昨天在Wall Street Journal （华尔街日报）上看到这样一篇关于美国大学生恋爱态度的文章。作者通过采访和数据，以不加评论的旁观者视角从当代美国大学生的生活剪辑了一个掠影，来反映美国文化的本质。文章主题是越来越多的男女选择不在大学里谈恋爱，而选择一夜情或者多夜情，或者只是游戏似的恋爱。“你是风儿我是沙”的山盟海誓在美国不仅谁也打动不了，还会吓跑大多数的人。



作为一个在美国读了三年高中现在在美国读大二的学生，作为一朵被西方资本主义“腐化”了的祖国花朵，我想为美国学生和我自己做出我力所能及的解释。



这种生活方式的改变是有它的原因的。与你可能想的正相反，我们（经过一番挣扎，我还是选择了用“我们”而不是“他们”）不是因为堕落，而是因为我们更现实，更长远，把当前的学习和事业看得更重要。



首先，在美国大学中的竞争是异常激烈的。想进医学院，法学院，商学院的人越来越多，想继续深造的也越来越多，所以造成平时上课的压力也越来越大。具体数字我就不举了，我最近才和一位从北大来的数学系博士研究生吃饭讲到哪个学校的学生压力大，他毫不犹豫的说是伯克利，还说他辅导的本科生都因加班加点严重缺乏睡眠。我的一些去过其他国家学习的同学也是有同样的看法。



除了竞争外，另一个使我们奋发的因素是高昂的学费。拿美国大学的学费和国内的学费比没有什么意义，不比你们也知道这边要高很多，但值得注意的是美国大多数大学生是借钱读书的，大多数人毕业后都有债务。这个债务是我们自己要还的，不管家境如何，这个债务是我们自己的债务，是我们自己必须要用自己的劳动来还的。设想一下，如果你上大学是花自己的钱，2万到4万美元，你还会天天想着怎么交女朋友并把自己放在一个很容易受伤的境地吗?



第三，我们知道自己的前途未卜，有可能在世界上任何一个地方就业或者继续深造，我们承受不起另一个人的重量，因为我们还太年青。我们几乎每个人都有过一些恋爱史，因为在美国没有所谓的“早恋”。用我在高中的好朋友Emily的话来说，“恋爱在很多时候都像是两人三腿跑，靠着的两条腿绑在一起，不仅慢得要死，而且如果其中一人倒下了，另一个人也站不起来。”而在美国被视为黄金年代的大学本科，我们既禁不起被绑在一起的拖累，也承受不起倒下的打击。



在这些考虑下，美国学生对于感情是慎重的，是有很多保留的。我们会在周五周六晚上热舞狂欢，与刚认识的人在舞池上纵情接吻，但这背后是一周紧张的学习和工作。学有余力的人也不会首先去想谈恋爱，而是去争取为教授们当实验助手。



与异性的亲密接触属于周五周六喧哗渲泄的夜晚，仅此而已。“我爱你”属于小学，初中，高中，及未知的未来，"I Love you" 在大学生中又称L-bomb，与A-bomb（Atomic Bomb原子弹）齐名。这三个字太重，我们说不起。



你可以尽管鄙视我们。但记得这一点，当美国学生与教授们合作攻克了一个又一个科学难题，几乎包揽每届的诺贝尔奖的时候；当美国学生在本科就开始创业，建立起自己的商业地国的时候；中国学生有多少人还晃荡在情人坡小树林里，天天为心上人绞尽脑汁想新招。



这是一条人人都心照不宣的潜规则：不要为我动心，不要说爱我。



那篇华尔街日报的文章如下：



Where‘s the Love? Students Eschew Campus Romance



January31, 2008



Like many campuses,Purdue University has some traditional hot spots for romance -- "The Old Pump," where couples used to meet after dark, and a bell tower known as a lucky place to propose marriage. But engineering major Amy Penner has been so busy volunteering with a women's engineering group and planning her career that she's only dimly a ware of them. Her boyfriend has left campus to get a doctorate overseas; asked how much time she spends dating, she says, "That would be zero."





Remember the movie"Love Story" and its star-crossed student lovers? Such torrid campus romances may be becoming a thing of the past. College life has become so competitive, and students so focused on careers, that many aren't looking for spouses anymore.



Replacing college as the top marital hunting ground is the office. Only 14% of people who are married or in a relationship say they met their partners in school or college,says a 2006 Harris Interactive study of 2,985 adults; 18% met at work. That's a reversal from 15 years ago, when 23% of married couples reported meeting in school or college and only 15% cited work, according to a 1992 study of 3,432adults by the University of Chicago.



Gone are the days when sororities and dorms marked engagements with candle-passing ceremonies while men serenaded beneath the windows.



College romances like the one in 'Love Story' are becoming rarer these days.



Even at tradition-steeped Transylvania University, a 228-year-old institution in Lexington, Ky., an old white ash called "The Kissing Tree," cited in2003 by the Chronicle of Higher Education as one of the most romantic spots on campuses, is no longer an "icon of intimacy," says Richard Thompson,a longtime Transylvania professor and dean. Lucie Hartmann, 21, a senior, says"no one utilizes" the spot for romance; like most students, she's intent on "using college to set a foundation for a career."

Researchers cite acouple of factors. Young adults are delaying marriage, for one thing. In the past 15 years, men's median age at first marriage has risen by 1.2 years to 27.5, and by 1.4 years for women, to 25.5, the highest in more than a century, Census Bureau data show.



Also at work is"credential inflation" -- an increase in the qualifications required for many skilled jobs, says Janet Lever, a sociology professor at CaliforniaState University, Los Angeles. Many young adults want the flexibility to relocate freely and immerse themselves in new work and educational opportunities before making room for marriage and family. As a result, students favor "light relationships that aren't going to compromise where they go to grad school or which job they take," she says.



Cody Cheetham, 22, a Purdue senior, is looking for a marketing job after she graduates in May and plans on getting an MBA. "A lot of us don't even know where we're going to be living six months after we graduate," she says. "We don't want to bring another person into the chaos of our lives."

If you're a parent,as I am, you may be wondering what all this means. Such sordid campus-life portrayals as Tom Wolfe's "I Am Charlotte Simmons" aside, the news about students' social lives isn't all bad. To be sure, the "hookup culture" -- the campus trend toward casual sexual behavior, usually linkedwith alcohol and no expectations of a continuing relationship -- is rife. Some 76% of college students have engaged in hookups, which usually stop short of intercourse, according to a study of 4,000 students by Stanford University sociology professor Paula England. Students report having had an average 6.9 hookups and only 4.4traditional dates by their senior year.



On the bright side,more students are having fun on group dates; also, deep, but platonic,male-female friendships are more common.



Many young adults return to traditional dating after graduation, says Kathleen Bogle, author of anew book, "Hooking Up," based on a study of 76 students and recent alumni. Young adults "want to find a quality person, a good person," to marry, says Ms. Bogle, an assistant sociology professor at La Salle University in Philadelphia, "and traditional dating is seen as a better way to do that" than hooking up.

With the benefit of hindsight, though, some grads may yearn for the stretches of time on campus for extracurricular activities and studying with the opposite sex. Julia Vasiliauskas broke up with her boyfriend at the University of Rochester in New York soon after her 2003 graduation, then went to grad school and began teaching near Seattle. Now that she feels ready, at 26, to find a partner,"I regret that I didn't find that person in college -- because now that I'm working, I don't have time."



Write to Sue Shellenbarger at sue.shellenbarger@wsj.com



Pastedfrom <http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120172523751229601.html?mod=moj_columnists>

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