我几乎从不主动发起活动，因为我收到的社交邀请已经远远超过了我想要接受的，而且我确实很享受独处的时光。这种看似丰富的社交生活，实际上却让我养成了一种危险的习惯：依赖他人来构建我的社交生活。
Even after the catastrophe that was my early 20s, I didn’t understand that this was what was happening. Things got better on their own, and I still believed the collapse of my social life was due to circumstances beyond my control. A few friends moved back. I went back to school, met some new people, got more invitations to socialize, accepted some of them, and I had a social life again.
即使在我二十出头那段糟糕透顶的日子之后，我仍然没有意识到事情的真相。事情似乎自行好转，我仍然认为社交生活的崩溃是由于我无法控制的外部因素造成的。几个朋友搬了回来。我重返校园，结识了一些新朋友，收到了更多社交邀请，我接受了一些，我的社交生活又重新开始了。
But then in 2012, just as I had become the most socially active person I’d ever been, it happened again, and my terrible habit finally became visible to me.
但是到了 2012 年，正当我成为有史以来社交最活跃的人时，这件事再次发生，我的坏习惯终于暴露出来了。
It was a lot less dramatic this time, however. There were no wars or illnesses or bad GPAs involved. It began when I went hyper-frugal to save up a job-quitting fund. I didn’t want to spend money on booze or restaurants or parties any more, so I said no to almost every invitation for nearly a year. Eventually the inviters stopped bothering, and I lost track of my biggest circle of friends. I did, however, still spend a ton of time with my girlfriend at the time, who is now my best friend. I would have been up the creek without her.
然而，这次的情况远没有那么戏剧化。没有战争，没有疾病，也没有糟糕的成绩。一切都始于我为了 攒钱辞职而 开始极度节俭。我不想再把钱花在酒、餐厅或派对上，所以将近一年来，我几乎拒绝了所有的邀请。最终，邀请我的人不再打扰我，我也渐渐失去了与我最重要的朋友圈的联系。不过，我仍然花了很多时间和当时的女朋友在一起，她现在是我最好的朋友。如果没有她，我真不知道该怎么办。
Then when I finally did quit my job in the fall, I stopped seeing a lot of another good friend, because we had worked out of the same office. He was, of course, another vital connecting piece, this time to my oldest and most important circle of friends. And they began to drift into the fog too.
后来，秋天我终于辞职了，也和另一位好朋友渐渐疏远了，因为我们之前在同一间办公室工作。他当然是我维系朋友圈的重要纽带，这次是维系我与老朋友之间最重要的友谊。而他们也开始渐渐疏远。
The diagnosis was clear now: I had been a lifelong relationship freeloader. It’s scary to think where I would be without people actively picking up my slack. If they were all as passive as I was I’d be a very lonely man.
现在诊断很明确：我一直是个感情上的寄生虫。想想如果没有人主动弥补我的不足，我会变成什么样，真是可怕。如果他们都像我一样被动，我会非常孤独。
Relationships of all kinds take initiative and work, and because that work was somehow getting done in my relationships, I never saw it as a responsibility. I got away with it for so long only because I was blessed to know so many people who did.
各种关系都需要主动性和努力维系，而因为我的关系中这些努力似乎总能得到妥善处理，所以我从未意识到这是一种责任。我之所以能一直这样下去，仅仅是因为我很幸运地认识了很多愿意付出努力的人。
Doing your half
完成你的一半
It’s important to note that I wasn’t the only one being passive about my relationships. Many friends — E, F, G and H, for example — also could have reached out, and didn’t. And when you get two people who both depend on the other to reach out, there is no friendship.
值得注意的是，并非只有我一个人在人际关系上比较被动。很多朋友——比如 E、F、G 和 H——本来也可以主动联系我，但他们却没有。当两个人都依赖对方主动联系时，友谊就无从谈起。
After twenty years of this bad habit, I wonder how many of these failed, would-be friendships I’ve conspired in. It’s humbling, and kind of sad, to imagine deep and long-lasting friendships I’d have today if I’d picked up the slack whenever it was there.
