《现代爱情》：分享还是不分享？定位共享如何改变我们的关系

这是你尽情玩耍的一天。这是你充分利用的早晨。

It's your day to play. It's your morning to make the most of.

这是你表达爱意的方式。这是你需要考虑的气候。这是你对'我该看什么？'的答案。这是你该存的钱。

It's your way to love. It's your climate to consider. It's your answer to what should I watch? It's your money to save.

这是你逐行分析的歌曲。

It's your song to analyze line by line.

这是你寻找片刻宁静的10种方法。

It's your 10 ways to find a little calm.

这是你需理解的世界。

It's your world to understand.

《纽约时报》。了解更多请访问nytimes.com/yourworld。此刻与永恒的爱。上次我爱上他们时坠入爱河。

The New York Times. Find out more at nytimes.com/yourworld. Love now and forever. Fall in love last time I love them.

爱比你爱过的任何事物都更强大。

Love is stronger than anything you love.

为了爱。

For the love.

爱。而我爱你胜过一切。

Love. And I love you more than anything.

爱。这里有爱。

Love. There's love.

这里是《纽约时报》，我是安娜·马丁。这里是《现代爱情》。我们的节目灵感来源于《现代爱情》专栏，以及关于爱、信任和与他人保持联系的所有混乱尝试。我父亲喜欢通过一个几乎每晚都会做的仪式来保持联系。睡前，他会拿出手机，打开‘查找朋友’应用，看到我和两个姐妹都在各自公寓的家里。

From The New York Times, I'm Anna Martin. This is Modern Love. Our show is inspired by the Modern Love column and by all the messiness of trying to love, trust, and stay connected to other people. One way my dad likes to stay connected is with a ritual he does basically every night. Before bed, he pulls out his phone, fires up the Find My Friends app, and sees that me and my two sisters are at home in our apartments.

看到这个后，他会在家庭群聊里发一条类似这样的消息：啊，我的三只小山雀都安全归巢了。很简单，很温馨。这是他表达爱意的方式，而这一切都得益于位置共享。我们最近邀请大家分享位置共享如何影响你们的关系，你们的来信塞满了我们的收件箱，讲述了你们与之共享位置的人，以及那些你们选择不共享的人。

And when he sees that, he sends a text to the family group chat that says something like, ah, my three little chickadees at home in their nest. It's simple. It's sweet. It's a way he expresses his love, and it's made possible by location sharing. We recently asked you to tell us how location sharing affects your relationships, and you filled our inbox with stories about the people you're sharing your location with and the people you're not.

我和一群朋友、我的父母以及弟弟共享位置。

I share my location with a bunch of my friends and my parents and my brother.

我们在一起大约三年了。从一开始就共享位置。我和前夫至今仍在共享位置。

We've been together for about three years. We've shared locations since the start. My ex husband and I are still sharing location.

我的孩子们晚上外出时，我们会试图查看他们深夜的位置，比如是否过了宵禁时间。

My children are out and about at night, we're trying to see where they are late if they're past curfew, for example.

起初我甚至不想这么做，因为感觉有点不舒服。

At first, I didn't even wanna do it because I just kinda felt icky about it.

目前，我不需要知道我女朋友24/7的行踪。

Right now, I don't need to know where my girlfriend is twenty four seven.

我很庆幸我们共享了位置服务，因为这让我很早就发现他在欺骗我。

I'm happy that we were sharing location services because I got to find out very early that he was cheating on me.

他两天后就要结婚了，却仍与前女友共享位置。

He is getting married in two days and still shares his location with his ex girlfriend.

为什么不呢？有什么好隐藏的？你们关于位置共享的经历，怎么说呢，五花八门。一些人坚决拒绝与任何人、在任何地方、任何时候共享位置。但很多人表示，这为他们的生活增添了真正有价值的东西。

Because why not? What is there to hide? Your experiences with location sharing were, there's kind of no other way to put this, all over the map. A handful of you absolutely unequivocally refuse to share your location with anyone, anywhere, ever. But a lot of you said it adds something really valuable to your lives.

我母亲多次打电话给我说，我迷路了。我怎么才能到达她想去的地方？我可以查看她的位置并告诉她怎么走。她喜欢这种被照顾的感觉，因为有我在关注她，而这与我成年子女对与我分享位置的感觉截然相反。

On multiple occasions, my mother has called me to say, I'm lost. How do I get to wherever it is she was going? And I could look at her location and tell her how to get there. She loves the feeling of being taken care of that she gets from having me watch her, which is the exact opposite of how my adult children feel about sharing their location with me.

我的弟弟大卫患有唐氏综合症。每当我见到他时，偶尔他会打开手机，显示我们俩在同一个地方，然后他就会突然开心起来。

My brother David has Down syndrome. And when I see him, every once in a while, he'll just, like, open up his phone, and he'll show that both of us are in the same place, and he'll just burst out in happiness.

