接受友谊的淡去 - 龙腾网移动版

By Bryan Lufkin

作者：Bryan Lufkin
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We've fallen out of touch with friends and acquaintances. It may feel awkward, but you don't actually have to rekindle every relationship you once had.

我们常常会与一些朋友和熟人失去联系。这可能会让你感到尴尬，但你不必重燃曾经的每一段关系。

If you’re vaccinated and heading back into the world, you may realise something: there are a lot of people you haven’t spoken to in a year and a half.

如果你接种了新冠病毒疫苗然后重返社会，你可能会意识到一个问题，即周围有很多你已经一年半没说过话的曾经的朋友或熟人。

Then you realise something else: you may want to keep it that way.

然后你意识到另一个问题:你可能想保持这种（不联系的）状态。
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More of us are starting to pick back up the strands of our pre-pandemic social lives. As we figure out who the first people we want to meet up with are, we’re recognizing there are friendships from the ‘before times’ we didn’t keep up during lockdown – and aren’t particularly excited to re-ignite now that we can.

我们中越来越多的人开始回归疫情开始前的社会生活。当我们弄清楚解封之后我们想要见的人都是谁时，我们会意识到有一些曾经的友谊在疫情隔离期间并没有得到发展或维持，甚至现在对于有机会重燃这段感情也没有特别高兴的感觉。

Should we feel bad about not caring for these relationships?

我们应该为不在乎这些友情而感到难过吗?

While people have known for years that friendships are unquestionably good for your health, experts say it’s only natural for acquaintances and even friends to fall by the wayside as time goes on – and it’s nothing to feel guilty about. If you really do miss someone, you can always reach back out. But if you feel obliged, or like doing so is emotional labour, take that as a sign you can cut that person loose.

多年来，人们就知道友谊毫无疑问对健康有好处，但专家表示，随着时间的推移，认识的人甚至是朋友都可能会变为陌路人，这是很自然的事情，没什么好内疚的。如果你真的想念一个人，你可以随时主动走过去重新捡起那段友情。但如果你觉得自己只是有义务这么做，或者将之视为一种情绪劳动的话，那就把这当作是你可以摆脱那个人的信号吧。

Gut check

直觉检查
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“When there’s a friend that you haven’t kept up with during the pandemic – if you didn’t feel the need to check up on this person, and they weren’t checking in on you – then kind of believe what your gut is telling you,” says Suzanne Degges-White, professor of counselling at Northern Illinois University, US. “Not every friendship is meant to last forever. It goes both ways.”

“如果你有一个在疫情期间没有保持联系的朋友, 如果你不觉得有必要问候这个人, 而他们也没有问候你,那么相信你的直觉所告诉你的,” Suzanne Degges-White说, 她是美国北伊利诺伊大学的咨询教授。她补充道：“并不是每一段友谊都意味着天长地久。好的友谊应该是双向的。”
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Shasta Nelson, a San Francisco-based author and speaker who specialises in friendship, agrees “it’s absolutely normal that relationships ebb and flow all throughout life”. It’s impossible to keep up with every single friend you’ve ever had, she says, especially as you add new relationships when your life circumstances change, such as moving cities or changing jobs. These kinds of life experiences change your friendship networks, as you re-prioritise the people you want to spend your time with.

专攻友谊关系的旧金山作家和演说家Shasta Nelson也同意Suzanne 的说法，她说：“在生活中，关系的起起落落绝对是正常的”。你不可能与你曾经的每一个朋友保持联系，尤其是当你的生活环境发生变化时，比如搬家或换工作，你的周围会出现新的人际关系。你的生活经历会改变你的友谊网络，因为你会不断重新考虑你想花时间在一起相处的人。

As you start to figure out whom the first people you want to reach out to are, you may quickly realise whom you're not necessarily keen to see right away

当你开始意识到自己想要联系的第一个人是谁时，你可能很快就会意识到你并不急于见到谁。

The pandemic is a perfect example of how life circumstances re-shuffled our friendship groups. As we had to literally isolate from each other during the last year, Degges-White says this led to forming sextive “pandemic pods” – a sextive, close group of family and friends who were part of your ‘bubble’, and who also took the same health precautions as you. We’ve had to be choosy about who we let in, and we suddenly couldn’t see all the people from our pre-pandemic lives in person like we could before.

