远走半个地球：我拒绝一眼望穿的人生
周五晚上的纽约，时代广场正处于一种沸腾的过载状态。在这片喧嚣的中心，Frank 坐在百老汇47街的酒店房间里。他刚从芝加哥飞抵纽约，而下周一，他又要启程飞往伦敦。
作为芝加哥大学 Booth 商学院的在职 MBA 学生，同时肩负着全职的数据工程师工作，Frank 的时间表被切割得极其精确。每逢两个小学期的间隙，他便把自己塞进机舱，飞往另一个时区。迄今为止，他的护照上已经盖了 62 个国家的签证印章。
故事的起点是一条极其标准、甚至堪称完美的“美国梦”流水线：进入亚马逊，拿着丰厚的薪水，住在气候温和、免州税的华盛顿州。作为亚马逊各种华人events的组织者之一，Frank 曾面对着三千人的在线直播，感受到一种巨大的、蓬勃向上的成就感。
然而，西雅图的雨季太长了。在这座以“The Seattle Freeze”闻名的城市，人们在固定的圈子里生活，完成从小厂跳到大厂的闭环。一切都平稳、安逸，且一眼望得到尽头。
“如果我就这么闭着眼睛，能清晰地看见自己三十年后的生活，”Frank 回忆道，“那这绝不是我想要的。”
三十岁那年，他放弃西雅图的安逸，拿着 Meta 的 Offer 搬去纽约。朋友们劝他，三十岁去曼哈顿太老了，甚至连找个带洗衣机的公寓都成了奢侈。当他在午夜十二点半的纽约叫了一辆 Uber，却因为拥堵而迟迟等不到车时，他非但没有抱怨，反而感到一阵久违的狂喜——这座城市在子夜时分依然心跳剧烈，这才是大都市真实的脉搏。
纽约的脉搏跳动得太快了，快到将所有的情感连接都压缩成了某种精密的经济学算计。
在这里，爱情与其说是浪漫的邂逅，不如说是一场高昂的“机会成本”核算。对于拿着高薪、背负着昂贵房租、每晚八九点才能下班的纽约客来说，周五的夜晚是极其稀缺的资产。Frank 坦言，如果好不容易腾出一个周五晚上，放弃了一场百老汇的演出或与朋友的聚会，只是为了和一个在 App 上匹配的人吃顿饭，结果发现并没有那么契合，他会觉得浪费了时间。
在极速流动的曼哈顿，每个人似乎都是过客。这种极度功利化的人际关系，在男同性恋群体中表现得尤为赤裸。这是一个把“外貌协会”践行到极致的圈子。Frank 曾去过洛克菲勒中心二楼的健身房，那里的更衣室悬挂着一排排电视，全天候播放着财经新闻。一边擦拭着精雕细琢的腹肌，一边盯着屏幕上指数的变动——这成了纽约同性阶层最具荒诞感、也最真实的速写。
在经历纽约的速食爱情之前，Frank 曾在西雅图有过一段深刻的感情，对方是一个来自爱达荷州乡下的美国男孩。那个男孩的母亲在沃尔玛上班，全家会攒下一整年的积蓄去一趟迪士尼乐园。在充满爱的环境下长大的男孩，把“I love you”当作日常的标点符号。
这对于在一个传统、内敛的中国家庭中长大的 Frank 来说，最初是一种巨大的文化冲击。但他学会了回应爱，学会了自然地回一句“I love you too”。但这套童话最终撞上了现实的礁石。Frank 向往纽约的喧嚣和未知，而男孩则觉得纽约粗鲁、冰冷。男孩曾在疫情期间发胖而抗拒去健身房，甚至觉得 Frank 督促他健身就是不够爱他，这让这段关系产生了无法弥合的裂痕。
关于“爱”的表达，Frank 这辈子做过最勇敢的一次，发生在一场近乎于逃亡的前夕。
那是 2020 年的春节，疫情刚刚爆发。父母来美国看他，就在父母回国航班起飞的前两天，随着中美即将断航的消息传来，Frank 决定不再隐瞒。他不想未来如果有任何意外发生，父母连真正的他都不了解。他向父母坦白了自己的性取向，这是一个他从初中起就深埋心底、压抑了十几年的秘密。
母亲崩溃了，哭泣了一整天。但她哭泣的原因并非觉得丢脸，而是深深的自责——她以为是自己把他生成了这样，才让他在异国他乡，走上了一条更孤独的路。
而那个曾在他童年记忆里脾气暴躁、常拿毛巾抽打他的退伍军人父亲，在那一刻却出奇地平静，只是问了一句：“那你以后打算怎么办？”
Frank 回答说想留在这边，因为这里可以让他做真实的自己。六年后的今天，父母已经逐渐接受了这个事实，他们唯一的让步和期盼，是希望他能有一个属于自己的孩子。
游历了 62 个国家后，Frank 曾经以为旅行是为了寻找一个世外桃源。他去过包容的伦敦，体会过墨尔本的宜居，见识过柏林的极致叛逆。但他最终发现，自己最适合的依然是美国。
在芝加哥冰冷的风雪中，他开始重新审视关系的意义。在这里，他会和一个背景完全不同、甚至连牵手都需要发短信询问许可的高中老师约会三次。那个曾经害怕一眼望穿未来三十年而逃离西雅图的年轻人，终于开始对“安定”这个词产生了一丝向往。
面对未来的理想生活，他的回答不再是某个具体的城市：“做一些有意义的事，有一个伴侣，然后，也许会有一个孩子。” 在一个极度不确定的时代里，跨越半个地球寻找的，不过是一个能让内心感到舒适的归处。
MEET THE GUEST
Frank Chen is a Chicago-based data engineer, MBA candidate, and traveler whose career has been built at the intersection of large-scale product data and a quieter, longer-running project — figuring out where, and as whom, he actually wants to live.
