Cat Person first appeared in The New Yorker in 2017 — at some juncture between #MeToo and Covid. By Roupenian’s admission, her short story was based on an unpleasant personal experience with online dating. The story went viral in the following weeks after publication, so one must assume that it resonated with many people’s fears and circumstances.

Cat Person is told from the POV of a young college student, Margot, who meets an older man at her job. Almost by accident, she leaves him her phone number — Freud would say, of course, that there is no accident. Soon enough, they start texting and flirting, and, one thing leading to another, she ends up going on a date with him. So far, so good. But once the wheels are in motion, the narrator lets us into the young woman’s growing apprehension about who that man is and where this is going: “she became wildly uncomfortable, and, as they got on the highway, it occurred to her that he could take her someplace and rape and murder her; she hardly knew anything about him, after all.”

All in all, the author’s authenticity, her craftsmanship, the exquisite pacing and the increasing sense of tension she infuses into her story are nothing short of outstanding. We relate to the girl’s fleeting impressions, hesitations, insecurities, slight narcissism, desire to be desired, her wish not to be perceived as rude or as a slut, and her simultaneous uneasiness, anxiety, repulsion and shame about the whole business. Cat Person is a comedy of manners, a cautionary tale, a post-modern version of Little Red Riding Hood. At its core, it is a disturbing story that speaks to the obscurity of desire and the sometimes awkward and ambiguous intercourse between men and women. It is still early days, but Kristen Roupenian is an author to keep an eye on.100 s mwana395 351

Edit 25/8/2023 I just saw the trailer for the film adaptation and it looks it's a thriller dark comedy thing. I am so here for it.



No rating because reasons. On second thought, this deserves all the stars in the world.

ALSO: MANY SPOILERS EVERYWHERE. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.




The blurb for this short had me wondering what would happen in the next seven thousand or so words.

A New Yorker short story isn't the kind of story where you get fluff. It's the kind of stuff that's discussed in PhD literature classes- I think. I wouldn't really know. I abandoned my IT degree after finishing the coursework and failing a multimedia exam. Twice.

This story pimpled my goose. Gooses? Geese?? Fuck it. I got goosebumps with the biggest bumps that ever goosed.

Meet Margot. She works at an artsy theatre. I come from what Trump "lovingly" refers to as a shithole country where we only have ordinary theatres. I'm not entirely sure what artsy theatre is. And she meets a walking, talking paunch called Robert. They crack a few jokes. Exchange numbers and soon after they go on some kind of semi-date, Robert kisses Margot's forehead and she "develops a crush".

Oy.

They then proceed to go through YA angst worthy levels of misunderstandings/ miscommunications before they finally go out on their first date. Poor Robert took her to a Holocaust movie "to impress her".

The date is awkward, filled with the kind of awkward silences that happen when an African mum finds out she is the one who broke the visitor's flask but she blamed you in front of the visitors leaving you aren't anywhere near ready to forgive her.

Margot convinces herself that it's her fault- somehow.

Sheesh.

They end up going to a club and she can't get in because she's fucking twenty. The other fucker was about to go in and leave her outside but a "kind" stranger made him aware of the fact that she was abandoned on the sidewalk. When he goes back outside to her, she confesses her nervousness and he sheds his whatever-the-fuck his problem was and he kisses her. Finally. And it was bad. Really bad.

He kissed her then, on the lips, for real; he came for her in a kind of lunging motion and practically poured his tongue down her throat. It was a terrible kiss, shockingly bad; Margot had trouble believing that a grown man could possibly be so bad at kissing.

The fucking fuck?

And they still shag later because of motherfucking Robert's feelings.

The sex was a meeeeeess.

When Robert was naked, rolling a condom onto a dick that was only half visible beneath the hairy shelf of his belly, she felt a wave of revulsion that she thought might actually break through her sense of pinned stasis, but then he shoved his finger in her again, not at all gently this time, and she imagined herself from above, naked and spread-eagled with this fat old man’s finger inside her, and her revulsion turned to self-disgust and a humiliation that was a kind of perverse cousin to arousal.

Fucker of mothers!

Eventually, she decides to "let herself out of the relationship" and dawdles when it comes to breaking motherfucking Robert's heart. Her roommate- thankfully- takes matters into her own hands and sends Robert a text demanding that he never texts her again.

Shortly after, she spots him at a bar morosely staring at a beer and her friends escort her out.

Robert then bombards her with messages asking her what he did wrong. If the guy who was with her at the bar is her new boyfriend. Culminating the one-sided conversation with Robert calling her a whore.

Whoa.

Cat Person went viral because these encounters seem pretty commonplace for women. Terrible sexual encounters are the order of the dates, I guess? I really wouldn't know. I once dumped a guy for kissing me by darting his tongue in and out of my mouth.

This Atlantic article explains why this story is very important especially in this day and age.

The narration is delightful. Easy to follow. Kinda quirky. Margot isn't particularly able but she's in most of us women.

