cat person

"cat person" may go the way of "catfish"
who knows!

a cat a man a plan a napalm catamaran

why pick a man who you're not attracted to?

You get to a certain level of desperation where you just end up thinking "why the hell not, could turn out to be good" (meetcute tropes reinforce this).

― Daniel_Rf, Tuesday, December 12, 2017 12:07 PM (three hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Because there are other ways to find someone attractive besides them being a gorgeous film star type on first glance? Someone you were like "Ehhh he looks...normal?" can become beautiful to you when you know them and there's significance to little expressions, habits. You have to try them out to know, though. Or is this just me? I've dated lots of men I wasn't initially smitten with because what else can you do? Beautiful ppl date each other, and I hope (or did when I was dating--I don't really think about it now) that men will regard "normal" women with the same openness and appreciation. (If not, it's NYC, feel free to chase models or w/e but that's not going to end well for pretty much anyone.) But the thing is that sometimes the expected schedule of "date - date w/ kiss - date w/ kiss again - fancier date - sleep together" happens before you figure them out and then you're in the middle of things wondering how this happened but stopping it would be a big disruption and after all you let things get this far....

i think one of the most interesting things about this story is the very true-to-life way she deludes herself into thinking he is someone more interesting/more kind than he really is. in some ways, his witty texts and performative kindness works, just a little. just enough :( even though she is in college, she is probably bored with her options. college boys are just high school boys with one or two more years under their belts and more freedom. this guy was an adult and he had an apartment and was witty with an air of mystery. and he responded to her flirtation. that feels good. and then after the encounter, when she finally realizes that this is not something she wishes to pursue and chooses to cut off her communication with him, it turns out he is not only disappointing, but hostile. tale as old as time.

<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 boom

My experience trying to meet people on apps has been mediocre but not terrible — women aren’t weird or mean on there like men are

....

good post, io

that added weirdness of "well, this guy likes the movies at the theater I work at and so do I, so we've got that in common" that slowly evaporates as she realizes that's not really a commonality and he seems to associate her working there with pretension is o_O

Many many xps

that is what people are debating. some say it is ambiguous, others say the ending removes a lot of ambiguity.

moving away from that slightly, i just think this idea of "he's left open, you can interpret him how you wish" is kind of a thing people say that sounds like it's clever on behalf of the writer but isn't necessarily so.

I'm not saying it's necessarily clever - it's a standard feature of this type of fiction, sometimes to a fault. Anyway, my post was more in response to this idea that ppl who read the guy as being a serious creep or PUA type are reading it wrong, when the story itself strongly hints at this possibility throughout, to the point that the protagonist wonders about it.

(I'm ambivalent about the ending in general but don't agree it tips its hand too strongly in this regard, mainly cause it resonates with a similar experience I've had)

in orbit

you use the word "normal" and i agree with you, but margot/narrator deliberately said the word "revulsion" and the way she describes him in the first half of the story is kinda...gross? he wasn't a normal/avg looking person is what i get from the story

but i agree w u if we're talking about a regular/avg/normal looking person

tbh im surprised ppl are thinking the ending is over the top or too on the nose, seemed totally believable to me and believability is overrated anyway, also not really understanding the hostility towards short stories that have that formal tie things up with a bow ending, imho its s totally legitimate if not the only approach, i like it as a matter of fact even

wld be kinda fun if (so not gonna happen) were entering an age of super punchy topical viral short stories that enrage hardcore fans of the form

I feel guilty now but I pictured the dude in the story as a slightly angrier version of an acquaintance of mine and I could picture him fuming at the bar about this whole ordeal and sending nasty text messages after a couple drinks

haa

o yeah i pictured him as an angrier version of... an acquaintance too

i don't think he's supposed to be particularly repulsive, i think there's something to the notion however that when you meet someone new and you don't find them immediately super, super attractive, as you start to become involved w/them you shift back and forth as the relationship progresses and their personality or mannerisms make them much more or much less attractive. what you'd find sexy in a person whom you admire and respect and love might become a repulsive characteristic in someone who creeps you out or whom you dislike.

also the reason i bring up dating apps is bc i feel like dating apps have had a huge impact on our social interactions

i used to talk to random women at cafes and just make small talk or make a joke and if she followed up i could ask a question or make another comment and things could move forward from there. there was this intrigue to it bc i didnt kno if we had anything in common and it all started from a silly comment or a small observation

on say okc women have essay length profiles, dislikes, interests, protocols as to how one shld approach her, requirements of all sorts, questions answered about life, religion, sex, mundane things, etc

and everyone is free to judge you based on whether or not you read their profile

this goes both ways of course, w guys being straight to the point, getting numbers as quickly as possible and moving things to a real date and sex faster imo

all this complicates our social interactions and i believe they are different from a man meeting a movie theatre attendant at the movies. robert sounds like a very weird, lonely guy that is probably always on the internet/web. i mean a 20 year old not asking for a guy's social media accts or not more web savvy seems...different in our times especially as that is women scope a guy out and see what he is like

and yes all of us make generalizations abt robert bc this is a short story and we know next to nothing abt him. we are inside margot's head more so things on her side are explained more clearly

xp

I pictured him as Oscar from The Affair

I was anticipating/hoping that she would go back to his house and there would be like 160 cats.

https://new2.fjcdn.com/gifs/Allot_7ed177_943139.gif

I would also read that story

When u laguehd when I asked if you were a virgin was it because i had so many cats

she was secretly hoping he was a furry like her, that's the unspoken subtext of this entire story

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m3h0ltkxXt1qbrdf3o1_500.gif

i can't be the only one thinking of an anthology called cat people

^^ Yeah.

