I really, REALLY don't like the fact that Cat Person is still (!) trending on twitter

I'm not a guy and the whole thing just made me cringe, were you supposed to feel bad for the woman? Because she just came across as a shitty person, not to mention borderline delusional (see hurr what if he kills me, inb4 THAT'S JUST WHAT WOMEN EXPERIENCE EVERY DAY, if you're actually scared that the guy will fucking kill you, don't agree to go home with him in the first place). I actually felt sorry for Robert most of the time even though he was revealed to be a creepy douche in the end. So essentially it was just a story about two bad people having bad sex with each other, I don't get what's supposed to be so "touching" about this.

And I actually had a pretty similiar experience at an even younger age, so if anything I should have been able to empathize with the woman but the story portrayed her as so unlikeable that I just couldn't give a shit.

It's not bad. People are upset because it's popular despite of being worse than most of the stories of the site, and worse even than some of the stuff people post here.

It happens every tiem when something becomes popular and people feel its popularity is not justified.

>So essentially it was just a story about two bad people having bad sex with each other,

This. There was nothing of substance in the story.

>So essentially it was just a story about two bad people having bad sex with each other

And yet it's brought some great discussion jsut to this board. Anyone who gives a shit about ranking how "good" it is is just jealous. As someone with little literary aspiration but loves to read and discuss, I'm glad this was published and received so much attention. Besides, this most common criticism of the text, that it's essentially average, is its strength. In a lot of respects it is a hyper-realistic portrayal of a 21st century "it's complicated" kind of relationship. Most of us have been in something like this or will soon be at some point or another, it's extremely relatable. There are plenty of great works where the main characters are detestable people.

>During the movie, he didn’t hold her hand or put his arm around her, so by the time they were back in the parking lot she was pretty sure that he had changed his mind about liking her.

>“No, I could use a drink, after that movie.” Even though it had been playing at the mainstream theatre, the film he’d chosen was a very depressing drama about the Holocaust, so inappropriate for a first date that when he suggested it she said, “Lol r u serious,”

Thots. Not even once.

Isn't the guy in the story supposed to be fat and ugly? What's surprising here that it didn't work out?

>Maybe, she thought, her texting “lol r u serious” had hurt him, had intimidated him and made him feel uncomfortable around her. The thought of this possible vulnerability touched her, and she felt kinder toward him than she had all night.
Hey, I can cherrypick too.
He isn't ugly. Just average. summarised the story pretty well.

>"Average"
>not ugly to women

its like you didnt even grow up around sisters.

from the descriptor they give him
>fat
>beard
>le sensitive artsy
>ugly/average
>le cat man

sounds like a textbook soyboy, and SUPRIRSE most male feminists are the biggest misogynists. how is this surprising?

Plot twist.

Years later, Margot runs into a trimmed down version of Robert who reveals his last text was in fact written and sent by a friend of his.

I found the story quite good. It reveals traits present in men and women, but pathologized in Robert and Margot. Twitter reactions are absolutely ridiculous.

Putting out the fire with gasoline!

I walked with a zombie is incredible, just sit through it. Although if you're not interested, then I would recommend Night of the Demon or The Leopard Man... Another direction would be his 'westerns' - Canyon Passage and Stars In My Crown. Or something in the middle like Nightfall and Out of the Past.

...

mobile.twitter.com/mencatperson
How dare you men have opinions.

yeah like, i genuinely think the story is good and in the interview with the author it becomes clear it's not a black-and-white situation but it seems like everyone's just using it to validate their point of view, whether that be "see? nice guys are actually just trash" or "see? you can't trust these shallow roasties"

this website(((men))) just cant handle the female perspective

Men and women are doomed to never really understand one another

>mobile.twitter.com/mencatperson
the funny thing is that there's only 27 examples they've found for a story that was at least shared if not read thousands of times

And half of those examples are men making legitimately good points

Did femtwitter find another another excuse to brutalize and shame unattractive men?

this is probably the most problematic aspect of it all, i think the writer's intention is to show the female character from a negative or at least critical angle during the sex scene but when you eat the story up like it's a "girl is good man is bad" tale you're basically justifying fat shaming. the female protag only really starts regretting this whole experience when she's exposed to the dude's naked body, it should evoke a "wow that's kinda fucked up" response, not a "you go girl!!" response

I don't think this got brought up in the other thread, but a tip for guys who don't want to be Roberts is to not call women you barely know "sweetheart" or "honey" especially repeatedly, that was his most cringe move for the first half.