This story makes me realise that my ancestors had it right. They had "teachers" who would show men and women how to pleasure each other. Nowadays, sex is a taboo topic with our films classification board CEO banning condom ads because they used a little pun, I mean CUM ON!

I find it also heartbreaking that Margot imagined a "perfect" future boyfriend with whom she would share her misadventures with Robert and they would laugh about it- and then she went on to tell herself that he doesn't exist.

Damn.

You can read it here.new-yorker-shorts96 s7 comments Nataliya834 14k

This is an expectations vs reality story, a story of disconnect between how we hope things would be and how they are, in all their resplendent awkwardness and misunderstandings brought by people creating their own narratives in their heads, the narratives that often have very little to do with reality.

Margot is a very young college student who meets an older guy Robert in a movie theater where she works, and what ensues is a somewhat awkward but initially endearing online friendship/flirtation that then gets destroyed by awkwardness of real life and huge disconnect to what was built up based on online presence. And trying to hold on to fleeting moments of happiness does not salvage something that’s not going to work out. And that communication is important, and so is rationality, and that sometimes things will still make you feel shitty even if nothing wrong was done. You don’t have to be an actual victim for life to leave an unpleasant aftertaste in your mouth, and that may be why it resonated so much.
“On the walk back to her dorm, she was filled with a sparkly lightness that she recognized as the sign of an incipient crush.”
It’s written very well, perfectly capturing the motives and excuses and nuances in such a relationship without piling on unnecessary drama. Life does not have to indulge our romantic notions, but it doesn’t need to play out the disappointment with drama; it can just be simply low-key. We don’t see Robert’s experience there, we can only infer it (literature has offered us male perspective on such situation in spades), but we are privy to Margot’s level-headed crush and her dealing with the situation, with letting things play out in a certain often cringeworthy way even when she doesn’t lack self-awareness.

(Although I do NOT appreciate the roommate taking things into her hands, it was needlessly intrusive and certainly a whiplash of a situation that in my opinion should have been closed with more afterthought and consideration).
“But the thought of what it would take to stop what she had set in motion was overwhelming; it would require an amount of tact and gentleness that she felt was impossible to summon. It wasn’t that she was scared he would try to force her to do something against her will but that insisting that they stop now, after everything she’d done to push this forward, would make her seem spoiled and capricious, as if she’d ordered something at a restaurant and then, once the food arrived, had changed her mind and sent it back.”
And no, Margot is not a victim here, which I loved. The interactions including awkward and uncomfortable sex are all consensual, which doesn’t mean she does not regret them later and finds the experience unpleasant — but it’s unly that her future will be irrevocably defined by the unpleasantness of Robert situation. She’ll shrug and move on, and I that. She’s just starting her life, and Robert indeed will be just an awkward episode in it which I’m sure she will eventually laugh about, although probably with little actual mirth. And maybe she’ll learn that what we want life to be and what it actually is sometimes quite a bit different.

It’s messy and awkward and a bit cringeworthy and yet, at least to me, doesn’t draw a stark line dividing people based on “power” which seems to be a trend. It’s messy from all sides, and it’s full of feelings and life mistakes that one can easily recognize, and that’s life.

4 stars.

—————
Read it here: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...

——————

Also posted on my blog.
2023-reads shorts86 s25 comments karen3,994 171k

of possible interest: https://slate.com/human-interest/2021...

WELCOME TO DECEMBER PROJECT!

boilerplate mission statement intro:

for the past two years, i’ve set december’s project aside to do my own version of a short story advent calendar. it’s not a true advent calendar since i choose all the stories myself, but what it lacks in the ‘element of surprise’ department it more than makes up for in hassle, as i try to cram even MORE reading into a life already overcrammed with impossible personal goals (live up to your potential! find meaningful work! learn to knit!) merry merry wheee!

since i am already well behind in my *regular* reviewing, when it comes to these stories, whatever i poop out as far as reflections or impressions are going to be superficial and perfunctory at best. please do not weep for the great big hole my absented, much-vaunted critical insights are gonna leave in these daily review-spaces (and your hearts); i’ll try to drop shiny insights elsewhere in other , and here, i will at least drop links to where you can read the stories yourselves for free, which - let’s be honest - is gonna serve you better anyway.

HAPPY READING, BOOKNERDS!

links to all stories read in previous years' calendars can be found at the end of these , in case you are a person who s to read stories for free:

2016: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
2017: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

scroll down for links to this year’s stories which i will update as we go, and if you have any suggestions, send 'em my way! the only rules are: it must be available free online (links greatly appreciated), and it must be here on gr as its own thing so i can review it. thank you in advance!

