即使从未见面，依然可以相恋。历史上从来不乏“见字如面”的爱情，而互联网的出现，更是彻底打开了网恋的大门。

Falling in love sight unseen, often through the written word, has been happening for centuries. The Web has only made it easier.

 

网恋为何越来越普遍？一项研究表明，网恋的魅力在于，人们更容易找到与自己兴趣相投的对象。

What makes these digital relationships successful? According to a study, one of the key draws of Internet relationships of all kinds is the ability to find people who like the same stuff that you do.

 

人们都说爱情是“盲目”的，有时看不见对方，反而容易产生好感。一项著名的实验叫做“黑暗中的偏差”，实验者将受试者安排在明、暗两个房间，分别观察他们的社交活动。

Love can be blind literally¹. One of the most famous studies is "Deviance In The Dark," in which interactions between students were observed in both pitch-dark and well-lit rooms.

 

比起光亮下的面谈，在黑暗环境中，受试者更能敞开心扉，与同伴互动。换言之，在减轻面对面的压力以后，人们更愿意做回自己，也更愿意了解他人。

Those who met in the dark room, on the whole, were much more open and intimate with their fellow participants than those who met face-to-face under the fluorescents. In short: When you get rid of all the stress attached to face-to-face meetings, people feel more free to be themselves and get to know each other.

 

然而，网恋究竟是真爱还是错觉，这一点仍有待商榷。恋爱心理指导戴安娜·多雷尔声称，如果没在现实生活中见过面，你爱的很可能只是那个人的人设，而非本身。

Diana Dorell, an intuitive dating coach, explained that "without real-life contact, you run the risk of developing strong feelings for the idea of someone, not the person themselves."

 

如果无法见面，但可以视频的话，会不会好一些呢？临床心理学家约书亚·卡拉普表示，虽然视频通话比短信、邮件和写信更进一步，但如果没有触觉和嗅觉的辅助，还是会大大降低恋爱的参与感。

According to Joshua Klapow, a clinical psychologist, "While using video to connect with someone definitely offers more intimacy² than texting, emailing, or writing, not being able to touch or smell someone limits your sense of the other person."

 

网恋的另一弊端在于，骗子比比皆是。一项研究表明，81%的网恋者会编造自己的体重、身高或年龄。在虚拟的网络世界里，人们可以随意自吹自擂，只为展现出“最好的一面”。

Besides, the Web is full of tricksters. One study found that 81% of online daters admitted to lying about their weight, height, age or a combination of the three on their profiles. The Web allows users to present their best selves to the public, and sometimes those selves are exaggerated.

 

此外，网恋常常会让人产生虚幻感——既然在现实生活中无法见到，那么与真人恋爱，跟与纸片人或者AI恋爱，又有什么区别呢？答案是，“纸性恋”或许无伤大雅，而“人机恋”则可能会遇到伦理问题。

 

《她》是一部美国科幻爱情片，作家西奥多在结束了一段令他心碎的爱情长跑之后，爱上了电脑操作系统里的女声，而这个叫“萨曼莎”的姑娘不仅有着略微沙哑的性感嗓音，而且风趣幽默、善解人意，让孤独的男主泥足深陷。

Her is an American science-fiction romantic drama film. It follows Theodore Twombly, a man who develops a relationship with Samantha, an artificially intelligent virtual assistant personified through a female voice.

 

直到某天，萨曼莎无缘无故从电脑上消失了，西奥多这才得知，萨曼莎总共有8316位人类交互对象，并与其中的641位产生了爱情，而西奥多仅仅是其中之一。尽管如此，萨曼莎依然坚持自己是深爱着西奥多的，她的爱并没有因此而不同。人类无法接受的“海王”行为，在AI眼中却变得无可厚非。

Theodore panics when Samantha briefly³ goes offline. When she finally responds to him, she confirms that she is talking with thousands of people, and that she has fallen in love with hundreds of them. Theodore is very upset at the idea, but Samantha insists it only makes her love for Theodore stronger.

 

总而言之，人们当然可以通过网络相识、相知甚至相恋，但只有真正见到对方，捧住对方脸颊，看进对方眼底的那一刻，你才能够确信，这个人就是你的此生挚爱。

Meeting online is a great way to get to know someone and even to connect on a deeper level. But until you hold someone's face in your hands, and gaze into that special person's eyes, and see what he or she is really like in the flesh, you won't know without a doubt that it's real love.

 

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