I met Dan, my future husband, in college when I was 20. But we never married. In fact, we were never engaged. Not even close. I say he was my future husband only because he was that important to me.
　　We were together for five years, dating off and on, and the entire time I was sure we would one day marry, have vision-1)impaired children and eventually stop hurting each other. During those years we didn’t live with, or even remotely near, each other; yet with Facebook, Gmail, Google Chat and smartphones, we were able to talk in every possible way on every device, at a high cost financially and emotionally, from any 2)locale in the world, at any time, on the occasion of any emotional 3)outburst or drunken 4)whim.
　　We lived on the Internet, our own little planet of “us”-ness separated by 5)LCD screens. We spent superhuman amounts of time talking online, with him in his bedroom in one state and me in my office in another. When our relationship was“on,” we would talk, on average, several hours a day, five days a week. And I would think about him every second—even the spaces between seconds. Online, we could say anything. We had real conversations about pretend futures. I would say, “You know, if I learned to cook and have kids, we could be a really perfect couple,”to which he would respond, without missing a beat, “And then, on weekends, I could go out and get the paper in my bathrobe, and we could look at the headlines and disinterestedly complain about the world.”
　　“I would like to own a piano,” I said.“Upright or grand?” he asked. “Grand. I don’t know. Upright. I also want a library. I’ve been admiring bookshelves around the city. I can’t wait to 6)alphabetize our books by author.” “Can we have one with a 7)rolly ladder?” he wanted to know. “Oh please, please, please!” I’d beg.“And we need comfortable chairs and 8)love seats, for reading to the kids—because our kids will be extraordinarily well-read.”
　　Our kids. Our kids would have vocabulary words printed on 9)index cards. And then he said that maybe at our wedding we could have one of those 10)partitions used by 11)Orthodox Jews that separate men from women: “Let’s have a 12)mechitzah at our wedding.” Our wedding. Our upright (or grand) piano. Our kids. If only typing it made it true. Ours was a love affair that knew its finest hours on a screen. Dan and I could plan the next 50 years in a twohour online conversation.
　　Maybe we were able to sketch our future so easily because we didn’t think we’d ever see it. In television dramas, I can tell when a wedding won’t go as planned. The clue is when a character rehearses his or her vows before the ceremony; that’s the sign that we, the audience, won’t be hearing them later. What’s worse is the dramatic irony of knowing what one real-life never-to-be-bride-or-groom will never get to say.
　　Recently, all my worst fears came true. Dan met someone else. In our last conversation, which took place online, I asked him 13)pointblank: “Do you think you’ll marry her?” “Yes,”he answered. “You once told me that I checked all your ‘Yeses.’ You asked me if I would write for a living anywhere; like when we moved to someplace, I could write there, right? And we talked about our kids. And our bookshelves. 14)Is it any wonder I thought we’d get married one day?”
　　He said it wasn’t a wonder. Then I asked if he loved her. “I do.” This “I do” was not in the context I had always imagined. I asked if he had told her. “Yes.” I asked if she said it back. “Yes.” I asked if he said it first. “Yes.”I asked how he said it. He explained that it was while she was singing, softly, to the radio. How he knew then of his love for her and that he wanted to marry her, so he told her he loved her that night. I wish I hadn’t 15)pushed for the details. Now, a year later, when I find myself quietly singing to the radio I have to stop because it makes me think of him falling in love with her. Singing to the radio is ruined.
　　That online conversation was our last. Once he signed off, he was gone for good. At that moment, those children we had planned died, or were never born, or could have been born if things had gone differently. It was like when we planned our breakfast 16)nook, and we agreed we both hated crosswords and wouldn’t be doing them on Sunday mornings. We wouldn’t be doing this and we wouldn’t be doing that.
　　Now, I felt I had to go through our past plans about our future and undo it all. I thought: we’ll never have a big wedding. We won’t have a small one. Our wedding won’t be medium-size. We’ll never know if our children might have been smart or worn glasses or had vocabulary words printed on index cards. We won’t be having any boys. No girls, no boys. We won’t call them anything. We’ll never argue about what to call them. I’ll never be unhappy with one of the names, and I’ll never tell him I wished our daughter were named something else. I’ll never pretend to like a name just because he liked it. No, we’ll never have that fight. For that, at least, I am glad.
　　We’ll never say we love each other, and that this time we mean it like we haven’t meant it before and like we’ll never say it again to anyone else. No. We’ll never do that.