DECEMBER 18



At last, after a frantic rabbity burst, he shuddered, came, and collapsed on her a tree falling, and, crushed beneath him, she thought, brightly, This is the worst life decision I have ever made! And she marvelled at herself for a while, at the mystery of this person who’d just done this bizarre, inexplicable thing.

this story was on my long-ago-compiled list of "stories to read for advent calendar."i remembered there had been some sort of buzz around it but i wasn't really paying attention because i knew i wasn't going to be reading it until december and i didn't want to go into it with any sort of borrowed judgment. after reading it today, i was curious about the nature of the buzz and went exploring and now i remember why internet is the worst.

i don't even want to review this because, even though the hype of this story has died down, trolls are forever and i'm not someone who relishes faceless online conflicts. at all.

i loved the writing in this story. i loved the depth of characterization roupenian developed in her depiction of an emotionally careless, insecure, narcissistic twenty-year-old girl drunk on her own sexual currency and perceived power as she flirts with an older man she's only half-interested in over the course of - what, a month or so?, feeling hurt when he doesn't seem responsive, rushing headlong into a consummation she initiates, orchestrates and enthusiastically participates in "put[ting] on a show for him," before her self-disgust kicks in and she regrets the encounter, rebuffing and avoiding further contact, letting her roommate end whatever relationship was beginning by sending a curt text.

he seems to take it well until he sees her in a bar one night, resulting in a flurry of increasingly pathetic texts, the last one calling her a whore.

i read this story and thought ruefully: "ah, the follies of youth!"

i apparently read it wrong.

i'm never going to be a contemporary female because i don't always see the female as the victim.

here's the thing - there are assholes who are danger, and there are assholes who are just going to make you feel shitty about yourself. and sometimes you deserve to feel shitty about yourself, girl. chalk it up as a life lesson and try to do better going forward. should he have called her a whore? it was impolite, but she hadn't earned politeness. ladies, if you slept with a guy and thought things were cool enough that you sent him benign romantic texts afterwards, were ignored for days, and then got a text from him that said, “Hi im not interested in you stop textng me,” chances are, you would call him an asshole. is he literally an asshole? no, but you're pissed. a man calling a woman a whore for the same behavior is coming from the same place - someone is hurt, and lashing out to hurt back. welcome to the world of romance. it is often really shitty. but reading an article about this story quoting a tweet that said "... we need to talk about all of the nuances of consent in order to fix our broken culture." just made me feel so old and exhausted. and the author's assertion that this story

speaks to the way that many women, especially young women, move through the world: not making people angry, taking responsibility for other people’s emotions, working extremely hard to keep everyone around them happy. It’s reflexive and self-protective, and it’s also exhausting, and if you do it long enough you stop consciously noticing all the individual moments when you’re making that choice.

falls completely flat in the face of the many instances of conscious manipulation and calculated behavior she employs to mold him and his behavior to her designs. that's not trying to keep someone happy, it's exerting power over someone else. i'm not saying the above quote isn't true, but it doesn't describe the character in this story.

again - there are asshole dudes out there who perpetuate legitimate assault. and then there's that hazy messy place where two or more well-meaning people are doing bedroom shit they maybe didn't set out to do, but it all seems to be fine in the fog of sweat and limbs and endorphins and probably booze. and maybe there's regret afterwards, but so much of life involves regret and at some point you gotta take responsibility for your own mistakes and misjudgments, whatever your gender.

when you're twenty (or any age, really, but hopefully you've learned lessons sooner rather than later) you're going to make a lot of mistakes, many of them sexual. and throughout your life, you're going to sleep with people you wish you hadn't, whether you're a man or a woman, and whatever the gender of the people in your bed. do i look back over ma vie sexuelle and, given the chance to redo (or rather, re-don't) think, "hm, maybe not that one?" yesh. have i been in the early stages or middle of something and thought, "i'd rather be reading." sure. i reading. but the big dealbreaker in this story is that he's just not very good at sex. and she's not as into it as she thought she was going to be, when she was getting off thinking of herself seen through his eyes as this fine young thing that this older, chubby furry guy was lucky to have in his bed.

these two people were not right for each other. and there's no crime here, just run of the mill shitty behavior. so what you do in a situation this is you get yourself out of it gracefully and without hurting people by leading them on or hurting people by leaving them without closure. grow up, do the right thing - "you're a good person, but you're not who i'm supposed to be with." it's sad, but it's respectful and true and no one's left sending unanswered texts into the world, confused and hurt, calling names.

that's my life lesson - try to fuck up as few people as you can on your way through the world. and stop laughing about him with your friends. not cool, sister.

and now i've gone and written a longer review for this than for any other story in this advent calendar so far, so see - everyone does stuff they don't mean to do. but i am only blaming myself.

anyway - i loved the writing - He rolled over and kissed her forehead, and she felt a slug he’d poured salt on, disintegrating under that kiss, but have been made weary by the resulting kerfuffle.

read it for yourself here:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...

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come to my blog!2018-short-story-advent-calendar hey-shorty76 s Emily B458 480

At times this story was incredibly uncomfortable and somewhat heartbreaking. What I really found touching was how real it was.short-stories61 s Trish2,087 3,645

This story made me uncomfortable on so many levels.
I read it after reading that it had gone viral online and I was curious to see why. Now I wish I hadn't done that. Which is funny, considering that the MC, too, wishes she hadn't done something.