大概徒步走了四十五分钟左右，我意识到自己完全迷路了。我看不懂手头的地图，最后只好打电话给我的伴侣。他居然能在地图上找到我的位置。我非常非常感激我们有追踪设备可用，因为我觉得自己可能找不到回去的路。所以我建议那些像我一样方向感不太好的情侣们使用它。

Probably about forty five minutes or so into the hike, I realized I was pretty lost. I couldn't make heads or tails of the map that I had, so I ended up calling my partner. He was actually able to locate me on the map. I was so, so grateful that we had the tracking device available to us because I don't think I would have found my way back. So I would recommend it for for couples who may be directionally challenged like myself.

另一方面，也有像接下来这个故事一样的情况，位置共享一开始还不错，但后来却变得糟糕。

On the flip side of that, there were stories like this next one where location sharing started off okay but took a bad turn.

我搬到了一个更大的新城市。所以第一次离开家乡，远离那些通常会知道我应该在哪儿、如果发生什么可怕事情会关心我的人，我有点紧张。所以能和两个非常好的闺蜜达成一致，互相分享位置，让我松了一口气。但这最终却助长了其中一位朋友的不安全感和嫉妒心，因为她可以随时查看我们的位置。她开始痴迷地检查我们的位置，然后我们会收到短信。

I moved to a new much larger city. So I was a little nervous about being away from my hometown for really the first time, away from all the people who would typically know where I should be and if something terrible happened to me. So it was a relief to make two really good girlfriends and all agree to just share our locations with one another. But it definitely ended up feeding into one of the friends just insecurity, jealousy, the fact that she could always check our locations. She started just obsessively checking our locations and we'd get a text.

嘿，不知道你们今晚要出去玩。为什么不邀请我？或者，嘿，我看到你在我最喜欢的咖啡店。

Hey. Didn't realize y'all were hanging out tonight. Why didn't you invite me? Or, hey. I see you're at my favorite coffee shop.

真希望能收到邀请。所以我基本上不得不因为这件事结束这段友谊。

Would have loved an invite. So I had to end the friendship basically over that.

能够看到某人的位置几乎就像拥有一种超能力。但就像任何超能力一样，必须负责任地使用。有时候这意味着直接关掉它。

Being able to see someone's location is almost like having a superpower. But like any superpower, it must be used responsibly. And sometimes that means just turning it off.

这段关系以一种不确定的方式结束了。在这种既像分手又不像的不确定时期，我开始非常痴迷地在任何时候查看她的位置。我们在一个大学校园里，范围很小，这开始变成不仅仅是心理上的焦虑，还有身体上的表现。比如，只要在她附近甚至任何地方，我都会感到不舒服，因为我知道她确切的位置。有一天晚上，我一个人走在街上，天快黑了，我戴着耳机听着一些戏剧性的音乐，打开手机看了看她的位置。

The relationship kind of ended on uncertain terms. And in this uncertain period of kind of breakup, kind of not, I started very obsessively checking her location at all hours. We're on a college campus in a very kind of contained radius, and it started turning into, like, not just, like, psychological anxiety, but, like, a physical manifestation. Like, I just would not feel comfortable around her or even anywhere because I knew exactly where she was. And one night, I was walking alone on the street, and it was dusk, and I had my headphones in and was listening to some sort of melodramatic music and opened my phone and looked at her location.

突然间，我意识到，我需要停下来。我想要自由的感觉。

And all of a sudden, there was just kind of a snap of, like, I need to stop. I wanna feel free.

显然，位置共享从根本上改变了我们的人际关系。无论你选择开启还是关闭，生活中总会有人对此产生某种感受，而每个人似乎都需要自己划定界限的路线图。在本期节目中，我与一位《现代爱情》专栏作家进行了交谈，他深陷于如何围绕位置共享划定个人界限的挣扎中，并向我讲述了一场家庭悲剧如何使这一决定的风险显得异常重大。请继续收听。

It's clear that location sharing has changed something fundamental about our relationships. Whether you opt in, whether you opt out, someone in your life is probably gonna feel some type of way about it, and everyone seems to need their own road map for where to draw the line. Today on the show, I talked to a Modern Love essayist who has wrestled deeply with drawing his personal line around location sharing, and he tells me how a family tragedy made the stakes of that decision feel exceptionally high. Stay with us.

我是彼得·贝克，《纽约时报》首席白宫记者，负责报道美国总统的新闻，自1996年以来我报道过每一位总统。如今独立新闻界面临的压力，比我从事新闻工作四十年来所经历的任何时候都要大。然而所有这些压力，恰恰提醒着我们新闻业为何如此重要。

I'm Peter Baker. I'm chief White House correspondent for The New York Times. I cover the president of The United States and I've covered every president since 1996. The pressure on an independent press today feels greater than at any time I've seen it in four decades as a journalist. All that pressure, though, is just a reminder of why journalism matters.