I've seen a few people say it's not fatphobia for the main character to not like the man's body...ignoring that the point is that the author talks about his weight at least a half dozen times and it's used to demonize him before he starts acting like a jerk. Repeated descriptions like that of a woman from a male author probably wouldn't have made it to print.
This is just a guess, but I'm also thinking that in a draft of this there was a bunch of detail about him having a small or weird penis that was cut out.

I'm not a cat person on account of my allergy. By cat person do they mean as a pet? I like birds, but they'd be annoying to have as a pet with their calls and liquid poo. Dogs are better house pets, because dogs will go outside to use the bathroom, but I'm not a fan of all the loose hair, so an outside animal, like a farm animal, would make the best pet. Call me a pig person, a goat person, 8c., 8c. Where are all the guinea hen people?

lol
"I’m seeing so many takes about Cat Person that revolve around Margot being “selfish” and “vapid”.

1) why are we demanding perfect 20 yr old female protagonists?

2) maybe don’t bemoan the *selfishness* of a young woman who had sex because she felt it would be rude NOT to
1.6l likes"

yes, the part in the story where she's the one who asks to go home with him doesn't happen...it's not that she's pressured into sex, it's that she fools her own self into thinking it'll be a good time having sex with him because he's so pathetic and needy, she suggests it, they go to his place, they fool around and she is somewhat turned on and exaggerates her moaning, she finds his body gross when he's getting undressed and his "feminine" noises a turnoff (noises that he was making before she decided to have sex with him, when they were making out in his car), she then decides it'd be too rude and too much effort to tell him um jk you disgust me so she retreats to a narcissistic fantasy and makes fun of him in her head as they have sex (not giving him any input on if she likes it or not), she then feels really gross after that and he turns out to be clingy and lashes out

but critiquing the choices of fictional women who are written as flawed and how that story is written is unfeminist...ok twitter nobody and over a thousand other people

we never talked about the title actually. is robert a cat? is margot a cat? what the significance of the title? is it because there were no cats, so the entire basis of their rapport over text was based on nothing? so robert was not anything that he said he was, so what was robert really? just a fat dude that likes big tits, and that's the horrible thing?

I just read the story. It seems like one long drawn out complaint that the guy wasnt a Chad. Whats the point?

I saw someone suggest it was because it's really about...Fat Person

Are relations between the genders at an all-time low?

>title
>Robert Margot
I thought this thread was about cat people, not some book. Makes sense now.

jesus christ i really hope the girls who think this reread it later on in life when they realize how much of a shit margot was (accompanying their own realization of how shitty they themselves are)

Did the story mention Veeky Forums? I've stopped reading New Yorker fiction.

No, but it describes a typical r9k poster to a T

exactly why it resonates on this board lol

see
seei
no, the author is in her late 30s so I doubt Veeky Forums's on her radar, she did write about that dfw bio for thought catalog a while back

I'm also seeing a lot of takes along the lines of this "that cat person story is so good bc it captures something never put into words" and...all you're doing there is telling on yourself and revealing that you don't read a lot of fiction, besides the angle of texting, which is one of the more interesting parts of it, it's not like women just started writing today- you can find hundreds of other short stories or novels about awkward or uncomfortable encounters women have had with men written by women
depressing how low the bar is and how little insight a lot of people seem to have

But Robert had sex with a young girl in her prime. That doesn't describe /r9k/ at all.

Hey Whores,

My name is Robert, and I hate every single one of you. All of you are shallow, judgmental sluts who spend every second of their day sending stupid ass text messages. You are everything bad in the world. Honestly, have any of you ever not ruined your pussy? I mean, I guess it's fun making fun of people because of your own insecurities, but you all take to a whole new level. This is even worse than making fun of people in sports bars.

