When we hear that a couple live 11 time zones apart and can afford to come together only once in a long while, it’s natural to offer sympathy for the pain.

当听说一对情侣身处两地，彼此间隔11个时区，很久才能相聚时，我们很自然地会为他们的相思之苦表示同情。

We should more fairly envy them for their luck.

而事实上，我们应该羡慕他们的好运气。

Whatever our longings may indicate, it is simply a lot easier to love when someone isn’t there.

无论我们感情是否承认，但爱一个不在身边的人的确更加容易。

Far from an unfortunate necessity, living apart should be recognised for what it truly is: an advantage.

异地而居绝非憾事，相反，人们应该认识到距离对情侣是有益处的。

So much goes right when we live a long way away:

当伴侣身处异地时，许多方面都会更加顺利。

Online or over the phone, we never assume that the other person should be able to read our minds without us ever having explained what is actually in them.

1、不管是在线聊天还是煲电话粥，我们都不会要求对方在自己未完全表达清楚的情况下，读懂我们的心思。

We accept that we will have to describe our days, as well as our desires, in words and pictures.

我们都会用文字和图片描述彼此的想法和生活。

We can’t help but do that thing that holds couples together: communicate.

我们能做的只有维系情感的必要措施——交流。

We accept that the other can live without us – and therefore make the effort to be the sort of people someone would freely choose to be with.

2、我们得承认：对方没有我们也能活下去。因此，我们才不断努力，让自己成为他人愿意与之相处的人。

当听说一对情侣身处两地，彼此间隔11个时区，很久才能相聚时，我们很自然地会为他们的相思之苦表示同情。

We work at it.

我们在提升自我。

We can benefit from what jealousy otherwise prevents us from admitting: how much it helps us to feel like desirable, potent people

3、以往怕恋人吃醋而不敢承认的事，其实对我们有益——认为自己是一个优秀的、有其他人喜爱的人，

to be able to go out and flirt with someone else for a while without too many questions being asked.

并可以自由出去玩，跟别人调情，而不会有人质问你。

In other words, how profoundly loyal a whiff of surface disloyalty helps us to be.

也就是说，偶尔放松一下，反而能让我们更忠诚。

Apart, we appreciate.

4、分开后会更重视对方。

It’s a strange quirk of our minds, but we only ever notice what’s missing: the money we don’t have; the weather we long for; the car we don’t yet own.

我们的大脑非常奇怪，它只会注意到自己身边没有的东西：账上没有的万贯家财、一心期盼的好天气、没到手的汽车。

Yet once anything is securely in our possession, it disappears.

而一旦我们拥有了这些东西，它们的存在感就会荡然无存。

We only see – in the sense of notice – what isn’t there.

我们只关注没得到的东西。

The best way to lose ownership of something is to own it – and the surest way to forget your partner exists may be to ensure they’re beside you every night.

想失去一件东西的最佳方法，就是拥有它。如果你的伴侣每天都安卧在你枕边，你自然会把ta当做空气。

When we were apart, we can sample the gentle suffering of loneliness over the intense rage of suffocation.

5、异地恋时，我们体验的只是轻微的孤独感，而不是同居时强烈的窒息感。

We never have to find out how much it can tarnish love to be with someone who has a different idea of a cutlery drawer or the correct way to suspend a towel.

我们无需发现生活琐事对爱情的影响，例如两人因选什么样的餐具抽屉、如何挂毛巾而意见不合。

Too often, when we’re cohabiting, we locate the difficulty of our relationships in a very erroneous place:

同居后，人们总是把情感不顺归咎于错误的地方。

We think that it is the wrong person we’ve mistakenly got together with,

我们会误以为自己选错了伴侣，

rather than keeping in mind that we’re with a pretty right person trying to do an exceptionally tricky thing: share a home.

但我们该做的是告诉自己对方很好，只是二人共处一室生活太难了。

It may in the end – strangely – just be a lot easier to love than to share a bathroom.

到头来，或许会发现：爱一个人比公用一间浴室简单多了。

Our love stories are suffering from a mistaken cultural hierarchy.

我们的爱情受制于一个错误的文化等级观念。

Just as the book is often wrongly thought more important than the essay, so the live-in relationship is too readily assumed to be superior to the long-range version.

就像人们认为书籍比文章更有价值一样，人们也常常认为同居关系比异地恋更加优越。

And yet, without ever meaning to do so, the long-distance relationship may simply, despite all its evident challenges,

显然，异地恋给恋人们带来不少困难，

throw up some of the absolutely ideal conditions for true love to thrive.

但它也在无意中为爱情的成长提供了绝佳的条件。

We should be wise to imbibe a few of the lessons life normally only teaches us when they’re in Sydney and you’re in Vancouver

我们应该学习其中的价值，因为往往两人分处两地时，你才有机会学习到生活给我们上的这一课，

and carefully import them into our lives, even with the people unfortunate enough to be right next to us.

然后细心将其运用于生活中——即使你的他不幸就在你身旁。