The story is that of Margot, a 20-year-old sophomore, who meets Robert while working at a movie theatre. It's a story of texting, dating, the different meanings of intimacy and sex, expectations and more.

I must honestly say that I didn't Margot. I might not agree with Robert's last text but that girl needs to get her head straight. Yeah, she's young, but there were several points in this story where I couldn't believe she did this or that and I found myself screaming at the screen. And a girl who is old enough to have had sex with six different people before Robert is also old enough to know how to behave or when things are going too far and calling a stop.

And yes, despite Robert's ultimate reaction to the rejection being bad, it's not really surprising. I mean, look at his behaviour throughout the story. Anyone surprised at his reaction is either lying or stupid. As is often the case, even leading up to rape, the entire clusterfuck could have been avoided easily - it might not seem fair to some, but people (especially girls) need to make smart life choices.

So bottom line for me: people are incredibly stupid.
This should serve as a cautionary tale for many girls and young women, especially considering how many have said they identify with the MC. *shudders*

Apart from the story itself, the writing style was also nothing special. In fact, it felt more an account leading up to a police report or some students telling each other the story. Meh.53 s J.L. Sutton666 1,062

"Thank you for my presents."
"You're welcome, concession-stand girl."



In the short story, Cat Person Kristen Roupenian effectively makes you identify with the increasing discomfort and eventual revulsion of her main character, Margot, in her short-term relationship with an older man, Robert. While the writing was quite solid, it was uncomfortable knowing where this was going. The age difference between Margot and Robert (20 and 34 respectively) was stressed by Margot as she thought about their relationship. Especially at Margot's age and stage, it seemed a big gap, but it was Robert's manipulation, immaturity and anger that stood out for me. I was also fascinated by how Margot projected qualities onto Robert that he clearly didn't have; however, I'm sure that we all do that to some extent. Cat Person, a title that suggests the falsity of what she thought she knew about Robert, left me feeling uncomfortable but thinking. 3.5 stars46 s Imme van Gorp620 812

|| 3.5 stars ||

?First read: September 2021 | ?3.5 stars
?Second read: February 2023 | ?3.5 stars

This is a very raw depiction of the pressure a girl feels to make a guy feel good and to not bruise his ego. It also shows how a girl might make up an idealistic image of a random guy inside her head, and how important it can be for her to feel desired and needed. This can be so important for her that she will put up with and try to rationalize away certain things that she really should not.

This story is about a young sophomore student, Margot, who had shown an interest in 34-year old Robert. She somehow felt she owed him things, eventually even her body, just because she didn't want to offend him or be a tease. This didn't even seem a choice for her; it was just a given that she would do this.

Of course there's more to it than that; their 'relationship' was already showing loads of red flags and there were other interesting psychologic aspects going on, but in the end it mostly comes down to this weird power dynamic between the two of them: this misguided sense of owing someone in Margot’s case, and being owed something in Robert's.
Of course we don’t know what was going on inside Robert’s head, and a minor part of me did potentially feel bad for him too. Getting rejected hurts (especially after already having been intimate), but his previous gaslighting made it difficult for me to feel much sympathy for the guy.

That ending sentence though: ”Whore”. That one really hit deep.
It showed that Robert went from desperate, pleading and gentle to hateful and spiteful, all because he knew the rejection would be permanent and he had no chance with Margot anymore. Feeling rejected is a very powerful emotion, and can sometimes lead to some scary behaviour…

I felt quite sad reading this, yet I think it's good that things this are being written. It's very realistic, even though I wish it wasn't.3rd-person-pov age-gap contemporary ...more42 s Warwick875 14.8k

It was not that the author forced me into reading this or anything; I clicked on it of my own free will, part of me even quite d the idea. But pretty quickly I realised it wasn't for me. Too earnest, too mean-spirited, with an off-putting conviction of the narrator's righteousness – I just wasn't getting much out of it. I suppose I should have just said I wasn't enjoying it, closed the window, got on with something else. But from some weird mixture of social awkwardness and millennial ennui, I instead said nothing, ran an ironic commentary in my head, and saw it through to the bitter end. I'm not saying it was traumatic, but it's definitely something I look back on more with embarrassment than pleasure. Maybe it was my fault, or then again maybe it was society's fault, who really knows?fiction short-stories united-states41 s Shelli359 83

Here it is: the boy-girl game as it manifests in the #MeToo age, which, by the way, started on Earth right around the advent of the genus Homo.

I don't want to accuse my fellow reviewers as being in denial, but I don't see how the scenario in “Cat People” can possibly not ring familiar to to every man and woman (not even just straight!) who has ever interacted with the opposite sex. And I get it: if you're a man, you're not the clueless schlub that Robert is; if you're a woman, you're not a spineless bimbo Margot. (N.B. That is not how I would describe Robert or Margot, but is the general attitude toward them I'm reading in a lot of the .)

