Manj Weerasekera had an itch² of an idea that would not go away. The executive coach kept meeting senior businessmen who in the course of their work-focused meetings would reveal that they were having relationship problems at home. It was only after entrusting³ career problems to him that they felt comfortable enough to discuss their personal lives.

有个想法一直在曼吉?维拉塞克拉(Manj Weerasekera)心头挥之不去。这位高管教练经常与商界高管会面，虽然主要是谈论工作，但后者往往也会透露些家庭问题。只有在将工作上的问题委托给他以后，他们才会安心地聊一聊自己的私生活。

Mr Weerasekera, a 50-year-old divorcee, today dressed in a navy cowl-neck jumper, describes himself as “happily divorced”, meaning he had an amicable⁴ split rather than being pleased to see the back of his wife. He thought these men needed a helping⁵ hand, not from a therapist but a coach. Today, after offering such services for three years, he says 40 per cent of his work is dedicated⁶ to guiding divorced men to their ideal partner.

维拉塞克拉穿着一件海军褶领针织套衫，今年50岁，是一名离异男士。他说自己经历了“快乐离婚”，也就是和妻子友好地分手，而不是庆幸终于摆脱掉了自己的妻子。维拉塞克拉觉得离异男士需要帮助，他们需要的不是治疗专家而是咨询服务。维拉塞克拉提供这项服务至今已有3年时间，他说40%的工作是引导离异人士找到理想伴侣。

Such advice does not come cheap. Mr Weerasekera charges up to ￡2,500 a month for his services — this buys 90 minutes of face-to-face private coaching in his office in central London, and unlimited⁸ phone calls and emails — and might see a client for eight months (though, he points out, there is free advice available on his website).

此类服务可不便宜。维拉塞克拉每月收费高达2500英镑，服务包括在其位于伦敦市中心的办公室里进行90分钟的面对面私人指导，以及不限次数的电话与邮件交流，一个客户的服务周期可能达8个月（不过，他提到他的网站上有免费建议）。

When he started researching his business idea, he was struck by recurring⁹ problems for people in new relationships post-divorce. “The more I talked to men, I found a pattern?.?.?.?There is a large percentage of men who end up marrying the same woman in a different body,” he says.

当维拉塞克拉开始研究这个商业创意时，他惊讶地发现，离婚后开始新感情的人们会再度面临过去的问题：“我与人们聊得越多，越是发现有种规律……很大一部分男人最终娶的是同一种女人，只是外表和前任不同罢了，”他说。

Originally an engineer who worked for NCR and subsequent spin-offs when they were bought by AT&T, Mr Weerasekera, who has six sisters and parents who came from Sri Lanka, had a “healthy interest in amateur psychology¹⁰” and trained as a coach. Finally he decided¹¹ to step off the corporate¹² ladder and go it alone, coaching executives from banks, telecoms and oil companies, on how to change their mindset.

维拉塞克拉原来是NCR的一名工程师。NCR被AT&T收购后，他又在拆分后的公司中任职。他有6个姐妹，父母是斯里兰卡人。他对“业余心理学有着浓厚的兴趣”，并接受培训，希望成为一名高管教练。最终他决定离开公司单干，指导银行、电信、石油企业的高管如何转变思维模式。

After helping professionals boost their careers for a number of years, he started to look into the market offering help to divorced men. There was, he realised, little competition. “I found a decent coach in America and another teaching men how to hide their assets,” he says. “It’s such an open space, there’s space for a lot of good coaches.” The books aimed at men tended to be mired¹³ in the 1970s, proffering¹⁴ tips to divorced men on how to date, or written by pick-up artists teaching men how to play the game and bed women.

干了几年帮助专业人士提升职业发展的工作后，维拉塞克拉开始研究为离婚男性提供帮助的市场空间。他发现这个领域几乎不存在竞争。“我发现美国只有一个像样的高管教练，还有一个是教男人们如何隐藏资产的，”他说，“这个空间太大了，它需要大量的好教练。”以男性为目标群体的图书在上世纪70年代就陷入了困境，这些书要么为离异男士提供约会方面的建议，要么就是某些“泡妞达人”写的猎艳攻略。

On mention of Julien Blanc, the pick-up artist extraordinaire who was last month banned entry from the UK, after being accused of championing sexual assault, Mr Weerasekera visibly recoils¹⁵, emphasising that he is not operating at the “sleazy end”.

提到前一阵子因被控倡导性侵犯而被英国禁止入境的“把妹达人”朱利安?勃朗(Julien Blanc)，维拉塞克拉显然非常厌恶，并强调他的服务绝不是为了“肮脏的目的”。

He has a precise demographic in fact: a male executive (“in middle to higher management”), over 40-years-old. Most importantly, “they’re interested in attracting the right person for a long-term relationship, learning from their mistakes”. This is all about mindset changes, he says. There are parallels in business. Mr Weerasekera finds his clients believe that leaving a company will solve their career problems. “People often run away from themselves but they don’t realise they’re taking them with them?.?.?.?[They’ve] got to change their thinking.”