Chen built his foundation in the United States, arriving in Seattle where he stayed for five years — long enough that Washington still feels, in his phrasing, like a home state. He earned his undergraduate degree in Business, including a semester abroad through the Semester at Sea program, sailing to fifteen countries with five hundred students on a floating campus and taking coursework in international business, ethics, and intercultural communication. He then completed a Master's degree at the University of Washington, where his interest in data analytics took shape through consulting projects, business case competitions, and diversity leadership work.
His professional arc has been built inside some of the most consequential platforms of the last decade. He began at Porch and Spin in Seattle before joining Amazon, where over nearly three years he rose from Business Intelligence Engineer to BI Engineer II, supporting more than a thousand customer fulfillment projects across North America, EU, and emerging markets. He then joined Meta in New York, where he spent four years as a Data Engineer partnering with the Instagram and Messenger teams — most notably as the primary data engineering point of contact for the launch of Instagram Channels, which scaled to 150 million daily users in two years. Today, he is a Senior Data and Analytics Engineer at Backstage, where he leads data modeling, product analytics, and cross-site GDPR and CPRA compliance.
Alongside his career, Chen is pursuing an MBA at The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, part-time, on the Dean's Honor List with a merit-based award. It is a decision years in the making: a deliberate bet that the next chapter of his working life should look different from the one that came before.
Outside of work, Chen has visited 62 countries — most of them alone. He has run through Central Park after 10 p.m. in New York, jogged the closed-off morning stretch of Copacabana in Rio, and watched sunrise on a mirror-still river deep in the Amazon rainforest. He treats travel less as tourism than as a form of research: a long, patient search for a place that might, someday, feel like the right one to stay.
Frank Chen was a guest on Talk to Jane | 对话身边的人, where he spoke with rare openness about coming out to his parents, the years-long process of learning to be seen as his authentic self, and what it takes — after two decades of proving yourself professionally — to slow down and ask what a genuinely meaningful life might actually contain.