我们的职责是传递事实，帮助读者理解正在发生的事情，无论这可能给我们带来什么后果。如果他们惩罚我们，那就这样吧。我们仍将竭尽所能，以诚实、积极、公正和真实的态度进行报道。我的意思是，试想如果《纽约时报》不在白宫提出尖锐问题、挖掘新闻背后的故事、努力了解事态发展，这些问题可能就无人问津了。

Our job is to bring home facts, help our readers understand what's happening regardless of what the consequences may be to us. And if they punish us, so be it. We will still go out there and report as honestly and aggressively and fairly and truthfully as we can. I mean, look, if the New York Times were not at the White House asking the hard questions, looking for stories behind the stories, trying to understand what's going on. It's possible these questions don't get asked.

独立报道需要资源支持。您可以通过nytimes.com/subscribe订阅《纽约时报》来助力我们。

Independent reporting requires resources. You can support it by subscribing to The New York Times at nytimes.com/subscribe.

阿伦·杰伊·斯塔格斯小时候有广阔的天地可以自由探索。

When Arlen Jay Staggs was a little kid, he had a lot of room to wander.

无论你如何想象一个在阿拉巴马州乡村长大的男孩，那就是八十年代的真实模样。树林和小溪间遍布小径，而我们的父母从来不知道我们在哪里。

Whatever you picture of a boy growing up in rural Alabama, that's exactly what it looked like in the eighties. There were all of these trails through the woods and creeks, and our parents never knew where we were.

阿伦是三兄弟中最小的，但他的哥哥保罗和汉克仍然带着他参与各种冒险。

Arlen was the youngest of three boys. But his older brothers, Paul and Hank, they still let him in on a lot of the action.

我们度过了精彩的童年，尤其对男孩而言——我们互相扔石头，用瓶装火箭对射。说真的，那很危险。

We had a great childhood, especially for boys because we were throwing rocks at each other, shooting bottle rockets at one another. I mean, it was dangerous.

典型的男孩把戏，互相扔石头。是的。就像此刻你脑海中可能正在播放的八十年代电影画面那样，阿伦总能听到远处母亲呼唤他们回家的声音。

Boy stuff, throwing rocks at each other. Yeah. And just like that eighties movie that's probably playing in your head right now, Arlen could always hear his mom's voice in the distance when it was time to come running home again.

哪怕我在半英里外的树林里，也能听见母亲呼唤我的声音。她会走到后阳台大声呼喊，就像野生动物在森林中寻找幼崽时发出的呼唤。

I could be half a mile away in the woods, and I could hear my mother's voice calling me. She would go out on the back deck and just yell. It was like a wild animalistic mother calling her trying to find her young out in the woods.

随着阿伦年岁渐长，他开始渴望一种不同的自由。他的父母既虔诚又保守，当他意识到自己是同性恋时，愈发感到与他们的世界格格不入。于是他决定远离家乡，拉开与故土的距离。

As Arlen got older, he started to feel a need for a different kind of freedom. His parents were religious and conservative, and he felt like he didn't quite belong in their world, especially as he realized he was gay. So he decided to put some distance between himself and his hometown.

我记得开车去大学时循环播放U2乐队的磁带，记得自己放声高唱的模样。那条山路蜿蜒曲折，而我过弯时毫无顾忌——那大概是我第一次体会到自由的滋味。

I remember driving to college and playing my u two cassette. I remember seeing it at the top of my lungs. I remember the roads were windy and taking those sharp curves just like, you know, with abandon. And I think that was kind of the first moment I felt free.

最终阿伦在加州落脚。他向家人出柜并逐渐获得接纳，后来结婚成家，活出了自己想要的人生。但即便多年后，他仍对'离乡之子'的身份抱有复杂心绪。他告诉我，当母亲开始追踪他的行踪时，事情变得愈发微妙。

Eventually, Arlen landed in California. He came out to his family, which in time they accepted. Then he got married and built a life on his own terms. But even many years later, he still had lingering feelings about what it meant to be the son who left. And he told me that when his mom started tracking his location, things got more complicated.

阿伦·杰·斯塔格斯，欢迎来到《现代爱情》。

Arlen Jay Staggs, welcome to Modern Love.

很荣幸参与节目，谢谢邀请。

It is my pleasure to be here. Thank you.

阿伦，你在阿拉巴马州的亲密家庭中长大，却决定离开南方定居加州。当时你母亲作何反应？

So, Arlen, after growing up in this tight knit family in Alabama, you decide to leave the South and go live in California. How did your mother feel about that?

她完全崩溃了。你

She was devastated. You

知道，

know,

我父母最后回到母校任教，终生未离开过出生的小镇——这种坚守很动人，我也为他们高兴。但加州对他们而言...不仅是地理距离，更重要的是思维方式和文化的鸿沟。

my parents ended up teaching at the high school that they graduated from. They lived in the same hometown their whole lives, which there's something very sweet about that, and I love that for them. But I think just California was so I mean, in distance, yes, it's far, but just in mindset and culture, it's so far away for them.

远走他乡会让你感到愧疚吗？

Did you feel guilty for moving so far away?