实际上他的服务对象相当明确：40岁以上的男性高管（“中级到高级管理人员”）。最重要的是，“这些人想找长期的理想伴侣，并从他们的错误中吸取教训”。他说，这全靠转变观念。在职场中也有对应的情况。维拉塞克拉发现，他的客户认为离职就能解决职业上的问题。“人们常常逃避自我，但是他们不明白自我却如影随形……（他们）必须转变思维。”

Many of his clients find making changes in their personal life far scarier than in their working life.

他的很多客户觉得改变私生活要比改变职场生活可怕得多。

The metric for success is when a client says: “Actually this isn’t scary, I know what to do?.?.?.?I’m feeling more confident in myself.” He insists he has been invited to a few wedding ceremonies and introduced as the groom’s coach, and very occasionally as a dating guru.

衡量成功的标准就是客户说：“实际上这并不可怕，我知道该做什么……我现在对自己更有信心了。”维拉塞克拉坚称，自己应邀参加了一些婚礼，都是以新郎教练的身份被介绍的，只在很偶然的情况下才被介绍为约会大师。

One of the biggest hurdles¹⁶ for single men to overcome, he claims, is antagonism¹⁷ towards their ex-wives. On a first date, too many complain about their exes, according to the coach. “How attractive is that?” (The answer, if in doubt, is not very). “So what we do is lose the baggage. It doesn’t mean you erase¹ everything that happened. Just dampen the impact.”

他说，离异男性要克服的最大一个障碍就是对前妻的敌意。维拉塞克拉表示，太多离异男士会在第一次约会时抱怨前任。“那有多大的吸引力？”（如果你不确定的话，答案是没多大吸引力）。“所以我们要做的是丢掉包袱。这并不意味着你要消除过去发生的一切，只是抑制其影响而已。”

Mr Weerasekera, sipping¹⁸ peppermint¹⁹ tea in a bar of a hotel in Putney, southwest London, close to his home, speaks with precision. He is not recommending that people fake it on a first date — if they have not made their peace with the past the festering resentment²⁰ and anger will only come out later.

在伦敦西南部的普特尼(Putney)，他家附近一家酒店的酒吧里，维拉塞克拉抿了口薄荷茶，用精确的语言讲述着。他不建议人们在第一次约会时掩饰这一点——如果人们还不能心平气和地对待过去，日益加剧的怨恨和愤怒只会在随后爆发。

The next step is to “design the type of woman” the client would like to meet. While many focus on appearance, Mr Weerasekera insists that what most of his clients are hankering after is to “feel they can be themselves in a relationship”. He cites one man — a typical client — who came to him, by way of example. His ex-wife no longer shared his interests and they had grown apart. One of his passions was yoga; she was not interested. “That type of thing [can prompt] ridicule²¹?.?.?.?can lead to arguments.”

尽管很多人注重外表，但维拉塞克拉坚称，大多数客户渴求的是“在一段感情中感觉能够做真实的自己。”他以一个向他寻求帮助的典型客户为例。该客户的前妻不再和他兴趣相投，两人渐行渐远。瑜伽是他的爱好之一，但他的妻子不感兴趣。“这类事情（会引发）奚落……导致争执。”

So Mr Weerasekera asked his client a salient question. “In order to attract that type of woman, what type of man do you need to be?” The client needed some self-improvement. After 20 years of marriage, he had let his appearance slip: his paunch was soft, his wardrobe, dated and his personal grooming²² below par⁷. The coach has a list of professionals — personal shoppers and trainers, grooming experts — to help. “One of the mistakes men make is they think they can do it on their own and they don’t need to. Why wouldn’t you find an expert to say, ‘I think this cut of jacket would suit you better’?”

于是维拉塞克拉问了这位客户一个关键问题。“想吸引这样的女性，你需要成为什么样的男人呢？”这名客户需要进行一些自我改善。在结婚20年后，他的形象一塌糊涂：大腹便便、穿着过时，打扮老土。维拉塞克拉给了他一列专业人士的清单，包括采购助理、教练和美容专家等。“男人的错误之一就是认为自己可以打理这些，或者他们不需要做这些事情。为什么不让专业人士告诉你，‘我觉得这件夹克更适合你’呢？”

He might also advise on an online dating profile. The most common mistakes his clients make are taking bad selfies with a webcam or picking flattering portraits that are 20 years out of date as well as writing bland²³ personal statements, recounting a love of walks, reading the weekend papers and watching a DVD from the sofa. A breezy reference to their status as divorced is important too.

他还为客户填写网上交友资料提供建议。客户最常见的错误是用网络摄像头拍摄惨不忍睹的自拍照，或者选择已过时20年的艺术照，同时个人介绍也平淡无奇：喜欢散步、阅读周末报纸、以及坐在沙发上看DVD。轻松提到自己是离异人士也非常重要。

In his opinion too many men “jump in” to dating too soon after a separation (he also believes that women wait too long). One man he worked with posted his dating profile online just 48 hours after deciding to divorce.

在他看来，太多男性离婚后不久就“投入”约会当中（他还认为，女性是过了很久才重新开始约会）。他的一个同事在决定离婚的48小时后就在网上贴出了交友资料。

He also believes that people should stop seeing divorce as failure. He reflects on his own experience. “When we were together we were great.”

维拉塞克拉还认为，人们不应再将离婚视为一种失败。他回想起自己的经历，“我们过去在一起的时候挺美好的。”