Imagine you are carrying around a faux Prada bag you bought for six dollars. It looks real. It feels real. But how long can you keep convincing yourself that it is?

想象一下你背著六美元淘來的山寨普拉達四處奔走的場景。它看起來是真的，摸起來也很真。可你究竟要自欺欺人多久呢?

Relationships all too often work the same way. Eventually, the fake label falls off, the seams bust, the handles break. The quality just isn’t there.

感情也常常是這樣的。到最后，仿造的標志會掉，接縫會開線，手柄會壞，質量堪憂。

There are many days we feel clueless, and riddled by blind spots. We rarely understand the difference between ’faux and full’ when it comes to relationships. Too often our relationships masquerade as real, and we spend countless months trying to build on something to get us to the next phase, only to discover that we’re trapped by a faux love that’s actually going nowhere.

很多時候，我們沒有頭緒，被一葉障目。我們在感情里很難分清“山寨和正品”的區別，它常常偽裝得如此真實。我們花了無數的時間依賴于它，希望自己得到升華，卻只發現自己被困在一段虛假的感情中，毫無進展。

When a relationship is real, it’s growing; it’s going somewhere. You have shared interests, and there’s an unspoken acceptance. And without these building blocks in place, you’re setting yourself up for a pile of agony and heartache.

真實的感情是看得到未來的。雙方有共同的利益和默契。沒有這些作為基礎，你將深陷痛苦和心碎中。

Even from the beginning, in that very first week, we all know when something is wrong. It’s very easy to absorb misinformation, to create and spread an underlying assumption that you’re somehow incomplete if you haven’t found your soul mate.

甚至在感情伊始，在最初的一個禮拜，如有不妥我們是察覺得到的。我們很容易接受一種錯誤的信息，形成并且傳播一種潛在的假設：沒有靈魂伴侶的人生不完整。

Try taking this litmus test: The next time you are facing a snag of doubt, try going back to the first week you met, or an early moment where you felt something was off. Take a minute and see how your body feels; you may experience uneasiness or a bit of fear. Your body is telling you something crucial. Trust it, explore it, and it will reveal what you need to know.

那就試著做這樣一個“石蕊(一種指示劑)測試”吧：下一次你再有疑慮、躊躇不前的時候，不妨試試回到你們最初相遇的那一周，或者你最初察覺到不妥的那一刻。靜下心來花點時間，看看你的身體作何感受。你可能會感受到些許不安或懼怕。你身體告訴你的正是很關鍵的東西，去相信它、去挖掘它，它自然會給你透露你想要的。

It isn’t wrong to want an ideal love. We all want one. And we have a perfect right to believe that such a love is possible in this life. Not a faux love. A full love.

追求理想中的愛情并不是錯，世人皆如此。我們也有權力去相信，人生中這樣的愛是可尋的。不是偽裝的愛，而是真實的愛。