我一讲完，这位有名的作家就把眼镜重重摔在白色桌布上，身体向后一靠，说：“葛林妮丝?梅克尼可(Glynnis MacNicol)，你的生活可真糟糕！” Not exactly the feedback I was hoping for.
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这完全不是我所期待的回应。
He continued: “You’re all alone in the world, and have no one to help you.” He turned to my friends, dramatically interrupting their conversation. “Do you know how terrible this woman’s life is? She’s all by herself!”
他接着说道：“你独自一人在这世上，没有一个人能帮你。”他转向我的朋友们，戏剧性地打断他们说话：“你们知道这个女人的生活有多糟糕吗？她全靠自己一个人！”
My friends managed to snort back their drinks, barely. “But I’m fine,” I protested lightheartedly, hoping to return the discussion to writing. “I’m quite enjoying myself.”
我的朋友们勉强在杯子后面哼了几声。“但我过得挺好的，”我随口抗议道，希望能把话题重新转移到写作上来。“我真的很享受自己一个人生活。”
He took a disbelieving sip of his drink. “I want to help you,” he said. He then instructed our server to wrap up his untouched steak and insisted I take it home.
他嘬了一小口饮料，对我说的话并不相信。“我想帮你，”他说。然后他喊服务生将他没动过的牛排打包，执意让我带回去。
He thought he was being kind, I knew, but that didn’t change the fact that on an otherwise perfect spring evening in Manhattan, I again faced a dilemma I’d been struggling with since turning 40: how to counter other people’s disbelief that I, single and child-free, could possibly be enjoying my own life.
我知道，他一定自认为自己非常仁慈，但这还是不能改变一个事实，那就是在曼哈顿一个本该非常美妙的春天晚上，我再次面对一个自我40岁起就与之抗争的困境：如何反驳那些不相信我虽然单身且没有孩子，但依然能过得很好的人？
It’s a particularly frustrating Catch-22 for 21st-century ladies of a certain age. If I insisted that I really was having a great time, I was a lady who doth protest too much (men never seem to doth too much in this regard). Politely allow the assumption that I was in a pitiable state, satisfied by the fact that I knew better? That just perpetuated the problem.
这对21世纪某个特定年龄的女性来说是一种第22条军规式的矛盾处境，令人尤为沮丧。如果我坚称自己过得很好，那我就好像太喜欢辩解了（在这方面，
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男人似乎从不会显得太喜欢辩解）。如果人们认为我处境可怜，我就要礼貌地接受，只是满足于我内心知道事实并非如此吗？那样做只会让这个问题永远得不到解决。
I encounter this type of disbelief frequently — and nearly as often from women, although rarely expressed in such a wonderfully direct way.
我常常面临人们的这种怀疑——而且来自女性的怀疑也一样多，尽管她们不会像这位作家那样直白。
A year earlier I’d mentioned to an acquaintance that I found it amusing that my married friends often expressed envy over my large new apartment — and that I live in it alone — and was gently told, “they were just being nice,” to make me feel better (I assume about the fact that I was alone). There was my best friend’s
wedding, a few days after I turned 40, when, happily surrounded by my oldest, closest friends, I was assured I shouldn’t worry because “there’s still time.” (This from a guest to whom I’d just been introduced.)
一年前，我跟一个熟人提到一件趣事，已婚的朋友们常常告诉我，她们羡慕我能一个人住一套崭新的大公寓。结果这个熟人温和地答道：“她们是在说客套话，”意思是，她们想安慰我（我猜是因为我独身）。就在我40岁生日后不久，我最好的朋友结婚了。婚礼上，我开心地被亲密的老朋友们簇拥着，她们安慰说，我不必担心，因为“还有时间”。（这句话来自一个我刚刚被介绍认识的客人。）
Once, after telling a group at a party that I’d spent a month living in Paris, I was told that it was “nice that you can still enjoy
yourself.” As if the fact that I was enjoying myself — by myself! With a baguette! In Paris! — was somehow heroic.
还有一次，当我在一个派对上告诉大家我曾在巴黎生活过一个月时，大家的反应是“你还能自得其乐，真是太好了！”似乎我能在巴黎，吃着法棍，自得其乐，这有多了不起似的！
For a long time I did brush these remarks off. Yet another
unexpected gift of my 40s: just how little concern I have for others’ opinions about me. But it’s wearing thin. And increasingly I find myself frustrated by the belief that I, a reasonably successful person by most measures, do not know my own mind.
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在很长一段时间里，我都对这些话置之不理。因为我在40岁之后得到的另一份意外礼物就是不再在意别人对自己的看法。但是这种感觉正在逐渐消失。尽管我在大多数方面还算是一个成功的人，但我发现自己并不了解自己的内心，这令我感到愈来愈沮丧。
Not long ago, a friend described my book to a group of women in their 50s and 60s. They started laughing, she told me. She asked what was so funny. “It’s just that your friend will change her mind about kids at about age 48,” they said. “And then there will be a scramble, and a sperm bank, and a tank will arrive in her living room. She’ll change her mind, that’s so clear.”
不久前，一个朋友向一群五六十岁的女性描述我的书。朋友告诉我，她们大笑起来。朋友问她们，究竟是什么这么好笑。“你的朋友一定会在48岁前后改变她对孩子的想法，”她们说。“那时她会突然想要一个孩子，她会去精子库，然后一个箱子会送到的客厅里。她会改变主意的，显而易见！”