是啊，某种程度上我现在仍有这种感觉。就像我们之间有个不成文的约定，而我打破了它。尽管我们从未明确说过这个约定，没人曾正式宣布过——比如全家坐下来规定‘在这个家里，谁也不准搬去加州，大家同意吗？’

Yeah. In some ways I still do. It's almost like there's an agreement we all had, and I broke that agreement. Even though we never stated that agreement, nobody had ever said, you know, we never sat down and said, okay, in this family, you're not allowed to move to California. Does everybody agree?

对。但我心里清楚我不该那么做。

Yeah. But I I knew I wasn't supposed to do that.

能说说你最初是怎么开始和母亲共享位置信息的吗？这是谁的主意？

Can you tell me about how you first started sharing your location with your mom? Whose idea was it?

我记得是她的提议，但我完全不抗拒。我丈夫德鲁和我在佛罗里达有间度假屋，虽然住在圣地亚哥，但经常往返两地。第一次长途驾车时，我妈就说‘能把手机定位打开让我们看到你们吗？’

I remember it being her idea, but I was not resistant to it at all. So Drew is my husband. He and I had a vacation rental in Florida. We lived in San Diego, but we would drive back and forth. And the first time that we did it, my mom was like, you know, can you turn on your location on your phone so that we can see you?

我觉得这主意很棒，万一出事至少有人知道我们在哪。而且她通过追踪我们每日行程获得了很大安心，看着我们每天开到哪儿对她来说也挺有趣。横穿美国大约要四天，她会说‘我看到你们到阿肯色州了’或者‘今天开得挺快嘛’之类的话。

So I thought this is a great idea because if something did happen, somebody would know where we were. And I think she found a lot of peace in kind of following our daily progress. It was kind of fun for her to, you know, see how far we got each day. And it took about four days to drive across the country. She would be like, well, I see you're in Arkansas, or it looks like you're getting close, or you made really good time today, or whatever.

但后来和母亲共享位置逐渐成了问题。能具体说说发生了什么吗？

But then at some point, location sharing with your mom started to become kind of a problem. Can you tell me what happened with that?

当我发现她看到我的位置后就会虚构担忧时，问题就出现了。有次我带狗狗奇普去兽医那儿，当天晚些时候她打电话问‘奇普没事吧？’我说‘它很好啊，怎么这么问？’

I think when I started to notice that she would see me in a location and then make up a concern about it Mhmm. Then it became an issue. So one time I took Chip, my dog, to the vet and my mom called later that day and she was like, is everything okay with Chip? And I was like, yes, he's fine. Why?

就是...你为什么要问这个？

Like, why and why are you asking that?

你是不是知道些什么？我都不认识你了。

Do you know something? I don't know you.

嗯。她说‘我只是注意到你今天去了宠物医院，担心出了什么事’。顺便说它根本没病，就是年度体检。那是我第一次觉得‘这有点越界了’

Yeah. And she said, well, I just noticed that you were at the vet's office today, and I worried that something bad happened. And by the way, nothing was wrong with him. It was literally just like an annual checkup. That was the first time I was like, okay, that's a little bit too invasive.

别盯着我看。你知道的，比如，我在宠物医院跟你没关系。所以我大概等了好几天，直到确认她已经在阿拉巴马州睡下，而加州可能还早，我就悄悄关闭了位置共享。

Stop watching me. You know, like, it's none of your business that I'm at the vet. And so I waited probably a few days and then just kind of once I knew she was had gone to bed and it was late in Alabama and maybe still early in California, I just, you know, discreetly unshared my location.

她发现了吗？

Did she notice?

发现了。嗯，不过她隔了一阵子才注意到。

Yes. Yeah. But but it took her a while.

嗯哼。

Mhmm.

我关掉定位后，大概两三周后她突然说：'嘿，我看不到你的位置了，怎么回事？'于是我又重新打开了共享。结果有一天我出门办事，手机在口袋里不小心给她打了好几个无声电话。

I turned it off, and maybe two or three weeks later, she was like, hey, I can't see your location anymore. You know, what happened? So after that, I turned location sharing back on. And then one day I'm running errands. My phone was in my pocket and I was unknowingly butt dialing her.

这种误拨大概发生了七八次——顺便说我对这事太熟悉了，因为我名字首字母是A，经常被误拨。所以...

And I did this probably seven or eight times, which by the way, I'm very familiar with because since my name starts with a, this happens to me a lot. So

因为你是通讯录里排第一的'香蕉先生'啊朋友。

because I'm You're talking first to banana, my friend.

没错。不是。

That's right. No.

你...

Do you

也经常被误拨吗？我确实。不过我从来不会往坏处想，直接关掉手机就算了。但那次我回到车上才发现，她可能每次误拨后都回电了，还发短信问：'出什么事了？'

get butt dialed a lot too? Me Yeah. So but for me, I don't ever assume the worst. I just turn my phone off or whatever. But when I got back in the car and I realized that she had I think she had even maybe called back each time and she had texted me like, what's going on?