　　在我20岁还读着大学时，我遇到了丹，我未来的丈夫。但我们没正式结过婚。实际上，连订婚也没有，根本谈不上。我称他为我未来的丈夫，只是因为他曾经对我而言是如此地重要。
　　我们在一起五年，断断续续地约会，一直以来，我都坚信我们终有一天会结为连理，养育视力不太好的孩子，并最终不再伤害对方。在那些年里，我们没有住在一起，也并非住得很近；然而通过脸谱网、谷歌邮箱、谷歌聊天功能和智能手机，但凡心头涌起冲动或因醉酒而产生奇怪念头时，身处世界任何一个地方的我们都能在任何一台设备上用任何可能的方式聊天，虽然财政和情感的成本同样高昂。
　　我们生活在互联网上，我们的小小“二人世界”被两台液晶显示屏隔开。我们花了多到惊人的时间在网上聊天，他在一个州的卧室里，而我则在另一个州的办公室里。我们要是来了兴致，平均一天能聊几个小时，一周聊五天。我每一秒钟都会想着他——甚至连每一秒之间的间隔都在想他。我们在网上无所不谈。我们曾经实实在在地谈及“虚拟的将来”。我会说：“你知道，要是我学会做饭和照顾孩子，我们可能会成为一对完美的夫妻。”对此，他会如此回应，绝对不会掉拍子：“然后，周末的时候，我会穿着浴袍出去拿报纸，我们会看看报纸头条，并置身度外地抱怨这个世界。”
　　“我想要有一台钢琴，”我说。“立式钢琴还是平台钢琴？”他问道。“平台的。我也不知道。立式的吧。我还想要一个书房。我一直很喜欢到处看书架书柜。我迫不及待想要按照作者名字的字母顺序来给我们的书排序了。”“我们可以要那种有滚动梯子的书架吗？”他想知道。“噢，要啊，要啊，要啊！”我会恳求道。“我们还要有很舒服的椅子和双人沙发，好给孩子们读书——因为咱们的孩子会饱览群书。”
　　我们的孩子。我们的孩子会有打印在索引卡片上的词汇卡。接着，他说也许在我们的婚礼上，可以摆放一个正统犹太教徒用于隔开男女的隔板：“我们的婚礼上要有座位隔间。”我们的婚礼。我们的立式（或平台）钢琴。我们的孩子。如果只是打字就能让这一切成真该有多好。“我们的”是屏幕上最美好的爱情故事。在两个小时的网络对话里，丹和我就能计划未来50年的生活。
　　也许我们能如此轻易地规划未来，是因为我们从未想过那一切会实现。在电视剧里头，凭借一些小小征兆，我就能猜到婚礼会出问题。线索往往是仪式开始之前出现婚礼主角练习誓词的一幕；这暗示着作为观众的我们不会在接下来的剧中听到这段誓词。而更糟糕的是，要知道，现实生活中无法成为新郎、新娘的一对连说这些话的机会都没有，那是多么戏剧性的讽刺啊。
　　最近，我最惧怕的事情发生了。丹认识了别人。在我们最后一次网聊中，我开门见山地问他：“你认为你会娶她吗？”“是的，”他答道。“你曾经对我说，我符合你所有的要求。你问过我是不是在任何一个地方都能以写作为生；比如我们搬去哪里，我可以在那边写作，是吗？我们也聊到了我们的孩子，还有我们的书架。我以为我们终有一天会结婚，这不是很奇怪吗？”
　　他说这一点都不奇怪。然后我问他是否爱她。“我爱她。”这句“我爱她”并非我常常想象的那一句（编者注：“I do”也是结婚誓词中表示“我愿意”的说法，是作者常常想起的内容。）我问他是否已经告诉她。“是的。”我问他她是否也这么说。“是的。”我问他是否他先表白的。“是的。”我问他是怎么表白的。他解释说是在她跟着收音机轻轻地唱着歌的时候。他说那个时候他知道了自己对她的爱，想要娶她为妻，所以那天晚上，他向她表明心意。我真希望自己没有打破沙锅问到底。如今，一年过去了，当我发现自己悄悄地跟着收音机唱歌时，就不得不停下来，因为这样做让我想起他爱上她的那一幕。跟着收音机唱歌的兴致顿失。
　　那一次的网上对话是我们最后一次聊天。他下线之后，就再也没有上线了。在那一刻，那些我们一起计划的孩子都死去了，或者说从未出生过，亦或说如果事情朝着不同方向发展的话，他们可能会降临人世。就像我们曾一起计划吃早餐的地方，同意彼此都讨厌纵横字谜游戏，也不会在周日早上玩这个游戏。我们不会再做这样的事，也不会再做那样的事了。
　　如今，我觉得自己必须再次重温过去我们关于未来的计划，且将它们一一销毁掉。我心想：我们永远不会举行盛大的婚礼。我们也不会有一个小型的婚礼。我们的婚礼也不可能不大不小。我们永远不会知道我们的孩子会否很聪明或戴眼镜，是否拥有印在索引卡片上的词汇卡。我们不会有儿子。没有女儿，没有儿子。我们不会给他们取名字。也不会争论给他们取什么名字。我永远不会因为他们取了我不喜欢的名字而不开心，也永远不会告诉他其实我希望我们的女儿叫另外一个名字。我永远不会因为他喜欢那个名字而假装自己也喜欢。不，我们永远不会因此而吵架。至少对于这一点，我心感欣慰。
　　我们不会再说爱对方，而这一次，我们真心如此认为，就像之前我们从未有过此等想法一样，犹如我们再也不会向其他任何人说这一句话。不。我们永远也不会那么做了。