But that's not what I think the real denial is about. For the women: I'm sure you're much wiser and compassionate and assertive than Margot, but have you really never gone through with some social or physical interaction with a new prospective boyfriend just because you felt you'd already led him to expect it? That he could possibly get peeved if you cut the evening short, and so it might just be easier if you went along to get along? And maybe you even had a niggling little nervousness in the back of your mind that there's a chance he could be an axe murderer? And for the men: Maybe you've never and would never send that last cluster of text messages that closes out the story. After all, you're not a creeper! But can you say with 100% certainty that every one of your interactions with women have all been warmly welcomed by them, that you have never made them feel objectified, taken for granted, or pressured into doing anything? (If so, a few open-minded conversations with some exes à la the movie “High Fidelity” might disabuse you of that misapprehension.) And if you're willing to be fearlessly honest with yourself, can you admit to recalling a time when you knew you had the upper hand in the persuasion game, and used it to your advantage?

That, ladies and gentlemen, is what this story is all about. The author wasn't fat-shaming in creating Robert; she's making clear that it's not just the rich, fit, handsome, and charismatic men who have been socialized to wield this power over women successfully. She didn't make Margot a snarky, short-sighted, and – let's face it – fairly typical 20-year-old as a cautionary tale of who women should be or how they should act so as not to fall victim to the insidious expectations of men; on the contrary – it happens to the beautiful, the homely, the young, the old, the shy and outgoing a. The common denominator is our society's continual perpetration of toxic masculinity, and it's going to take the Roberts, the Margots, and every last one of us to put an end to it.fiction places-cultures-usa-gen-or-other sex-and-or-erotica ...more26 s BradleyAuthor 4 books4,326

So when I was voluntold to read this so my friend could stop feeling so alone, abused, and ashamed of herself for having finished this story, I did it because I felt it wasn't that much of an investment. It's just a short story, I said to myself. Published in the New Yorker! This is what modern literature is all about outside of my cloistered cozy little comforter of SF/F/H books.

WHAT COULD GO WRONG? Or is it Wrog. *Wrong.

Sigh.

Well, I'll tell you. Girl meets older boy, both play out weird little dramas in their head as they circle each other through texting, and then after a very uncomfortable date, they do the nasty.

It's just as nasty as you might imagine when it's degrading, full of personal illusions on both sides, including additional characters springing up out of each others' heads while having sex. (BTW, not literally. That might have been a cool post-modern Fantasy.)

It was just a BAD DATE that made everyone feel nasty and horrible even after subjecting themselves to the "expectation".

The aftermath, avoiding the guy, and the ending texts he sent her was just as ugly as everything else in the story.

If I was in the mood for some bad reality and/or I had the patience to swallow this "realism" shite, I might have given this more stars because it DID accomplish what it set out to do.

I feel I need to chlorinate a few gene pools and go through a very THOROUGH level 4 contamination rig.
2018-shelf traditional-fiction26 s Khush126 121



What is good about the story is that it has generated so much heat. This is great for the writer. Just on the strength of this story, she seems to have arrived on the literary scene.

I d reading it. But there are also things that I did not follow. I could not help questioning certain aspects of this story.

It revolves around Margot who goes on date with a man far older than her. She gets disgusted and disconnects herself from him.

The guy seems to be a jerk. Someone who knows how to flirt and play with young girls. However, once in bed, he acts a (failed? clumsy?) porn star, and not a concerned lover. In other words, he fucks her, but fails to touch her. He licks her and inserts his fingers into her, but she is not moved by these probings at all. They are in the same bed, but mentally they are on different continents. One seek the other, while the other is fully stuck in body parts.

One understands Margot, and sees that she is sensitive, intelligent and very aware; and of course, this makes her suffer, but this also helps her to resolve the situation.

What I also d about the story that she gets out of the trap quickly, and it is she who sensibly cuts
off contact with the guy. It would have been terrible had she chased him knowing well that she was unhappy him. This is perhaps central to the story; women find it hard to say 'no' even when they know that they must. It is actually Margot's friend who does it for her. She has her hesitations, her doubts, fear– the whole society, in fact, seems to speak through her and tries to regulate her, but she persists and finally succeeds. It is this that probably makes the story reverberates with so many.

Having known and understood her, I found certain things quite objectionable. She falls in love with the guy (with the idea of him, she ignores the signs that shows what the guy is ). On many occasions, she senses that something is wrong, but she goes all the way to try him out. The final decisive experiment is the (bad) sex. When the guy fails, only then she fails him. I wondered what would have happened had the sex been great, ecstatic. Would she then have moved away from him? Or would she, then, instead of dealing with his slights, have transformed them into benign things in her head?

There were moments early in the story when she feels drawn and charmed by him. But she also looks down at him, at his body. And this becomes urgent in bed, she cannot stop bashing him in her head for his paunch, his hair, his awkwardness. She imagines a future boyfriend who would understand her, and with whom she would insult the guy with a pouch, and then they would laugh and laugh, and share such joyful moments (getting joy, happiness by shaming someone's paunch!).