你为什么一直给我打电话？于是我打给她，她编了个完整的故事，说她害怕我被绑架锁在后备箱里，或者可能躺在某个沟渠里，而我能和她联系的唯一方式就是误拨电话。

And why do you keep calling me? And so I called her, and she made up this whole story about how she was afraid that I had been kidnapped and locked in a trunk and or maybe I was in a ditch somewhere, and the only way I could communicate with her was like butt dialing for But

她能看到你的位置啊。她难道不能说你在某个...

she could see your location. Couldn't she say She that you were in like a

她看到我在山姆会员店。所以我觉得她以为我被绑在停车场某辆车的后备箱里。

saw me. She saw me in the Sam's Club. So I think she thought I was in the parking lot tied up in the trunk of a car.

你现在在笑，但听起来她当时真的很害怕。

I mean, you're laughing now, but it sounds like she was really scared.

是啊。我不确定她对这个解释有多执着，但那就是她的理解。而且当时我很清楚她真的往坏处想了。说实话，我不确定让她知道我的行踪有多大意义。

Yeah. I mean, I don't know how committed she was to that interpretation, but that was the interpretation she had. And and it was clear to me at that point that she's really going to a dark place about it. Yeah. And I don't know how much it serves her to know where I am.

之后我就又把位置共享关掉了。

And after that, I turned location sharing back off.

你该不会多年来一直这样开开关关位置共享吧？可能有持续一年？好吧好吧。

Were you just turning on and off and on and off and on and off your location sharing for, like, years? Maybe for a year. Okay. Okay.

我通常都怪到技术头上。那是我的万能替罪羊。

I usually blamed it on technology. That was my go to scapegoat.

什么意思？

What do you mean?

我会说，天啊，我手机肯定又自动更新了，可能把定位关掉了。我这就给你重新打开——我总是把责任推给iPhone。绝不会直接承认是我关的。

Is I would say, well, I would say, oh my gosh, my phone must have updated again or, you know, and it must have turned my location off. Let me turn that back on for you. Like, I would blame the iPhone. I would never say, yeah. Well, I turned it off.

为什么呢？

Because why?

这个问题我得好好想想，因为我真的不知道。可能我觉得直接关掉位置共享比讨论这件事更简单。按个按钮比坐下来谈‘妈妈，我们聊聊界限吧，聊聊哪些可以哪些不行’更省事。而且我离开家乡这件事一直是个心结。

This is one of those questions I have to think about because I don't know really. I guess it felt easier to just keep going through the process of turning it off than having a conversation about it. It felt more efficient to press a button than to sit down and say, mom, let's talk about boundaries. Let's talk about what's okay and what's not okay. And there's this history of I left where I'm from.

我离开了家。所以我不确定是自己背负了‘不孝子’的罪名，还是她根本不在乎在兽医诊所看到我、为Chip可能遭遇的事情难过。这始终是关于那个未解决的破裂约定。

I left I left home. So I don't know if I just took on it like I was the bad son that didn't stay or it was never about her seeing me at the vet and getting upset about what might or might not have happened to Chip. It was always about this unresolved kind of broken agreement.

听起来这不像是你妈妈对你说的话吧？更像是你对自己的指责？

That does not seem like something your mom was saying to you. Right? Like, this was something you were saying to yourself.

完全正确。

Absolutely.

所以除了位置共享对她可能没帮助之外，我觉得对你也没好处。你看，它让你对自己说了很多刻薄的话。

So in addition to location sharing maybe not being so helpful for her anymore, it strikes me that it also was not so helpful for you. Right? Like, it's making you talk quite unkindly to yourself.

是啊，确实如此。

Yeah. For sure.

但我很想理解这部分——你内心觉得有义务向她汇报行踪？

But part of you I really wanna understand this. Like, part of you felt like you owed her this information about where you were?

对，百分之百。尤其在我哥哥保罗失踪后，我觉得欠她这个。

Yeah. A 100%. I felt like I owed it to her, I think, especially after my brother Paul went missing.

我们稍后继续。阿伦，能告诉我你哥哥保罗发生了什么吗？我

We'll be right back. Arlen, can you tell me what happened with your brother Paul? I

我想，整个事情的催化时刻或者说导火索，是当我妈妈接到阿拉巴马州阿拉巴斯特市警局的电话。他们在65号州际公路上找到了我弟弟。他有相当严重的妄想症，总是听到脑中有声音，还声称有人在追杀他而四处逃窜。你知道，接到这种电话非常震惊，因为保罗以前只是有点小问题。

guess the the catalytic moment or the the catalyst for all of it was when my mom got a phone call from the Alabaster, Alabama Police Department. And they had picked my brother up on Interstate 65. He had pretty extreme paranoia. He was hearing voices in his head, and he was running from people that he claimed were trying to kill him. And, you know, this a very shocking phone call to get because Paul had always been a little troubled.

