之前我提到最近在看的一部电视剧，叫做 《Oz》。深陷囹圄的男人们所遭受的事情可以有很多，其一便是老婆跟人跑了。上个世纪40年代的时候，成千上万的米国大兵派驻本土之外，成千上万的丈夫们收到大同小异的信，格式如下：

“Dear John,” the letter began.

“I have found someone else whom I think the world of. I think the only way out is for us to get a divorce,” it said. They usually began like that, those letters that told of infidelity on the part of the wives of servicemen…

The men called them “Dear Johns”.

于是便有了这个习语，Dear John。类似的，比如 Dear Jane。Jake Gyllenhaal 的电影 《Jarhead》里头，男猪脚扛着父辈的旗帜，留下娇妻，加入了海军陆战队，经历了憋屈的训练，上级的刁难，来到海湾，却一枪未开。终于退伍，返家已是物是人非。

Oz 里头，Augustus Hill 甚至连个 Dear 都木有得到，进入90年代，律师越来越多，分工越来越细，于是类似“You’ll hear from my divorce lawyer”不再鲜见。Hill 童鞋，收到长信一封，歌词大意也还是那句 Dear John。