生活环境会改变我们的友谊团体，这次新冠病毒疫情就是一个很好的例子。Degges-White表示，由于去年我们不得不彼此隔离，这就促成了选择性的“流行病系统”，在这个系统下，那些具有选择性的亲密的家人和朋友就是你的“泡泡”的一部分，他们也采取了和你一样的健康预防措施。而且我们不得不对进入的人很挑剔，我们也突然不能像以前那样亲眼见到我们在疫情前交往的所有人。
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We only had so much bandwidth to keep in contact with people outside our pods, which caused us to naturally narrow the friendships we kept going. Keeping up with people outside these pods took extra effort – and while we were busy disinfecting doorknobs and panic-buying toilet paper, we didn’t have the emotional capacity to reach out to everyone with whom we used to interact, both intimately and casually.

我们只有有限的带宽来与我们系统外的人保持联系，这导致我们很自然地缩小了我们的友谊范围。与这些“隔离系统”外的人保持联系需要额外的努力——而当我们忙着给门把手消毒、恐慌性地购买厕纸时，我们没有足够的情感能力去联系我们曾经亲密或随意交往过的每一个人。

And now that we have the opportunity to reach out again, we may find that we didn’t necessarily miss the people we didn’t talk to. All of this can help explain why you might be reluctant to reach out – and, in some cases, hoping that old friends and acquaintances don’t reach out to you, too.

现在我们有机会再次重建这些感情了，但是我们可能会发现，我们未必思念那些我们没有在疫情期间交谈过的人。所有这些都可以帮助解释为什么你可能不愿意联系这些人，甚至在某些情况下，你也希望这些老朋友和熟人也不要联系你。

Although you may feel guilty picking and choosing your circle if it means fading out on friends, it’s not necessarily a bad thing. There’s value in curating that network of friends and acquaintances of your own volition.

虽然你可能会因为选择自己的朋友圈而感到内疚，但这并不一定是一件坏事。按照自己的意愿组织好朋友和熟人的网络是有价值的。

You’re making what Degges-White calls a “friendscape”: “who’s close by, who do we want to be around and who do we want to surround us?” Your friendscape can change during certain, specific situations during life – going away to university or a summer camp, or being in a certain job – and you often begin curating new friends to fit that current life situation. Not everyone can fit into your current friendscape. That was quite literally the case in the age of lockdowns and social distancing. “In life, as we go through certain stages and ages, our attention shifts and we want to be around people who are like us.” says Degges-White.

你正在形成Degges-White所说的“朋友圈”: “谁在身边，我们想和谁在一起，以及我们想让谁围绕在我们身边?” 在生活中某些特定的情况下，你的朋友可能会发生变化，比如去上大学或参加夏令营，或从事某种特定的工作，在这种情况下，你会经常开始培养新朋友来适应当前的生活状况。并不是所有人都适合你现在的朋友圈。在封锁和社交距离盛行的时代，情况确实如此。Degges-White说:“在生活中，随着我们经历了某些阶段和年龄，我们的注意力会发生变化，我们希望和自己相似的人在一起。”

“The pandemic shifted a lot of things,” she says. “It showed us the people who we feel are valuable, and who we think will keep us safe, psychologically and physically.

她说：“这场疫情改变了很多事情，它让我们认清了哪些人才是对我们最有价值的人，也认清了谁才是会在心理上和身体上保护我们的人。”

Since our friendscapes are ever evolving throughout our lives, it’s natural to drift away from some people as life goes on. It’s also unrealistic to think we can keep in touch with literally everyone – even research indicates it’s impossible to devote enough time to all your friends and acquaintances. “It’s completely legitimate for all of us to make an assessment now of where we want to invest our energy,” says Nelson.

由于我们的朋友圈子在我们的生活中不断变化，所以随着生活的发展，疏远一些人是很自然的。想要和每个人都保持联系也是不现实的——甚至有研究表明，一个人不可能有足够的时间和所有的朋友和熟人相处。Nelson说:“我们所有人现在都完全有理由评估一下我们到底想把自己的精力投入到哪里。”

Saying hello again

再次说你好

Still, if you are wondering if you should reach out again to the friends who’ve fallen by the wayside, be thoughtful and strategic about it.

不过，如果你想知道是否应该再次同那些已经形同陌路的朋友建立友情，那就考虑周全，有策略地考虑一下。
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First, listen to your gut, as Degges-White suggests. If you really do miss someone, that’s a sign that the relationship is worth investing in.

首先，就像Degges-White建议的那样，听从你的直觉。如果你真的很想念某个人，那就是一种表明这段关系值得投入的迹象。

A good litmus test to decide whether to reach back out, she says, is ask yourself if six months from now, would you be upset that you and this person weren’t in touch? If you would be, then feel free to contact them. And if you decide not to, but feel guilty, Nelson says acknowledge that, but also realise it might not be “actual guilt, but kind of an awareness, more sadness for acknowledging that this relationship isn’t going to keep deepening”.