小时候，我只记得他经常被禁足，你知道的，就是那种青少年式的摔门而出，从他房间里传来震耳欲聋的八十年代金属乐。这种状态伴随了他一生，他好像永远无法安定下来，但从未严重到精神疾病的程度。

And as a kid, I just remember him being grounded a lot and, you know, lots of teenage door slamming and loud eighties metal music playing from his room. And that just kind of continued through his life, you know, like he was just constantly unsettled, but he was never at that level of, you know, a mental illness.

然后

And

所以那一刻，在某种意义上算是惊醒了我们所有人，让我们意识到保罗身上正在发生某种极其严重的问题。

so that was kind of the first moment that to kind of, in a sense, woke us all up to like something deeply troubling is going on with Paul.

你们后来弄清楚保罗的情况了吗？

Did you eventually find out what was happening with Paul?

当时他被诊断为大麻诱发性精神病。

At the time, he was diagnosed with cannabis induced psychosis.

明白了。

Okay.

但让我困惑的是，根据我查阅的资料，这类病例即使严重，症状通常也会逐渐消退。但他的没有，反而持续恶化。

And what doesn't make sense about that to me is, from what I've read about that, is most cases they can be that severe, but then it kind of goes away. It tapers off. And his did not. His continued and even got worse.

你说情况恶化时，能具体描述下表现吗？

When you say things got worse, can you share a little bit about what that means?

好的。起初服药后有所好转，药物确实起了作用。他在父母家住过一阵子。我父母和他约定：只要按时服药，想住多久都行。但某天他突然说不想再吃药了。

Yeah. Well, they got a little better in the beginning because they gave him some medication, which helped. And he lived with my parents for a while. And the deal with my parents was, you know, they said you can live in our home as long as you need to, but you have to take your medication. And one day he just said, you know, I don't wanna take it anymore.

我要走了。然后他真的走了。

I'm going to leave. And he did.

后来呢？你知道他在哪里吗？

And then what? Did you know where he was?

不知道。我是说，我们会接到一些电话。妈妈接到的第一个电话是从塔拉哈西打来的。塔拉哈西的当局人员基本上是从某个池塘或沼泽里救了他。我记得他们提到那片水域里有鳄鱼。他总是把那些想杀他的人叫做暴徒。

No. I mean, we would get these calls. The first call that mom got was from Tallahassee. And the authorities in Tallahassee had essentially rescued him from some kind of pond or swamp. I remember they mentioned that there were alligators in the body of water that he was And he always called the people that were trying to kill him the goons.

他还声称那些暴徒在他皮肤上下了毒。所以他泡在水里是想洗掉皮肤上的毒。

And he was claiming that the goons had put poison on his skin. So he was in that water trying to wash the poison off of his skin.

天啊。

Oh my gosh.

后来他们又接到一个来自德克萨斯州泰勒市的电话，是一家精神病院打来的。护士和我妈妈聊了聊。我记得妈妈说，护士的兄弟也有类似的状况。她说除非他们吃药，否则真的无能为力。那应该是妈妈接到的最后一个电话了。

And then they got a call from Tyler, Texas, and it was a psychiatric hospital. And, you know, the nurse had a conversation with my mom. And I remember mom said that her brother, they're like the nurse's brother also had a similar condition. And she was like, unless they take their meds, there's really nothing you can do. And and that was the last call that mom got, I think.

不知道保罗在哪里是什么感觉？对你来说情绪上是什么样的？

What was it like not knowing where Paul was? What was that like for you emotionally?

我想说我当时非常担心保罗，真的很想出去帮他。但我觉得汉克和我都变得特别保护妈妈，因为她对保罗的担忧已经足以代表所有人了。我开始看到她在那份失去中迷失自我。她会反复不停地跟我们讲述所有细节，一直回溯到阿拉巴马州的阿拉巴斯特，精确复述警察在电话里说了什么，医院接待员穿了什么衣服，甚至她在咖啡馆买的松饼是什么味道。我想这是她在说‘我们是怎么走到这一步的’，她需要理清自己是如何失去儿子的。

I'd like to say that I had this deep concern for Paul and I really wanted to go out and help Paul. But I think Hank and I both became very protective of mom because she was worried about Paul enough for everybody that I was starting to see her lose herself in that loss. And she would get lost in telling us all the specific details over and over and over again. We would go all the way back to Alabaster, Alabama and exactly what the police officer said on the phone, exactly what the receptionist at the hospital was wearing, exactly what the muffin tasted like in the cafe where she bought a muffin. I think it was her way of saying this is how we got here, and I need to make sense of how I lost my son.

阿伦，在那之后不久，你的家庭经历了一个非常突然的失去。能告诉我发生了什么吗？

Arlen, not too long after that, your family experiences a really sudden loss. Can you tell me what happened?

好的。2022年我爸爸去做一个心脏手术，本来只是要更换一个支架。这应该是个非常简单的手术，甚至不需要麻醉。

Yeah. Yeah. My dad went in for a heart procedure in 2022, and he was just gonna have like a stent replaced. It's supposed to be a very easy procedure. You know, they don't even use anesthesia.