I would be embarrassed by my own behavior, by my own revulsion to someone's else body who, once, even fleetingly, evoked something--love in me. I would have questioned my own rumblings. Because his paunch did not appear on him that night. Her quest was humane, but she wanders in wrong alleys.

It is not a question of 'she' or 'he' when it comes to love. I think one should stop when a kiss does not feel right. I guess we know this instinctively except for Margot. She takes too long, but she finally comes home good.



24 s Jocelyn Mel90 4

I loved how honest the episode was. But I am so shocked that people are relating it to the Me Too movement. First of all, our protagonist was not pressured into anything. Someone has referenced how women get 'needled into acquiescence'. I resent, as a woman, the idea that I'm so soft in the head that I can be manipulated that easily. The protagonist loved imagining how much this guy wanted her. He was hoping she d him back and was doing the best he knew how.
This is a story, not, as the author suggested in an interview, about people who because of the electronic age are not in touch with their bodies and the messiness of life. I think it's about how youth is arrogant enough to think that they're rational actors, when in fact, we have egos. We want to be wanted. We don't want to be rejected. We are immature and sometimes we justify bad behavior: wanting to break up via text instead of F2F, or calling someone a name when you're humiliated. Roupenian captures another aspect of youth very well too: how they think that they know a person based on surface attributes or casual details that are not markers of their morality or character. That's what kids do - they lack patience and wisdom to figure out who an individual is. That takes time and insight.
This is also a story about our times when we have all the freedom in the world, without much stigma, to hook-up when we feel it. Therefore, without the rituals and expectations of dating and courtship, we find ourselves in situations that are fraught with desire, vulnerability, passion and fears. That's why courtship existed. Structure removes some freedom, but it lends safety.

But back to the story, there are classic contemporary examples of things I've felt as a result of not wanting to really be responsible for my passions and my mistakes. That's why I d it - it hits the awkward nails on the heads! But it wasn't so simplistic that the woman was the hero and the man was the ogre. I had a lot of compassion for the man. He was being judged for typical, but shallow reasons: his belly, his shyness, his vulnerability. She had a lot of power during various moments of the story, and she loved it. The saddest moment was her lack of self-awareness at the bar where all her friends played the little game escorting her out of the bar she was the President. Fun drama. But at the poor guy's expense. She wondered if 'maybe' she was being a mean girl. Good reflection. She was.
I noticed that she was confused at the end of the affair and I think she was feeling something that comes when you don't feel self-respect. She is introspective - and that leaves space for her to grow up and use that conscience as a guide to being more compassionate to others, being courageous enough to be honest, and to do things that lead esteem and not blame. It's so easy to make men into a target. But they are insecure players too.
19 s Claudia968 667

Cat Person
By Kristen Roupenian

A date gone wrong. I don't see why it sparked so many discussions: it's one in a miriad dates when you discover the person you thought you actually you didn't. As for his response, most of those rejected feel and act the same; true for both parties involved. So, nothing out of the ordinary and full of truisms anyway.

May be read in New Yorker here: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...loose-short-stories shreds-of-life19 s SteelwhisperAuthor 5 books417

Interestingly my former, quite elaborate and scathing, review is gone. So let me just reiterate that I have rarely read such an epitome of a misandrist, sexist story written by a woman as this one. Something is very awry between American men and women, and it most assuredly is not what the author allows her heroine to lament in her stead.

The female protagonist is a sexist, fat-shaming pig, and the male protagonist has so much of no clue at all, that his intelligence seems to stay within reach of room temperature. Unfortunately the author doesn't write well enough to divorce her own narrative voice, and thus herself, from the story and its protagonists, so she will have to own up to their behaviour. Which is disgusting, especially the woman's.

Blech.

Oh, and the story itself makes no sense at all. We live in the 21st century, not in an age of impeccable manners. All the female protagonist would have needed to do was say "no" and leave. That is all, and it is extremely hard to - realistically - conjure such an arsehole before my reading self who'd rather fuck someone for manners than simply shrug and leave.1-bad ableist ageism ...more14 s m.240 577

he rolled over and kissed her forehead, and she felt a slug he’d poured salt on, disintegrating under that kiss. 2022 5-stars favorites ...more12 s trestitia ??? deamorski1,421 392

a?a??da yazd?klar?m? okuyup yanl?? anlamay?n, bu bir short romance de?il. yani öyle de sand???n?z gibi de?il.

müthi? bir hikaye.

bir ünvli k?z. sinemada barista olarak çal???yor. ya? 20.
bir lumberjack var. ya? 34.

içten içten adama kendini sevdirmeye çal??an bir k?z.
alfams?, gizemli, sessiz sakin, k?z? aln?ndan öpen bir herif.

ama i?ler öyle gitmiyor ahaha B A Y I L D I M ! ! !