她说，在纠结是否应该再次联系对方的时候，一个很好的试金石是问问自己，从现在起的6个月后，你是否会因为你和对方不再联系而感到沮丧?如果你会因此沮丧，那请随时联系他们。而如果你决定不再联系对方，但为此感到内疚的话，就像Nelson说的，就承认这种内疚感，但也要意识到，这可能不是“真正的内疚，而是一种意识，在承认这段关系不会继续深化的同时，你更多地是感到悲伤。”
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If when you start opening up your social life again you find you miss someone, you can always reach out again – but don't feel obligated to (Credit: Getty Images)

If when you start opening up your social life again you find you miss someone, you can always reach out again – but don't feel obligated to .

如果你再次回归你的社交生活之后发现你想念某个人，那么你可以再次联系他们——但不要觉得自己有义务这么做。

“Relationships aren’t all or nothing,” says Nelson. If there’s someone you truly want to reach back out to but feel awkward doing so because it’s been so long, you could say something like: “’Oh my goodness, my head is finally above water. I have thought about you so many times over the past year, and I am so sorry that we lost touch’,” she says. “I just wanted to let you know that you were missed. If you have time, I would love to meet you for that walk we always talk about’.”

Nelson说:“感情并不是孤注一掷。如果你真的很想和某人联系，但在好久没联系后贸然联系又觉得尴尬的话，你可以说这样的话:“哦，天哪，我的头终于摆脱麻烦了。在过去的一年里，我多次想起你，很抱歉我们失去了联系。我只是想让你知道我想念你。如果你有时间，我想和你一起去我们经常说到的地方散步’。”

“Just acknowledge it and say, ‘I wish we were able to keep in touch, but we weren’t able to’,” continues Nelson. “I think everybody understands that.”

尼尔森继续说：“只要大方承认，并说，‘我希望我们能够保持联系，但之前我们没有做到’。我想每个人都能理解这一点。”

Another situation many people find themselves in is having reconnected with old friends from years ago during the pandemic, like old pals from university. And while that was a gift for many amid the health crisis, you may feel obliged to keep corresponding as often as you did during lockdown, which might feel a bit draining.

许多人发现自己面临的另一种情况是在疫情期间与多年前的老朋友重新联系上了，比如大学时代的老朋友。虽然在健康危机期间，这对许多人来说是一份安慰，但解除封锁之后，你可能会觉得你们有必要像封锁期间那样经常保持通信，而这可能会让你感到有点累。

“A lot of my text threads are kind of slowing down on their own,” says Nelson. She’s sent messages to show that while she wants to keep the door open, she wants to be upfront that there isn’t an expectation to keep messages going with the same regularity. “I just said, ‘it’s so cool to see so many of you getting out and doing more stuff on Facebook, and just wanted to say it was so special to journey a little bit closer to you this year, and I’m just wishing you the very best as you re-emerge back into life’. I’m validating and appreciating what was, and naming that, and also stating, ‘best to you going forward’.”

“我的很多信息在（解除封锁之后）逐渐减少，”Nelson说。她之前已经给朋友发信息表明，虽然她想让他们联系的这道门一直开着，但她想坦率地告诉大家，她不希望他们之间的通信邮件保持封锁期间的高频率。“我对他们说,“看到如此多的人走出来并在Facebook上和做更多的东西真是太棒了！我想说这一年和你们重拾友情的经历非常特别。我希望你们很好地重新回到过去的生活”。我在确认和感激过去的一切，并把它们表达了出来，同时也在说，‘祝你未来顺顺利利’。”
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The pandemic profoundly changed the way we socialise and how we approach relationships. As we enter a new phase of life, and begin to re-examine many of these relationships, experts say you definitely shouldn’t go around burning bridges, but don’t feel pressured to try and fit everyone back into your life. And try not to feel guilty that the friendship lapsed during the pandemic – experts say we should be easy on ourselves and forgive ourselves and each other, because the last 15 months really have been unprecedented.

这场疫情深刻地改变了我们的社交方式和处理人际关系的方式。当我们进入生活的新阶段，并开始重新审视这些关系时，专家说，你绝对不应该过河拆桥，但也不要感到有压力，不用试图让每个人都回归你的生活。不要为在疫情期间失去友谊而感到内疚。专家说，我们应该对自己宽容，原谅自己，原谅彼此，因为过去的15个月所发生的一切真的是前所未有的。

“If there’s a friend who you didn’t speak to at all during the pandemic, and things just totally chilled out – I mean, they got the message,” says Degges-White. “And they were probably sending you a message, too.”

Degges-White说:“如果你有一个朋友，在疫情期间你根本没有和他说过话，那么你们之间所有的情感就都完全平息下来了。我的意思是，他们也已经明白了这其中的意思。同时，他们没有联系你可能也是在给你传递信息。”