但当他们完成手术，固定好支架后，他的心脏骤停，最终没能挺过来。

But when they were done with the procedure, they fixed the stent and he coded and he didn't make it.

天啊，我真的很抱歉。

Oh my gosh. I'm so sorry.

谢谢。

Thanks.

这对你的家人来说实在太难承受了。

That is so much for your family to go through.

是啊。记得在爸爸的葬礼上，我和哥哥汉克都致了悼词。我突然中途停下来，请求在场的众人为保罗祈祷。我祈求上帝向我们显明他的下落。四个月后，他被发现死在拉斯维加斯。

Yeah. Well, I remember at dad's funeral, my brother Hank and I both gave a eulogy. I just remember stopping in the middle And I asked the congregation if we could pray for Paul. And I prayed that God would show us where he is. And four months later, he was found dead in Las Vegas.

你是怎么得知保罗去世的消息的？

How did you find out about Paul's passing?

我接到拉斯维加斯验尸官办公室的电话。那是周二接到的通知。周三是我妈妈的生日，紧接着周四就是感恩节。

I got a call from the coroner's office in Las Vegas. Like on Tuesday, I get the call. My mom's birthday is Wednesday, And then Thanksgiving is on Thursday.

我的天。

My gosh.

于是我打电话给汉克说，我们得去告诉妈妈。当时我在佛罗里达，他在纳什维尔。我开车出发，我们在阿拉巴马州的妈妈家汇合。

So I called Hank and I said, we need to go and tell mom. I was in Florida at the time. He was in Nashville. So I get in the car. We meet at my mom's house in Alabama.

对了，我记得当时还打开了手机定位。

And, yeah, I remember turning on my location.

当时是你在开车。是你在开车。我以为

Well, you were doing the drive. You were doing the drive. I thought

是我在开车。我们本打算和她共进晚餐，庆祝她的生日，然后再告诉她。而

I was doing the drive. And we were gonna have dinner with her, celebrate her birthday, and then tell her. And

嗯。当你告诉她的时候，那是什么感觉？

yeah. When you did tell her, what was that like?

我找不到合适的词来形容。但父亲去世时，那是一种非常纯粹的悲伤，就像我们所说的那种悲痛。保罗去世时，确实有悲伤，但其中还混杂着解脱和了结的感觉。

I don't have the word for it. But when dad passed away, it was what I would call a very pure grief. Like when we say grief, what we're talking about. When Paul passed, there was definitely grief, but it was mixed with relief and closure.

你们知道他在哪里。

You knew where he was.

我们知道他在哪里。我记得我们俩就这样抱着她。她哭了很久很久，感觉像是过了很长时间。我记得我当时身体的姿势特别不舒服，腿都麻了，背也开始疼。

We knew where he was. And I remember both of us just holding her. She just cried and cried and cried for what felt like a really long time. And I remember I was The position of my body was so uncomfortable. My leg was falling asleep and my back was starting to hurt.

但我就是不能打破我们抱着她时形成的那团‘人形茧’。

And, but I could not break that blob that we made by hugging her.

这词用的。我是说，确实...在一团‘茧’里。嗯。你提到开车回家告诉母亲保罗去世的消息时，你重新打开了定位共享。

What a word. I mean, it's just yeah. In a blob. Mhmm. You said when you were driving back home to tell your mother about Paul's passing, you turned your location back on.

嗯。后来有关掉过吗？

Yeah. Did you ever turn it off again?

有。可能是我某次去独自旅行反思、哀悼和祈祷时，不知道为什么又关掉了。几个月后，妈妈来佛罗里达看我。我送她去机场时，陪她走到TSA安检线那里。

Yeah. I mean, maybe I had gone on one of my trips to reflect and grieve and pray, and I don't know what prompted me to turn it off, but at some point I did turn it off again. And then a few months later, mom comes to visit me in Florida. And I was taking her back after her visit to the airport. And then I come in and I kind of walk her to the TSA line.

我记得我拥抱了她，道别时说‘我爱你’。我就那样站在那里望着她。她把身份证递给警官，开始把包放到传送带上，悲伤瞬间淹没了我。

And I remember I hugged her, said goodbye. I love you. I'm just kind of standing there watching her. And she hands her ID to the officer. She starts to put her bag upon the machine, and the sadness overwhelmed me.

看着她独自完成所有手续的场景，我总觉得该有人陪她登机。该有人帮她将随身行李放入头顶行李舱。该有人陪伴在她身边。她向来被这些坚强的男性环绕，如今却要独自面对一切。

That scene of her doing all those things all by herself. I just felt like somebody should be getting on that plane with her. Somebody should be putting her carry on in the overhead bin for her. Somebody should be there with her. She's just kind of always been surrounded by these strong men, and now she's doing all this by herself.

顺便说，并非否定她是个极其坚强的女性。当然。

And by the way, not to she's an incredibly strong woman. Of course. Of

当然。

course.