Don't be a stranger. Just hit me with your best shot. I pretty much have nothing left to lose. I was a friendless loser in highschool, and got my ass kicked by the entire basketball team. Which sports teams did you fuck in highschool, besides "jacking off naked Chads beneath the bleachers"? I also have a grade'A taste in candy, and have a banging hot appetite (I just took a shit; Shit was SO splash). You are all whores who should just kill yourselves. Thanks for listening.

Pic Related: It's me and my Red Vines

>in a country where you're sexually free enough to choose your partner you occasionally might fuck a clingy loser
>this is somehow an important issue when it comes to gender equality
How fucking spoiled is our society? Out of all of the issues facing women in the third world, let's make an issue about the fact that some men have no game.

Exactly, and her watching his awkward moves and judging him (like when he's bent over to untie his shoelaces or removing his condom after sex), even fucking laughing hysterically during sex. Anyone who read this and unironically thought she did no wrong is retarded.
That they are millennials, who like to use these silly rotules as a means to identify people like themselves. And yet despite both being cat people, they clearly weren't all that similar, they had misconceptions about each other all the time. Margot thought he was angry at her during the date, then realizes he was just nervous, and Robert thought their brief flirting and dating meant something more.

Great analysis, for real. Thanks.

i hate americans, the insipid trash they call literature, and their whole fucking worthless excuse for a culture

Significant conflicts or observations I found in the story:

Margot was naive, and scared of him, but -until the last exchange- it seemed like her fears of this man, or scroned, rejected men were in her head. The story was heading in this direction, but I think the point ended up being that Robert could function, but was deep down a lonely and insecure person.

Robert wasn't cartoonish, he was kind and intelligent at times if but also socially unskilled, or perhaps just from another generation. True to some elements of r9k people, but still a person that even the characters in the story found ways to empathize with. He was not a villain until the very end.

The ending pissed me off. It's when the relatable ambivalence of the story becomes another politicized female victimhood narrative

>it's used to demonize him before he starts acting like a jerk.
I don't agree. Margot notices it, but she goes along with him and finds him cute and attractive none-the-less. The slouch is what demonizes him, if anything, and that's a matter of looking like a gargoyle or a human being so I can't really find fault in using it as a way illustrate the conflict Margot has in reading him.

It only gets to be disgusting when he's naked ontop or below her, and fat people are just disgusting so...

Twitter makes its audience stupid. It should be deleted from the internet. Veeky Forums has done more for the world than that heap of shit.

I kind of like its characterization, because it seems totally in-line with the kind of person Robert was depicted as. And I know people are like that. But its position in this story does seem kind of like a boring politicized comment that says "look at the shit we have to put up with!"

i think the author is aware of that and is setting a trap for roasties to feel like it's a feminist work (and, by and large, it worked). remember that it's also told from Margot's perspective, and it dominates the narrative such that it can only end with her own victimhood, much like the feminist narratives of today. Roupenian is critiquing this presentation of female victimization while hiding within the story clues that Margot is actually far shittier than Robert was, and hopefully roasties rereading when they are more mature will come to realize that

how dare you phonepost

nytimes.com/2017/12/11/books/cat-person-new-yorker.html

Well there we go, if a woman builds a fantasy man from a few texts it's "Imaginative empathy"

This post is written like it is trying to make some stabbing critique, but I don't get it. Men like Robert exist, text like what we see at the end can be found online everywhere, and I do not doubt they can also be found in some women's phones. He's hardly the stuff of imagination, the writer gives too much thought about how he might feel and why to not see that Robert is more than a fantasy villain for women to boo.

>you're basically justifying fat shaming
If you really think that's the heart of the problem then there's no hope for you.

Margot built a fantasy "Robert" through the texts they were doing, and when Robert didn't live up to the fantasy, that was when she realized she didn't wanna fuck him. Margot was complicit in making the sex happen because she was seduced by her fantasy man, poster was not saying Robert doesn't exist

fat people's bodies ARE gross. there is no way around it. Fat shaming is about not dehumanizing people who are fat, it has nothing to do with trying to act like they are hot. Although some people may find fat people hot, but I don't think the idea is to transform everyone's beliefs towards them becoming whale chasers.

