"You're so great -- why don't you have a boyfriend?"

“你这么好，怎么会没有男朋友?”

This misguided compliment, often doled out to young successful women, has given birth to a new thought experiment: If a woman is great and no romantic partner is there to appreciate her, can she still lead a happy and fulfilling life?

人们常常在舆论的误导作用下，将这种恭维话“施舍”给单身成功女性，由此我们提出了一个新的思维实验课题：如果一位女性品貌甚佳，却没有情人来欣赏，她是否仍能生活的快乐而充实呢?

Women often feel bad about being single, despite how satisfying their lives are otherwise。

无论一位女性对生活的其他方面如何满意，单身的感情状况总是会让她感到郁闷。

Turns out, there are a few reasons you might feel that romantic ennui:

实际上，你的“单身厌烦症”可能是出于以下几点原因。

you may not be prioritizing what you really want。

你没有首先考虑自己想要的是什么。

Allowing what other people want for you to cloud your judgement can send you down that dark, "I'm dying alone" spiral. Global surveys have found that cultural norms and expectations are what determine our self-esteem, even if we claim we're above the pressure. The truth is that marriage won't make everyone happier。

服从他人对你的期望，使自己的判断力受到遮蔽，这会使你越来越觉得“我会孤独终老”，在这种想法的泥潭里越陷越深。全球范围内的研究结果显示，我们的自尊心是由文化规范和社会期待所决定的，即使我们声称自己不受这两者影响。事实上，结婚成家并不一定会使人更幸福。

And those fear-inducing headlines aren't helping。

那些令人恐惧的新闻宣传也在帮倒忙。

"It's amazing how year after year after year, people are making this claim that if you get married, you'll get happier," author of Singled Out, DePaulo said。

《单身更快乐》一书的作者德保罗说，“年复一年，人们一直在宣扬这样的观念，即结婚成家会使人更加幸福，这真不可思议。”

She explained that many of those academic studies that make for splashy, fear-inducing headlines aren't procedurally sound. The main problem is that conditions in clinical studies have to be randomly assigned -- which isn't possible when you're researching single vs. married people。

她解释道，许多虚张声势、耸人听闻的舆论宣传及其背后的学术研究在研究程序上并不严谨。主要的问题在于，临床研究应该随即分配身份不同的研究对象——当你的研究对象是未婚/已婚人群时，这根本是不可能的。

Another "methodologically shameful" tactic in these studies, she explained, is that many only compare those who are currently married to single people and completely ignore those who got married, hated it and got divorced。

她认为，此类学术研究中是另一种“令研究者蒙羞的方法论”伎俩，即许多研究都只是将婚姻幸福的人群与单身人群进行对比，而完全忽略了那些结过婚，然后厌倦婚姻、离婚的人群。

Moral of the story?

这篇文章的寓意何在?

Yes, you're still "great" and more than capable of living a happy, fulfilling life, whether or not you're involved with someone romantically. But also know that feeling waves of self-doubt and insecurity are totally normal. You may never want to get married-- or you may be open to the possibility of meeting someone without actively looking for a relationship。

是的，无论你是否有一个恋人，你都很优秀，完全能够过上幸福，充实的生活。但是也要记住，自我怀疑和不安全感等情绪上的波动是完全正常的。也许你一辈子也不会想结婚——亦或你会怀着一种开放的心态，不对恋爱抱有期待，而是静待着遇到某人。

All of this awareness, however, won't always assuage all of your fears and insecurities, and that's OK. If you feel sad sometimes, it's not because you're single -- it's because you're alive。

即使了解了上述一切，也不能保证祛除你所有的恐惧和不安，但这没有关系。如果你偶尔会感到心情沮丧，那并不是因为你单身，而是因为你活着。