丝毫没有贬低她的意思。崩溃的不是她，是我。

Not to invalidate her at all. And she wasn't falling apart, I was.

是啊。是啊。

Yeah. Yeah.

然后，深埋心底的是那些年——我逃去加州的日子，缺席的岁月。生日时只是打电话送花，从未出席派对。我回到车里，任由自己哭泣，为父亲哭，为保罗哭，也为她哭。正是在机场停车场车里的那一刻，我突然需要与她共享定位。这种需求如此强烈，几乎让我变回那个迷路的小男孩。

And then, you know, what's there underneath it all is just all the years that I had run away to California and all the years that I wasn't there. And the birthdays where I just called and sent flowers and I wasn't there for the party, I went back to my car and just sort of allowed myself to cry, to cry about dad, to cry about Paul, to cry about her. And that was the moment when I'm sitting there in my car in the airport parking lot where I needed to share my location with her. Like I needed it. And I almost felt like it was almost like being a little boy again.

就像在森林里迷路时会喊‘我在这儿’。你再也不用猜测我的去向。正是这个举动开始带给我平静，因为知道她能由此获得安宁。

Like there I was lost in the woods and I'm gonna say, here I am. And you don't ever have to wonder where I am. And that's when it started to give me peace to know that she could get peace by looking at that.

阿伦，你说得很有意思。我们一直在讨论定位共享，但我突然意识到，其实我们谈论的是你的家庭关系对吧？那些复杂、欢乐、心碎又美好的家庭关系。我是说...

You know, Arlen, it's interesting you say that because we've been talking all this time about location sharing, but it strikes me that, you know, really what we're talking about is your family relationships. Right? Your complicated, joyful, devastating, beautiful family relationships. I mean, it's it's

是的。我们也在探讨边界与悲痛之间的舞蹈，看二者如何交织。因为正是悲痛让边界消融。最简单的例子就是：如果我在街上遇见你安娜，突然抱住你会非常奇怪。

Yeah. And we're also talking about this dance between boundaries and grief and how the two interact. Yeah. You know, because it was the grief that had the boundary fall away. I think it's almost like, I think the simplest example of that is it would be really weird for me to pass you on the street, Anna, and then just grab you and hug you.

但如果我在街上遇见你，得知你刚失去爱犬，这时我上前拥抱你并不显得突兀，因为悲痛会改变人际界限。我想我们讨论的或许正是这个现象。

But if I were to pass you on the street and I know you just lost your dog, it would not be weird for me to grab you and hug you because the grief changes that boundary. And I think maybe that's what we're having a conversation about.

是啊。这远比拨动一个小小的开关复杂得多。

Yeah. It's just so much more than toggling a little switch.

确实如此。这绝对是一种爱的行为。

It is. It it it definitely feels like an act of love.

阿伦·J·斯塔格斯，非常感谢你今天参与这场对话。

Arlen j Staggs, thank you so much for this conversation today.

这是我的荣幸。我十分享受这次交流，谢谢你。

It's been my pleasure. I've loved it. Thank you.

若想阅读启发本期节目的文章，可在节目备注中查看链接。《现代爱情》团队包括艾米·珀尔、克里斯蒂娜·约瑟夫、戴维斯·兰德、艾米丽·朗、珍·波扬特、林恩·利维、里瓦·戈德堡和莎拉·柯蒂斯。本期由里瓦·戈德堡制作，林恩·利维与珍·波扬特编辑，埃菲姆·夏皮罗混音，马迪·马谢洛和尼克·皮特曼提供录音室支持。

If you'd like to read the essay that inspired this episode, you can find the link in our show notes. The Modern Love team is Amy Pearl, Christina Joseph, Davis Land, Emily Lang, Jen Poyant, Lynn Levy, Riva Goldberg, and Sarah Curtis. This episode was produced by Riva Goldberg. It was edited by Lynn Levy and Jen Poyant. This episode was mixed by Efem Shapiro with studio support from Maddie Masiello and Nick Pittman.

事实核查由威尔·佩舍尔负责。节目主题音乐由丹·鲍威尔创作，本期原创音乐来自艾丽莎·莫克斯利、丹·鲍威尔、马里昂·洛萨诺和帕特·麦库斯克。特别感谢米希玛·乔布拉尼和杰弗里·米兰达。《现代爱情》专栏由丹尼尔·琼斯编辑。

Fact checking by Will Peischel. The Modern Love theme music is by Dan Powell. Original music in this episode by Alyssa Moxley, Dan Powell, Marion Lozano, and Pat McCusker. Special thanks to Mihima Choblani and Jeffrey Miranda. The Modern Love column is edited by Daniel Jones.

李米娅是《现代爱情》项目的编辑。若有意向《纽约时报》投稿散文或微型爱情故事，节目备注中附有投稿指南。我是安娜·马丁，感谢您的收听。

Mia Lee is the editor of Modern Love Projects. If you'd like to submit an essay or a tiny love story to the New York Times, we have the instructions in our show notes. I'm Anna Martin. Thanks for listening.