>I don't get it

Clearly. I'm not talking about who he actually is, I'm talking about Margots bullshit.

The story is mainly about false expectations, they both created fantasies, the part that annoys me is how she builds an entire fantasy man from a few text messages, and surprise surprise get's disappointed.

I find the idea of building a fantasy off a few texts to be insane, it's ego driven, self centered garbage. To find the author calling it "Imaginative empathy" is ludicrous, empathy is about viewing and understanding anothers perspective, not fabricating it for your own pleasure.

Ah yes that's true. This is an angle I haven't considered.

I thought this is what it was. I don't keep up with Twitter trends.

>not to mention borderline delusional (see hurr what if he kills me, inb4 THAT'S JUST WHAT WOMEN EXPERIENCE EVERY DAY, if you're actually scared that the guy will fucking kill you, don't agree to go home with him in the first place).
That's just the sort of thing you can't help thinking about, like getting on a plane and thinking about the fact that it could crash. She never thought it was likely.

Come back you fucker I want more tracks like the next day

She doesn't build the imaginative Robert only off the text messages. She does it from his wit, the way he responded to her crying, the silence he held when she thought he was perceiving her as uncomfortable, etc. It wasn't only the texts that lead her to think she was empathizing with real, imagined emotions.

Really setting to bar to the depths of hell, aren’t we?

They knew each other for a few months at that point. The fact that Margot was still paranoid enough to repeatedly ask herself whether she might be murdered is the result of the gap between her fantastic image of Robert, and the reality of her not knowing anything about him because they never had a relationship.
Wile he does attempt to open up to her after what he believed to be an intimate experience, there were plenty of choices for her to engage a more personal conversation, to get to know the person she was going out with by, for instance, asking how old they were. Instead she chose time and time again not to confirm or deny her own fantasies so that she could continue being 'imaginatively empathetic', which is to say, wallow in her delusions. Robert likely knows that he is a broken man, Margot is simply too shallow to realize how lost she is.

Though seriously, there is more analysis of this story here than I would expect anywhere else (or even here, for that matter).

yeah, the cat person threads have been pretty solid.

>They knew each other for a few months at that point. The fact that Margot was still paranoid enough to repeatedly ask herself whether she might be murdered is the result of the gap between her fantastic image of Robert
I thought it was a way to characterize her. She never feared Robert, she was just letting her imagination run wild, like she did for the whole of the story.

It's a serious fate, but I don't think it was a very serious concern. The airplane crashing anxiety is an apt comparison.

fucking pathetic post go back to /r9k/ nice guy

I don't disagree. The interesting thing is that, while Margot was in total control of her imagination up to that point, here her 'projected' wish-fulfilment scenario started breaking down. The sex scene is a constant battle for control between her 'narrative' and reality. If Robert had presented himself in a more 'archetypal' way, allowing her to integrate his insults (which would not have needed to be any less demeaning, only less 'reeking of inexperience') into her fantasy, she probably would have continued lying to herself, using the illusions to fuel her own ego. As long as he performed according to her fantasies, as long as she was able to continue ignoring the person underneath the archetype, that's all Margery wanted. In the same way all Robert wanted was to continue embodying the archetype out of fear of exactly that type of rejection. It's a real tragedy, in ways the author and her readership aren't even aware of.

>at last he said, bossily, “Take that thing off,” and she complied.
>He looked stunned and stupid with pleasure, like a milk-drunk baby, and she thought that maybe this was what she loved most about sex—a guy revealed like that.
>“Yeah, yeah, you like that,”
>Look at this beautiful girl, she imagined him thinking. She’s so perfect, her body is perfect, everything about her is perfect, she’s only twenty years old, her skin is flawless, I want her so badly, I want her more than I’ve ever wanted anyone else, I want her so bad I might die.
>“I always wanted to fuck a girl with nice tits,”
>The more she imagined his arousal, the more turned-on she got

Including you

>projecting this much
holy f...

Finally read, don't see the big deal.

"I used a man for attention and sex and then he turned out to be a jerk in a way that did not really affect me"

I don't find this interesting at all.

STEMtard detected. Kill yourself.

