初恋好在哪儿？Twenty years ago . . . She was my first relationship . . . My first boyfriend . . . I was 17 . . . She was 19 . . . We were crazy about each other . . . We broke up because . . . So much time has passed . . . I find myself thinking of her . . . He keeps appearing in my dreams . . . I’m happily married . . . I’m happily married, BUT . . . I can’t help but wonder . . . We recently reconnected . . . I know I need to move on . . . Please, help . . . What should I do?
二十年前……她是我的初恋……我第一个男朋友……那时我17岁……她19岁……我们彼此疯狂相爱……我们因……而分手……过去这么久了……我发现自己仍然思念她……他不断在我梦里出现……我婚姻幸福美满……我婚姻幸福，但是……我忍不住……我们最近又联系上了……我知道我要向前看……请帮助我……我该怎么办？
If you spend enough time reading advice columns, you notice a pattern. In the stream of sorrows and quandaries and relationship angst, one word bubbles up again and again. First. My first love. My first time. My first ever. And unlike all the relationships that came after, with this one, the past can’t seem to stay in the past.
如果你经常看情感专栏，你会发现这样一个模式，在伤心困惑以及感情焦虑不安时，通常都会有一个词反复出现。首个、我的初恋、我的第一次、我永远的第一个。不像其他后来的感情经历，初恋似乎不愿仅仅停留在过去。
Because long after it ends, our first love maintains some power over us. A haunting, bittersweet hold on our psyches, pulling us back to what was and what can never be again. Unless . . . ?
因为即使结束了很久，初恋对我们仍然起着作用。挥之不去、苦乐参半的情绪持续影响着我们的心智，将我们拉回过去，回忆那些曾经发生、以及永远不会再发生的往昔。除非……？
But why? Why should this one lodge in our brains any differently than the others, even when the others were longer, better, more right? They just weren’t quite as intense as the first.
但是为什么？为什么初恋就非得留在我们脑海中，与其他经历如此不同，即使其他感情更加长久、更加美好、更加合适？但它们就是不如初恋那般强烈。
The scientific research on this topic is thin, but the collective wisdom among psychologists says it’s a lot like skydiving. Meaning, you’ll remember the first time you jumped out of an airplane much more clearly than the 10th time you took the leap.
关于这个课题的科学研究较少，但综合许多心理学家的集体智慧来说，这很像高空跳伞。也就是说，你第一次从飞机上跳伞的记忆会比第十次要清晰地多。
“Your first experience of something is going to be well remembered, more than later experiences,” explains Art Aron, a psychology professor at State University of New York at Stony Brook who specializes in close relationships. “Presumably there’d be more arousal and excitement, especially if it’s somewhat scary. And falling in love is somewhat scary — you’re afraid you’ll be rejected, you’re afraid you won’t live up to their expectations, afraid they won’t live up to yours. Anxiety is a big part of falling in love, especially the first time.”
“凡事第一次经历，你会比后面再做这件事情时的记忆要鲜明。”纽约州立大学斯托尼布鲁克分校的心理学教授阿特阿伦解释，他专门研究“亲密关系”。“想必第一次会有更多的兴奋和激动，尤其对那些有点提心吊胆的经历。而坠入爱河就有点提心吊胆-你会担心被拒绝，担心无法达到他们的预期，担心他们无法达到你的预期。焦虑是坠入情网的一个重要部分，尤其是第一次恋爱。”
So the relationship embeds itself in us in a way that all those who follow never can. Not that the subsequent loves aren’t as good. For most people, hopefully, the ones that come later, that last, are ultimately more nourishing, steadier and more solid. But this doesn’t stop anyone from clicking on their first love’s new profile picture when it pops up on Facebook. You know, just to see.
所以初恋以其他恋爱无法比拟的方式根植于我们内心，并不是说后面的爱人不如第一个好。对大多数人来说（我也希望如此），后续的感情经历最终会更加有内涵、更加稳固、更加可靠。但这并不能阻止人们点开Facebook上初恋最新更新的头像。你懂得，仅仅是看一看。
It’s possible, Aron says, that the experience is magnified because, for many, it happens during adolescence, when hormones are raging, and every life experience — a bad grade, a big win, a family fight — feels magnified. Even in a fully developed adult brain, “the neurological response to being in love with someone is very strong,” he says. “It’s the same as being on cocaine. It’s this huge desire.”
艾伦说，初恋经历很可能会被放大化，因为对很多人来说，初恋发生在青春期，那时荷尔蒙暴增，且每种人生经历都会被放大—一次糟糕的成绩、一场巨大的胜利、一次家庭争吵。即使在完全成熟的成人大(微博)脑中，“爱上某人的神经系统反应也是很强烈的，”他说，“就像服用可卡因一样。恋爱的欲望就是这么强大。”
Jefferson Singer, a Connecticut College psychologist whose research focuses on autobiographical memory, says that most people have something he calls a “memory bump” between age 15 and 26. “They recall more memories, and they tend to be more positive memories,” he says. That’s because we experience so many “firsts” during this period, but also because, after the fact, “we have more opportunity to rehearse it and replay it, rethink it, reimagine it, re-experience it.”
康涅狄格学院的一位主要研究自传式记忆的心理学家杰佛逊辛格说，大部分人在15到26岁期间都有着他称作“记忆碰撞”的东西。“他们能够记住更多事物，并且多为积极的记忆。”他说。这是因为我们在这段时期内经历了很多“第一次”，还因为“我们有更多的机会排演、回放、回想、重构、再体验。”
And for first loves, he adds, “I also think it becomes, to some degree, a template. It becomes what we measure everything else against.” Which can become a dangerous game, of course, if your first relationship was exciting, but volatile and unhealthy. Seeking those same highs and lows may lead to frustration at best, wreckage at worst.
对于初恋，他补充“我还认为它在某种程度上成为一种模板，让我们拿它来衡量其他感情。”当你第一段感情经历非常刺激但却不稳定、不健康时，这无疑会变成一个危险的游戏。刻意找寻与初恋相当的感情，最好的情况下会造成挫败，最坏会造成毁灭。
Nancy Kalish has spent more than two decades studying couples who reunite after many years apart. The psychology professor at California State University at Sacramento says that the key to understanding the power of first love is knowing how it shaped us. In your first instance of requited romance, everything feels new, “and together you decide what love is.”
南茜卡利什花了二十多年时间来研究那些分开多年后又复合的夫妻。这位加利福尼亚大学萨克拉门托分校的心理学教授说，了解初恋魔力的关键是要了解它如何塑造了我们。在你人生的第一次恋爱中，所有事都是新鲜的，“你们一起找寻爱的真谛。”
Kalish says there’s “nothing magical about first love,” beyond the fact that it happened to be the first. But there is something magical about couples whose love was interrupted and then rekindled later in life. With Facebook, this has become an ever more frequent occurrence.
卡利什说，“初恋并没有什么魔力”，事实上它只是恰巧是你的第一次恋爱而已。但很多情侣分手后又旧情复燃倒是有些神奇。而有了Facebook，这变得更加寻常。
The pairs who reunite successfully often fit a certain profile, says Kalish. They were younger than 24 when they dated, they grew up in the same place and broke up for some external reason — their parents didn’t approve, or someone moved away or shipped off to war.
那些能旧情复燃的情侣一般都有些共性，卡利什说。他们初次恋爱时都不到24岁，在同一个地方长大，因为一些外界的原因分手-父母反对、一方搬走了或者去参加战争。
