30岁的“老女人”什么时候才能有爱情的滋润？

The candles were lit. The gin and tonic was chugged. His pants were down. I hesitated for a moment before saying, “I’ve never actually done this before.”

蜡烛点了，金汤力酒喝了，他的裤子也脱了。我犹豫了一会，说，“我之前其实没有做过。”

I was talking about sex.

我说的是做爱。

“Oh, really?” he said, sounding more titillated than concerned.

“哦，是吗？”他说，听起来更兴奋而非担忧。

“Are you still going to respect me in the morning?” I said, half-joking.

“明早你还会尊重我吗？”我半开玩笑地说道。

“Of course. We can do whatever you want. I’ll respect you either way.”

“当然了。你想怎么做我们就怎么做。不管怎样我都会尊重你。”

Several thoughts flashed through my head: My heart is failing. This guy may not stick around long. I’m 30. Thirty!

一些念头在我的脑海中闪过：我的心脏正在衰竭。这个男人可能不会陪我很久。我三十了。三十！

“O.K., let’s do it,” I said.

“OK，来吧。”我说。

And that’s how I ended up losing my virginity on a fourth date with a middle-school teacher that I didn’t even particularly like. Because I thought I was dying.

这就是我如何把贞操在第四次约会时给了这个我甚至不怎么喜欢的中学老师。因为我以为自己快死了。

Born with congenital heart disease, I had five major heart operations before I was 10 and have had five minor heart operations since. I have several metal devices in my chest that my heart depends on, including an implanted defibrillator and a mechanical aortic valve. My condition is so severe that as I age, my heart continues to have problems leading to more operations and other procedures.

我生来便有先天性心脏病，不到十岁我就进行过五次大型心脏手术，之后也做过五次小型的心脏手术。我的胸腔内，有几个我的心脏离不开的金属装置，包括一个置入式除颤器和一个机械主动脉瓣膜。我的情况十分严重，以至于随着我年龄的增长，我的心脏仍在不断出现问题，要我进行其他更多的手术。

As dire as that sounds, I am usually able to function like a normal human being. I even practice yoga and lift weights and do a little cardio, although I have to stop after a minute or two. But 18 months ago I realized I was becoming winded from just walking down the street. I actually had to stop and catch my breath from walking. Climbing stairs, even a few, became incredibly difficult.

虽然我的情况听起来很可怕，但我通常能像正常人一样工作生活。我甚至练瑜伽和举重，做一些有氧运动，尽管我必须做一两分钟就停下来。但在18个月前，我察觉到，在街上走路能让我上气不接下气，我不得不停下来喘息。即使是爬只有几个台阶的楼梯，也变得异常困难。

As the months wore on, my energy continued to deplete. I would go to work and come home and rest most nights. Although I was tired all of the time, I forced myself to go out on weekends because I refused to believe I was sick.

几个月过去了，我的体力继续衰弱。我会去上班，但大多数的晚上我都在家里休息。虽然我一天到晚都觉得很累，但我强迫自己周末出去玩，因为我拒绝相信自己病了。

My doctors couldn’t find anything wrong with my heart. They thought it was excess fluid, so they kept increasing my diuretics. The increase in medication would help initially, but after six weeks or so my energy level would plummet again. In six months, they had quadrupled my dose. Even though I had completely stopped exercising, I had lost 12 pounds. My face was so gaunt that I was starting to resemble a Disney villain.

医生找不到我的心脏出了什么问题。他们认为我身上有多余的液体，所以不断增加我服用的利尿剂的剂量。增加剂量最初会有帮助，但过了六周左右，我的体力水平会再次下降。这样过了六个月，他们让我服用的剂量已经是一开始的四倍。尽管我完全停止了锻炼，我的体重依然减少了12磅。我的脸变得如此之憔悴，以致于我开始有点像一个迪斯尼片中的恶棍。

I looked awful. But the guy I was dating didn’t think so. He thought I looked thin and hot. And I liked that. I had never had a boyfriend and was hoping he would be the first.

我看上去糟透了。但和我约会的那个人不这么认为。他觉得我看起来既苗条，又性感。我喜欢他的奉承。我从未有过男朋友，我希望他是第一个。

Whenever I mention that I have never had a boyfriend, I am always asked why, as if finding someone to connect with emotionally and physically should be so easy. It’s not as if I’ve had all these wonderful options and I just refuse to be tied down. The simple answer is that I have never met someone I wanted to be with who also wanted to be with me. In fact, I’m the girl who likes the guy who likes someone else.