Every so often, over the next day or so, she would find herself in a gray, daydreamy mood, missing something, and she’d realize that it was Robert she missed, not the real Robert but the Robert she’d imagined on the other end of all those text messages during break.

nolur okuyun
xoxoxo
ikox_stories10 s U?itaj se!711 117

Kažu da se, nakon objave ove pri?e u New Yorkeru, ?ak 11 izdava?a borilo da objave zbirku pri?a Kristen Roupenian. Je li ova kratka pri?a ok? Da. Ali da je vrijedna to pompe? Ne znam baš. :/finished9 s Ceecee2,244 1,867

Read this for free on The New Yorker.

I read this over 24 hours ago and I’m still think about it, puzzling over it and trying to work out the many contradictions in the story. Margot is 20 and flirts for tips. Robert is much older and he doesn’t sound very attractive. For reasons I still can’t fathom she gives him her number and they then engage in a text ‘dance’ which she finds exhilarating while he seems to play it cool. They eventually go on a date which is totally bizarre. They are clearly unsuited and she certainly doesn’t really fancy him, doesn’t dress up for him, he’s a terrible kisser and she ‘recoiled’ when she sees his hairy body. She’s clearly playing him ( as it were) but she also shows some sensitivity towards his insecurities describing it as ‘petting a large and skittish animal’. Is this why she went through with the sex? Margot’s attitude towards sex is puzzling as she feels too much is required to stop things. She ns this to an ordered meal. Whaaat???? She describes him as being ‘stunned and stupid’ but she also recognises that he is needy. Margot’s attitudes post coitus are very odd too as she is clearly self disgusted and humiliated but then she imagines telling a future boyfriend about it and laughing and laughing??? I couldn’t get my head around that at all and I didn’t care for how trivial she was making the situation. However, this could equally be a defence mechanism and I found it puzzling in an intelligent girl that she didn’t just say no as she clearly neither wanted the sex or enjoyed it.

The story is very clever and very dark. It’s full of awkwardness but it’s meant to be and it’s meant to leave you with more questions than answers. In this age which is driven by technology isn’t it interesting that their most meaningful communication was via text? Their face to face communication is so awkward at times it’s cringe worthy. They were definitely engaging in a dance and you aren’t sure who’s leading - at times it’s Robert and at others it’s Margot. Margot’s attitude to sex is very questionable and although I didn’t Robert as a character I felt some sympathy for him especially at the end.

This is a very thought provoking story which is well worth reading especially if you to mull a story over afterwards! In this Me Too age this story will create a really good discussion.

PS. I had to look up what Red Vines are as we don’t have them in GB!!9 s Sosi Demirtshyan138 26

What the hell did I just read ))))




2019-reading-challenge a-shortie fuck-this-shit-this-ain-t-for-me ...more9 s Maddy42 15

Margot is a twenty year-old college student who develops a casual, flirty relationship with an older man named Robert over text. Margot initially finds the exchanges fun - she wants his approval and builds up an image of what he might be based on their harmless interactions. When they meet up for a date, expectations crash with reality. They don’t know each other very well, and their awkward date is plagued by miscommunication and mutual discomfort.

Roupenian’s story went viral after it was published in The New Yorker, and I found that many people were confused as to why so many millennials related to this story. I think that Roupenian uniquely captures the feeling young women often experience in romantic encounters. The feeling that young women have to be polite and appeasing at the expense of their own desires. The feeling of a romantic encounter seeming inescapable and plagued by immediate regret. The feeling that young women don’t really have a choice in asserting autonomy over their bodies past a certain point.

Robert and Margot have difficulty reading each other before and during the encounter, with Robert largely ignoring Margot’s discomfort and growing disgust. Margot feels too far in to a situation she initiated. Going along with the encounter just seems the easiest way to get through it.

Margot’s terrible sexual encounter ends the possibility of a relationship with Robert. Yet, she still feels anxious about hurting him. Their final almost-encounter at a bar a few months later culminates with Robert texting Margot a series of insults. Both characters seem less inhibited by communicating through text - there was less to lose by constructing an identity, creating the perfect witty response, or saying something awful that couldn’t be done face-to-face.2018-books short-story7 s Anna261 62

So, I finally got to reading this short story that has been widely talked about since its publication, which - to my horror - was back in 2017 (seriously, how does time fly so quickly?)

This is an example of a short story that works, at least for me. It is a contained piece of writing and doesn't feel an excerpt from a longer piece.

As for the contents - I'm sure most women have been in a situation strongly resembling the one Margot got herself into in this story. I am of an opinion that both main characters are not behaving their best but it only makes it more realistic. People are very flawed animals. Everything happening here is a commentary on how women and men behave within the context of the society they grow up in, how we are all conditioned to certain attitudes and behaviors and how little both genders know how to interact with one another. I think there needs to be quite a significant culture shift to change all this. But then, we'll probably find a new way to mess everything up because that's just how humans are.2019 all-kinds-of-love american ...more7 s Ivonne Rovira2,046 212

Most women who have been to college — and some who have not — have a story this one, one in which you make a mistake on whom to date, a total mismatch. The New York Times compared Kristen Roupenian’s short story to Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery; I think that’s an exaggeration, but I enjoyed the twist.