二十年来，我一直有这个坏习惯，现在想想，我究竟参与促成了多少段失败的、本该发展成友谊的关系。想到如果当初我能及时弥补自己的不足，如今或许会拥有许多深厚而长久的友谊，我不禁感到惭愧，也有些伤感。
I also want to make it clear that this isn’t purely the result of laziness either. For those of us with a history of social anxiety, there are long-running fears at work, even after years of improvement. I’ve progressed from being terrified of talking to tech support staff to being only slightly afraid to call certain friends. But as long as someone else is doing the work for you, it never seems like the right time to push yourself.
我还想澄清一点，这并非完全是懒惰造成的。对于我们这些有社交焦虑史的人来说，即使经过多年的改善，工作中仍然存在着挥之不去的恐惧。我曾经非常害怕与技术支持人员交谈，现在只是略微害怕给某些朋友打电话。但是，只要有人替你做事，你似乎就永远找不到主动努力的时机。
Whatever our reasons, I suspect most of us don’t pull our weight socially, and we depend, possibly without realizing, on that wonderful minority of people who are tirelessly connecting us freeloaders and cowards. I can identify a handful of these people in my life, and I’m sure you could too if you thought about it for a moment.
无论出于什么原因，我怀疑我们 大多数 人在社交方面都缺乏应有的责任感，而且我们可能在不知不觉中依赖于那一小部分不知疲倦地为我们这些寄生虫和懦夫牵线搭桥的人。我能在生活中认出几个这样的人，我相信如果你稍微思考一下，也能认出来。
In every relationship there’s a certain amount of initiative that must be taken, by someone, in order to make sure you still see each other. It’s reasonable to assume we have a moral responsibility to do at least 50% of this work. We ought to be extending an invitation for every one we receive, roughly, if we value it when people do it for us.
在任何一段关系中，都需要 一方 主动付出，才能确保彼此继续保持联系。我们有理由认为，至少应该承担其中 50%的道德责任。如果我们珍惜别人对我们的邀请，那么我们理应在收到邀请后也主动发出邀请。
This is true even in cases where we know that one party, if necessary, would do 100% of the work until the day they die, even if the other person never took the initiative. Who does the dialing more often, you or your mother?
即使在我们知道一方必要时会不惜一切代价完成所有工作直至去世，而另一方却从未主动采取行动的情况下，这条原则仍然适用。你和你母亲，谁打电话的次数更多？
It is something to take seriously. And in particular, we should give extra thought to the people we love whom we know have a hard time reaching out — especially this time of year.
这是需要认真对待的事情。尤其是在每年的这个时候，我们更应该格外关心那些我们深爱却不善于与人交流的人。
Happily, I’ve begun to reunite with my dormant circles, after talking out this problem of mine with my best friend. But the first time I went to call a friend whom I hadn’t talked to in a while, I froze. It was scary to call someone out of the blue. It felt like I was about to bungee jump or something. It made me realize I have very little experience at doing that, or any of the other little skills it takes to be someone who actively maintains relationships.
令人欣慰的是，在和最好的朋友倾诉了我的问题之后，我开始重新联系上那些久未联系的朋友。但当我第一次给一位许久未联系的朋友打电话时，我却愣住了。突然给陌生人打电话真的让人害怕，感觉就像要去蹦极一样。这让我意识到，我在这方面经验匮乏，也缺乏维系人际关系所需的其他一些小技巧。
All the more reason to get used to it, and never make the other person do the heavy lifting again.
因此，我们更应该习惯这种做法，并且永远不要再让对方承担繁重的工作。
I’ll leave it at that, because what I’ve said so far has either rung a very loud bell for you or it hasn’t. Besides, I want to finish this article by noon, because friend K — a tireless connector of people — has invited me to lunch.
我就说到这里吧，因为我刚才说的要么让你印象深刻，要么让你一头雾水。另外，我想在中午之前完成这篇文章，因为我的朋友 K——一个不知疲倦的人脉达人——邀请我共进午餐。