每当我提到我从未有过男朋友时，别人总问我为什么，好像找到在情感上和肉体上与一个人联系起来应该是那么容易似的。并不是我曾经有过多么美妙的选择，只是我拒绝上绑。简单的回答是，我从来没有遇到过一个我想和他在一起、他也想和我在一起的人。事实上，我喜欢的男生总是喜欢别人。

In high school, my crush was the popular guy that I never had a chance with, but we danced to Missy Elliott’s “Work It” at the spring dance sophomore year, which as a non-popular late bloomer is clearly a teenage highlight I’m still holding on to 15 years later. (To be fair, I was dancing behind him while the cheerleader he was actually hooking up with danced with him face to face.)

上高中的时候，令我痴迷的是那个永远不会看上我的、人见人爱的男生，但我俩曾在高二的一次春季舞会上，在米西·艾略特(Missy Elliott)的《Work It》歌声中一起跳舞。对于像我这样不引人注意的晚熟者来说，那显然是我青少年时代的一个亮点，15年后我仍记忆犹新。（其实，我是在他背后跳舞，和他面对面跳的那个实际上是正跟他勾搭在一起的拉拉队员。）

In college, I directed my attention toward my best guy friend from high school who transferred to my university after freshman year. Even though we hung out every other day, he somehow failed to mention that he was secretly dating my high school rival. By graduation, she had cut off contact with most of our friend group and he followed suit shortly after.

上大学时，我把注意力集中在我高中时期的男性好友身上，他在读完大学一年级后，转学到我所在的大学。尽管我们差不多隔一天就聚一次，但不知为什么，他从来没跟我说过他一直在与我高中时代的竞争对手约会。到大学毕业的时候，她与我们朋友圈中的大部分人切断了联系，不久之后他也没有了音讯。

And in my 20s, I fell for my boss at my first job, a man who was quietly dating his boss’s executive assistant. After almost a year together, he dumped the assistant and a month later married his on-again-off-again college girlfriend. So what I’m saying is I have impeccable taste in men. With my track record, I seemed doomed to wander this earth alone, pining for someone else’s boyfriend.

我20多岁的时候，爱上了我第一份工作的上司，而那个人正在悄悄地跟他上司的行政助理约会。他俩在一起度过将近一年之后，他甩了那个助理，一个月后，他娶了他大学时期关系时好时坏的女友。所以我想说的是，我选择男人的眼光无可挑剔。从我的过往记录来看，我似乎注定要在这个世界上独自徘徊，思念着别人的男朋友。

But in May of last year, I uncharacteristically found myself talking to someone on OkCupid who appeared to be single. He was a teacher at the same middle school he had attended, which I found adorable. We lived on opposite sides of Los Angeles, which made it a long-distance relationship. I saw him once a week.

然而去年5月，我异乎寻常地发现自己在OkCupid上与一个看来单身的人聊天。他在他就读过的高中当老师，我觉得那很可爱。我们分别住在横跨洛杉矶市的地方，这让我们的约会有点像异地恋。我每周见他一次。

Our first date was brunch at a place halfway between us in Culver City. As we looked over the menu, he mentioned that he didn’t know what a poached egg was. After I explained how you poach an egg, he still was unsure what it looked like, so I ordered an avocado toast with a poached egg so he could see it. It was weirdly endearing.

我俩的第一次约会是在位于我们住所之间的卡尔弗市吃早午餐。我们看菜单时，他表示他不知道水煮荷包蛋是什么。我给他解释了如何煮荷包蛋后，他仍不清楚它的样子，因此我点了一个烤面包片加油梨和一个水煮荷包蛋，让他看看。这有点古怪地可爱。

He was kind of sweet, but after a few dates, I knew on some level that it wasn’t going to last long. There were red flags — or maybe just things I didn’t like about him. He never complimented me, for example, except in the one email where he said I was “hot.” He never said I looked nice or pretty to my face.

他有点惹人喜爱，但几次约会之后，我知道在某个层面上，我们的关系不会持续很久。已经出现了一些不好的迹象——或者可能只是我不喜欢他的地方。比如，他从来未夸奖过我，除了在一封电子邮件里说我“性感”。他从没未当着我的面说过我长得好看或漂亮。

Isn’t that Dating 101? You see your date and say, “You look great” or simply, “You look nice.” He didn’t do that.

那不是约会入门吗？你见到你约会的人时要说，“你看上去很棒”或者“你看起来很漂亮”。他没有那样做。

But here was my situation. After almost nine months of feeling weak and seeing cardiologists who were unable to offer much in the way of solutions, I was starting to believe that, for me, this was the beginning of the end.

但我的情况是这样的。在经历了近九个月的全身无力，看心脏病专家，他们却无法为你提供解决方案之后，我开始认为，对我来说，这是生命尽头的开端。

Sometimes people with complex congenital heart disease get to the point where medicine has done all it can to delay the inevitable, and since my doctors were so stumped, I believed my time was almost up. And I didn’t want to die a virgin. So I thought, “I should have sex with this guy.”