What am I supposed to be caring about?

A young woman underestimates her own power so she doesn't have to blame herself for treating other people badly, she tells herself and her friends stories about it "oh, he's a man, I can't hurt him, if anything he's out to hurt me and i'm defending myself"

You don't get to escape your own anonymous generalizing.

I sincerely haven't read any and would be interested in reading some

Also, I loved the piece. whatever.

I'm not american.
So "cat person" means what?

A person who owns cats or who prefers cats over dogs.

Tag yourself lads/ladies?

Also, thedebrief.co.uk/news/real-life/cat-person-short-story-new-yorker-consent/

This is why I defend traditional relationship.
She'll don't have this problem anymore if she stop dating with tinder guys and going to the bed with a guy in the first date.

don't worry user, things will get better someday

basically the chick is retarded and memes herself into sleeping with a fat creepy dude, then realizes it was a bad decision and cries

damn...........

these increasingly formal withdrawals of love, targeted to certain strangers but sweeping over everybody without discrimination.

they've stopped making me so unhappy anymore, unless I really think about it. Therefore, I'll put it out of my mind

Mary Gaitskill's Bad Behavior, Lorrie Moore, How To Be An Other Woman in particular, Joyce Carol Oates' Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?, Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook, Jean Rhys, don't care for her but maybe Anais Nin too
former literary it girl marie calloway, though she's trying too much to right in the alt-lit style of the day imo

I haven't read much by her but Ottessa Moshfegh falls into this loose category, also of course Shirley Jackson as the GOAT of writing dread

ignore how much this website sucks, here's basically the 101 canon: bustle.com/articles/22436-17-essential-short-stories-written-by-women

sure this is great/and people said xojane was dead:
vice.com/en_ca/article/qvzvvp/the-cat-person-problem-four-women-share-their-real-life-stories

I'm curious what women expect when they come across inexperienced/poorly skilled men. If you don't tell them they're doing bad they will assume they're doing good...

A lot of just feels like women set men up in a game they can't win then blame them for losing. I get you have some social conditioning that teaches you men can read your mind but it shouldn't take long for you to figure out you can't.

helpfull, thnx

>The sex scene is a constant battle for control between her 'narrative' and reality. If Robert had presented himself in a more 'archetypal' way, allowing her to integrate his insults (which would not have needed to be any less demeaning, only less 'reeking of inexperience') into her fantasy, she probably would have continued lying to herself, using the illusions to fuel her own ego. As long as he performed according to her fantasies, as long as she was able to continue ignoring the person underneath the archetype, that's all Margery wanted. In the same way all Robert wanted was to continue embodying the archetype out of fear of exactly that type of rejection. It's a real tragedy, in ways the author and her readership aren't even aware of.

Good stuff, senpai.

>vice.com/en_ca/article/qvzvvp/the-cat-person-problem-four-women-share-their-real-life-stories
"Sex with my man is shit. He's older, so you'd think he would be experienced in how to pleasure a woman. He doesn't do foreplay. I know, I know – "Why am I with him"? I'm too young for awful sex. But I'm prioritising being with someone responsible with a good job and good prospects. Often, I don’t want to sleep with him, but girlfriend duties call. I can teach him what I like down the line. I'm going to have to: seven years of bad sex isn't my portion"

wtf.

Why don’t these airheads make some effort to communicate with their partners? Fuck, they shift all the blame to him when all they need to do is tell him what they want. What causes this in some women? Society?

They think mens ego can't handle being told.

they all keep blaming "male ego" blah blah, they keep assuming that if they make their partner mad hes going to do something crazy. that happens every once in a while and feminism has scared them all into thinking every dude is a potential bad guy in much the same way every cop thinks anyone with a (possible) gun is a bad guy

in the piece he undesrstants that he did something wrong, although he doesnt get to put his finger on what precisely. He even asks.

In a more general sense if you like someone and they happen to be bad at sex you slowly let them know want you like. You try to not hurt their feelings but he/she has to be able to man up and take criticisim eventually.

Yeah, the sex scene also reminds of the John Berger line, "Men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. This determines not only most relations between men and women but also the relation of women to themselves.”