全球觅妻大冒险

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   因为渴望爱,英国小伙子艾伦·威斯在网上面向全世界发出了一个恳求:我要一个妻子!这个恳求得到惊人的热烈回响。那么,在13个国家进行了53次约会以后,他最终找到了命中的那位爱侣吗?
  
  There can be few men on Earth who have not, at some time, dreamed of devising a method of attracting women which was so 1)ingenious it would lead to hundreds of offers from beautiful women all over the world.
  Allan Wills is the man who devised just such a system—the man who 2)hit the babe lottery when he dreamed up the website, areyoumywife.com. It was a simple enough device: a plea to women
  everywhere. Here I am, he was saying, come and get me. “My name is Allan Wills and I will go anywhere in the world for the right date,” it read. “I will leave no stone unturned and no avenue unexplored.” And so the Wife Hunter was born—and the thought of becoming The Wife he chose was to prove a challenge too irresistible to 3)pass up for many, many women.
  Soon, 4)clogging up his inbox, were around 1,000 missives from across the world. Women wanted him in Hungary, in France, Canada, Australia and China. Not all were in it for true love. Some were after a British passport—and were quite open about the fact. Another woman wanted to know his earning potential. A woman being forced into an arranged marriage in India wondered whether she might reach an “arrangement” with him instead. But there were many others who were simply young, single and beautiful and in search of adventure—and Allan could pick the 5)cream of the crop.
  Such was the interest that Allan, 30, decided to give up his job as a marketing project manager in
  6)Soho, Central London, and devote himself to his unique 7)amorous adventure. He gave himself one year to meet “The One”, and after an 8)odyssey that took in 13 countries and dates with 53 women, he has settled on Claire Marjoram, a 28-year-old building manager. Given that he has travelled many
  thousands of miles in search of lasting love, the irony has not escaped him that Claire works in
  9)Belgravia, just a few miles from Soho. The pair are now living together in Claire’s flat in North-West London and are hoping to get engaged.
  Allan, the son of a retired engineer and an artist, thought up his plan last summer after becoming 10)disillusioned with the dating scene in London. “I don’t think conventional dating brings out the true colours in a person,” he says. “You go to a restaurant and put £200 on the table at the end of the evening, yet usually you haven’t got to know the girl at all. It’s an artificial situation. It’s like going to a job interview. You’re wearing your best clothes and on your best behaviour, and the real you is hidden behind the veneer.
  “I’d also tried internet dating, but it didn’t work out at all. You have these long chats on e-mail before you go on a date, but you don’t really get to know the person at all. Then you meet the girl and discover the picture she put on the net was taken in high school ten years ago. My parents have a very solid marriage, and I guess that was my model.”
  One of the things that caught women’s attention was that Allan let it be known that he would be responsive to the more unusual and challenging offers. His first date was with a Londoner called Maggie, who requested that he jump in a lake during their first meeting—which he duly did after they met up in one of the capital’s parks. But he was not attracted to her, so his quest started out as a bit of a 11)damp squib. There was another woman who suggested a 12)James Bond-style date in a casino. “It was a total 13)let-down,” he says 14)ruefully. “She was a corporate woman who was more interested in her 15)Blackberry than conversation.”
  Wandering the streets of Paris with Stephanie; exploring Budapest in Hungary with Tamara; cross-country skiing with Sandra in Vancouver; intellectual conversation with Emily, who writes for sex magazines, in 16)Brighton. And so it went on, and on and on, as the year progressed.
  By now, Allan was receiving e-mails critical of what some saw as his “17)cavalier behaviour”. There were bitter women out there. Allan says, however, that while the impression he might have given was that he was going out with lots of dif-ferent women, falling in and out of different beds, that was not the case. “I was very aware that I had to respect the women I met.”
  Still, it sounds as though Claire, a 28-year-old building manager, came on to the scene 18)in the nick of time.
  What was it about Allen that attracted Claire? “I was working very long hours at work and there was stuff going on in my private life that was rather complicated. The idea of going on a date with no pressure really appealed to me. It would be a date with all the fun but none of the stress. I couldn’t expect any promises from him, and vice versa,” she says. “Because of what I’d read about Allen, I’d expected someone a bit arrogant and 19)egotistical, but he was nothing like that. He was 20)down-to-earth and relaxed, and he made me laugh.”
  Allan says that after meeting Claire, his heart was no longer in it. This weekend, Claire will meet Allan’s parents—one more sign that they are on the road to the altar. Now, Allan is hopeful that Claire may one day become his wife.
  