有时，患有复杂的先天性心脏病的人会进入药物治疗已不能防止不可避免的事情发生的阶段。因为我的医生们都被难住了，我认为我的日子也不会太长了。我不想在死的时候仍是处女。所以我想，“我应该和这个家伙上床。”

For our fourth (and penultimate) date, he came over to my apartment and I made him dinner.

在我们第四次（也是倒数第二次）约会时，他来到了我的公寓，我给他做了晚餐。

For a starter, I made guacamole. “Let me know if it needs anything,” I said, but I didn’t actually want to know if it needed anything. I just wanted him to say, “It’s delicious,” and eat it.

头道菜我做的是油梨酱。“如果它还需要什么，请告诉我，”我说，但实际上我并不想知道它还需要什么。我只想听他说，“很好吃，”然后就开口吃。

Instead, he added a ton of salt.

但他却在上面撒了大量的盐。

I thought: “What are you doing? I have a heart condition!”

我暗自想到：“你在干嘛？我心脏有毛病！”

Later, when I was roasting brussels sprouts, I didn’t ask for his opinion on them because I know how to make brussels sprouts and they’re pretty damn good. But he still came over and insisted that they needed seasoning (other than the salt, pepper and garlic I added), so he put oregano on them. On all of them, not just his portion.

后来，我烤球芽甘蓝时没有征求他的意见，因为我知道如何烤球芽甘蓝，而且烤得很好吃。但他还是走了过来，并坚持说需要增加调味料（除了我已经放了的盐、胡椒和大蒜之外），所以他在上面又撒了牛至。在所有的上面，而不只是他的那份上面。

We ate dinner and then moved to the couch, where we briefly entertained the idea of watching something on TV. But we both knew where this was going, so we went into my room and sat on my bed and — you know what happened next.

我们吃完晚饭后坐到了沙发上，在那里我们短暂地想过在电视上看点什么。但我们都知道这次约会会发生什么，所以我们走进了我的卧室，坐在了我的床上——你已经知道接下来发生了什么。

It was fine. And then, in the morning, he left at 7 “to grade papers.”

还算可以。然后，第二天早上，他7点钟就走了，因为“要判卷子”。

Whatever, dude. I saw him the next week, when he made it pretty obvious he wasn’t interested in me as a person. After that, we ghosted each other.

随你怎么说，哥们儿。我下周见到他时，他让我毫无疑问，他对我这个人没有兴趣。那之后，我们再没联系过。

Two months later, when it was clear I was still sick and the medicine wasn’t working, I underwent a procedure so they could see what was going on with my heart. During that process, they found a significant hole between my right ventricle and my aorta called a right ventricular fistula, which they sealed with a metal disc.

两个月后，我仍明显地病着，药物仍然不起作用，医生给我做了个手术，以知道我的心脏里发生了什么。在手术过程中，他们发现，我的右心室和主动脉之间有一个明显的、叫做右心室瘘管的洞，他们用一个小金属片把洞堵上。

Within weeks, my health improved. I had more energy, didn’t get winded walking down the street or climbing stairs, and had gained weight. Now, almost a year later, I’m back to my version of normal and no longer feel the specter of death looming over me.

几周后，我的健康状况大大改善。我有了更多的精力，在街上走路或爬楼梯时不再上气不接下气，体重也增加了。现在，差不多一年过去了，我又回到了我的正常状态，不再有被死亡阴影笼罩的感觉。

Given how things turned out, am I upset that I lost my virginity in a rush to a guy who didn’t matter?

考虑到事情的结局，我是不是很沮丧，我在匆忙之中，把初夜给了一个无关紧要的人呢？

Not really. I was going through a lot of things that weren’t normal.

其实不然。我经历了很多不正常的事情。

People like to say, “There’s no such thing as normal,” as if that’s supposed to make people who are abnormal feel better. But we all know the truth. Having 10 heart operations before age 30 is not normal. Having your health rapidly decline to the point that you think you’re dying at age 30 is not normal. Being a 30-year-old virgin is not normal.

人们喜欢说，“世上没有什么正常的事情，”好像这会让不正常的人感觉更好似的。但我们都知道真相。在30岁之前就已经做过10个心脏手术不正常；健康迅速衰弱以至于你认为自己30岁就会死亡也不正常；当一个30岁的处女不正常。

I saw an opportunity to feel a little more normal and took it. And now I’m just like every other woman who’s had a penis inside her.

我看到了一个让我有更正常感受的机会并抓住了这个机会。现在，我和其他与男人睡过的女人一样了。