Goodreads no longer allows you to insert URLs in ; however, you can read it on The New Yorker’s website, published Dec. 4, 2017, for free. Judge for yourself.6 s MarielAuthor 3 books44

The first thing I truly wish I could give negative stars.short-fiction6 s Gretel330 55

It's written Margot feels during her encounter with Robert: You kinda it but you don't know why but sometimes it sucks and you keep wondering: "is it just bad or is it me?".
So I guess Roupenian did a hell of a job capturing that weird uncertainty and forced crush while also possessing redeeming qualities in her writing style. Damn.

The story is about Margot who works at an "artsy theatre", where she meets Robert. He's cute enough and they start texting. She develops a crush. But I reckognized it for what it is: it's not real interest or a crush or feelings, it's a certain addiction to being noticed. It's not really about Robert but about the feelings they entice in each other and her fantasies about what Robert thinks of her.
Robert shows signs of toxicity in those subtle ways: ignoring her or getting cold when she doesn't write fast enough, interpreting a No as a personal rejection of his person, making fun at Margot's expense because he's actually insecure and has to belittle her to feel better about himself, how he tells more and more small lies, how he jealously imagined her going back home during a break to go back to her "jock BF" she never had, leaving him behind, betraying him...and so on and so forth.

Margot wants to enjoy company, Robert wants an intense relationship. Everything's based on insecurities. Robert belittles her but also tries his best to do the right thing.
He's exactly that what women face: not a bad person but somebody with misogynystic streaks and such deep rooted anxieties that turn hostile and potentially dangerous.
What was it called? The banality of evil?
It's banal. But each of these "weird" interactions and his obessive thoughts are a drop adding to the bucket. It's not surprising that the story ends with Margot "breaking up" with a friends help and him stalking her in her usual bar. After seeing her, he sends her a barrage of texts, asking her if she's fucking a male friend to finally obsessing over her potential sexual partners and accusing her of being a "whore."

And the story might end here.
Or it continues with him writing more texts, getting angrier and angrier, calling her whore and slut, sending rape and death threats he might try to follow through.

This short story is too fucking real.short-stories5 s Juliet31 6

Cat Person is so sad, so clever, and feels so true. Roypenian can sketch out a budding crush in fewer words than I need to get a bus ticket. With incredible dexterity she explores how connections so healthy in our minds and digital spaces can fall apart in the light of day, and how a mixture of hang ups, assumptions and poor communication can lead not just to bad sex but to a gnawing fear that maybe your date never was a cat person after all…5 s Brittney Rae184 31

Ok wait. Did he leave his shoes on the whole time? I feel this story in my bones. 5 s Ioana69 14

This was a-ok, but for someone that's read a lot of questionable YA/NA/fanfiction...nothing to write home about.
4 s Debalina194 28

An internet sensation that appeared in the New Yorker. A friend suggested this to me. And usually her suggestions are good, so I read it immediately.

One most important thing: it IS a really well written story and the way Kristen Roupenian has drawn the characters out is worth an applause. They appear truthful, strange and relatable.

But I don't entirely see it as a symbol of the #metoo movement, but definitely a highlight of the confused areas in a certain sense. And I am 25 and this is a relatable story. They BOTH are at fault here, equally or not I am undecided. He deserved a proper reply. It would have definitely hurt him and he might have done the same thing, called her the same word and would probably have behaved exactly the same, or different, but that doesn't change the fact that he deserved, perhaps, a kinder and a 'proper' reply. Confusion about consent, and the reasons women feel that once they are in it a little bit they have to get on with it or be extra gracious or magical or cunning in their refusal is something we should talk more about, and be less bothered about. Saying no at a situation this is easier being advised than done. But we need to discuss this. A lot, and NOW. This story gives a hint to why. And yes, known truth men often behave this. Sometimes they will abhor a person who does this and still behave the same themselves. It's something to do with our society, the way we make the boys perceive their own sex from young, the popular culture and hints that make such behaviour look a proper way to 'vent-out' and get 'closure'. Disgusting! You being wronged in a sense and your insecurity being hurt, doesn't give you the right to say such a thing, or in other real cases even be more horrible. But it is always done this way, isn't it? And it HAS to stop. Our own age and maturity, which we usually are unaware of, and the means of communications we use with its practical implications are topics we need to keep in mind before drawing a picture and following its trails. Consequences are always real, good or bad and learning to take them in your stride and not either running away from them nor being poisoned by them is a necessity and an art that reflects much of what goes on in our society.

The best thing about this story is that it opens up a debate, which was probably intended too, and its printing was well timed in the US.

Full five stars for the writer! I probably will do a more detailed review of this, as many of my recent reads, but first let me catch some breath from the amazing and busy work-life I am having right now.

Enough of my commentary, happy reading! :)coffee-table-books magazines miscellaneous ...more4 s Sylvia24 9

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