  


  


  
  几乎全世界所有的男人都曾经梦想能想出一种巧妙的方式吸引女人,使得世界各地数以百计的美女们向自己发出约会邀请。
  艾伦·威斯这个男人就想出了这样一种方式——他创建了areyoumywife.com(“你是我的妻子吗”)这样一个网站,并真的如愿抱得美人归。这不过是一个极其简单的方式:向世界各地的女人发出恳求。他的讯息是,我在这里,来得到我吧。“我的名字叫艾
  伦·威斯,我愿意去到世界任何角落结识我的意中人,”他在网站上写道,“我将不放过任何一个机会去赴约。”觅妻男人就这样诞生了,而后来的事实表明,竞逐成为他心目中的妻子成为了一个令许许多多女人跃跃欲试的挑战。
  不久,大约1000封来自世界各地的邮件便塞满了他的收件箱。匈牙利、法国、加拿大、澳大利亚和中国的一些女人都想和他约会。并不是每个发来邀请的人都是为了寻找真爱。有些是为了获得英国护照,并对此事实直言不讳。有个女人想知道他赚钱的潜力有多大。还有个印度女人被迫接受一场家庭包办婚姻,她想知道能不能换作跟艾伦达成“协议”结婚。但也有很多年轻漂亮的单身女人只是为了寻求冒险带来的刺激感——而艾伦可以挑选其中的佼佼者进行约会。
  就是这种冒险的趣味性,令30岁的艾伦决定放弃伦敦中心苏活区的营销项目经理职位,全心致力于他这场独特的求爱之旅。他给自己一年的时间寻找“命中的爱侣”。在13个国家进行了53次约会的长时间冒险之旅后,他安下心来和28岁的建筑经理克莱尔·马乔栾谈恋爱了。由于他旅行了数千英里寻找能与他厮守一生的人,他认识到此事的反讽意味:克莱尔在伦敦贝尔格拉维亚区的写字楼工作,与苏活区只相隔几英里。如今,这对情侣在克莱尔位于伦敦西北部的公寓里同居,并打算订婚。
  艾伦的父母分别是一位已退休的工程师及一位艺术家。他是去年夏天受伦敦的约会场面启发,从而想到他这个计划的。“我不认为传统的约会方式能让一个人展现出真实的自我。”他说,“你们去餐厅吃饭,然后在约会结束时把200英镑放在桌上结帐,然而通常情况下,这时你还是根本不了解和你约会的女孩。这是个刻意营造出来的场面,就像应聘时面试一样。你穿着自己最好的衣服,尽量举止得体,而真正的你被隐藏在外表背后。”
  “我也尝试过网络约会,但根本没用。在你约见一个人以前,你通过邮件和对方进行了多次长谈,但你根本没有真正了解那个人。然后你去见那个女孩,发现她放在网上的照片是10年前念高中时拍的。我父母的婚姻关系很牢固,我想那就是我的婚姻典范。”
  艾伦全球觅妻的恳求吸引女人注意力的一点是,他让她们知道,他会回应那些相对不寻常的具有挑战性的约会邀请。他的第一个约会对象是一个名叫玛吉的伦敦女孩。在他们初次见面时,她要求他跳进一个湖里——他们在首都的一个公园里见面时,艾伦确实马上用行动回应了。但那个女人对于他没有吸引力,因此他的觅妻之旅开始得并不顺畅。还有个女人建议在赌场里进行一次詹姆斯·邦德风格的约会。“那真让人失望。”他一脸愁容地说道,“她是个职业女性,相比交谈,她显然对她那部黑莓手机更感兴趣。”
  和斯蒂芬妮漫步在巴黎街头;和匈牙利的塔玛拉一同探访布达佩斯;和温哥华的桑德拉越野滑雪;和布赖顿的为性杂志撰稿的艾米丽讨论知性话题。随着这一年的时光一点一点地流逝,艾伦的觅妻之旅也在不断进行着。
  到目前为止,艾伦一直都收到一些邮件,批判他的行为是“风流骑士行为”,写信人中不乏一些心怀怨恨的女人。然而艾伦说,虽然他给别人的印象可能是和许多女人约会,随便跟人发生关系,但事实不是那样的。“我很清楚,我必须尊重我约见的那些女人。”
  尽管人们对艾伦有这样那样的误解,28岁的建筑经理克莱尔还是恰时地出现在他的生命里了。
  艾伦身上有什么吸引克莱尔的?“我每天工作很长时间,我的私人生活里也有很多相当复杂难以处理的事情。不带任何压力地去进行一次约会这个主意真的很吸引我。那将是充满乐趣却没有丝毫压力的约会。我不能指望他能给我什么承诺,反之亦然。”她说,“因为我看过关于艾伦的一些报道,我猜测他会是个有点傲慢且以自我为中心的人,但他根本不是那样的。他这人很实际,也很随和,还会逗我笑。”
  艾伦说自从遇见克莱尔以后,他就没心思再继续寻爱大冒险了。这个周末,克莱尔将会去见艾伦的父母——又一个显示他们将迈向婚姻殿堂的迹象。现在,艾伦期待克莱尔某天将成为他的妻子。
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