I'm surprised this story got so much traction. It's good but it's hardly a story with a unique theme. Is it #metoo that pushed it to the fore this much?

xp you certainly are not

virality is a mystery to all

somewhere philip roth is very angry

haha

liver person

believability is overrated anyway

careful you don't accidentally criticise the story.

wld be kinda fun if (so not gonna happen) were entering an age of super punchy topical viral short stories that enrage hardcore fans of the form

would be fun to see how bad a story can get before people stop praising it because it's morally correct.

hehe

writing decent short-form non-genre fiction competently is difficult

I'm also very happy there's a fiction piece in the New Yorker someone's sharing that isn't Borowitz

I'm surprised this story got so much traction. It's good but it's hardly a story with a unique theme. Is it #metoo that pushed it to the fore this much?

― ♫ very clever with maracas.jpg ♫ (Le Bateau Ivre), Tuesday, December 12, 2017 3:06 PM (thirty-eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I think so?

I read it yesterday and I really don't get why this is getting so much attention at all.

It's a fine story but I wasn't blown away by anything about it thematically or stylistically.

I'm also very happy there's a fiction piece in the New Yorker someone's sharing that isn't Borowitz

― mh, Tuesday, December 12, 2017 1:42 PM (eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

fucken amen

yah i dunno i liked the story, i'm not sure there's much behind its gaining traction other than lots of ppl finding it super relatable

checkmark twitter: this is about the unnavigable contours of toxic masculinity and consent

me: https://t.co/gAkoNwLWFF

— Tamara (@_TamaraWinter) December 12, 2017

x-post Wish I could say it wasn't but it is definitely that.

i rarely -- if ever -- enjoy reading fiction that i identify with personally. i enjoy reading fiction in part to gather what it's like to be someone who is NOT me. this story -- i think i enjoyed it going viral because other people were reading about an experience that maybe THEY hadn't had the dubious distinction of having, but i had. so seeing other people read and talk about the story is more enjoyable than having read it myself. i know about cat people; it's interesting to watch other people become acquainted with them. (while i am actuallying and being pretentious, i have seen 5 val lewton movies!)

imo its ok for a story to just be relatable and is an accomplishment in its own right, its not personally what im into as far as fiction but its fine and good i think

i want short stories to become the new listicles, if u think abt it its not too far from the personal essay genre that was big online a minute ago

I guess this just seems like such a common experience to me that I find it hard to believe that there are people who don't know about cat people? Good points though, LL.

a lot of people don't have particularly nuanced views and reading a story about a situation that sits mostly in shades of grey, where you're not quite sure if it's just a really mediocre experience or a bad one, isn't something they seek out

if this was a film one of the characters would be comically bad by the end or someone would have to get murdered in the background to spice it up

This is a "your terrible ideas" post but I kinda want to start a twitter account called "cats react to cat people" that's just like "meow purr so relatable meow"

Oops I mean cat PERSON obv I got confused with all the lewton talk

The two or three things I felt when I re-read this piece today:

- The focus on the minute details (of their texting conversations, of Robert's body) gave this story a kind of confessional quality that made it feel more autobiographical than fictional, so I get why people called it a "piece" or "article" instead of a "short story".

- The crux of the situation that I feel a lot of people are missing is that Margot was 20 (and thus underage in the USA) and the fact that a 34-year old was drinking with her, and subsequently having sex with her, makes this situation at the very least, on paper, predatory. A further detail to support this idea is that toward the end of the story, it's revealed that Margot had told many people about what had happened (she was traumatized), and her friends are protecting her like Secret Service agents (she was traumatized).

- The focus of the 34-year old being a badkisser and a badfucker is important insofar as it suggests that Robert was unable to hold down a relationship with somebody his own age. His focus on Margot's perceived lack-of-experience (and then accusing her of sleeping with Albert at the end) made me think that he had, at least, subconsciously felt the real effects of his badkissing and badfucking and sought (again, subconsciously) to have a relationship with somebody who's lack of sexual/romantic experience would give them less of a basis of comparison to judge his sloppy lovemaking.

I was surprised to see the reaction to it. It was well written and precise (although I didn't particularly like it) but people have always loved overidentifying with fiction tbf.

I didn't find the ending a surprise/shock/etc at all? There are so many indications that this isn't a guy who'll take rejection well. The various little warning signs - cats/not cats, the little comments digging at her because she mocked the film suggestion, her sense that she should be self-deprecating/apologetic - reminded me of people I've known where they're not quite believable and you can never feel easy around them. It was probably the thing I liked most in the story, that feeling of unease where you're unsure but trying to convince yourself otherwise. 100% agree with what in orbit said upthread that Margot's instincts were on the money.

Have to say that my personal favourite in recent years from the NYer was this Lesley Nneka Arimah piece.

apparently the author has an active account over on metafilter and admitted as such via a sock account she made to respond to the post about the story

https://www.metafilter.com/171090/Margot-met-Robert-on-a-Wednesday-night#7258782

I'm not especially active on that site these days, but I know a few people around here are

imo its ok for a story to just be relatable and is an accomplishment in its own right, its not personally what im into as far as fiction but its fine and good i think

― lag∞n, Tuesday, December 12, 2017 4:03 PM (fifty-one minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this kind of makes me wonder what reactions would be like if this had been presented as a "young adult short story" rather than a "new yorker short story"

I judge this short story to be beyond criticism (sees how everyone is impressed, goes one stage further). In fact, I judge ALL short stories to be beyond criticism, and we should never stop praising them.

Fwiw the industry self-definition of YA is for ages 11-17 so even Margot overshoots by at least several years if not a decade.

I love that Arimah story, it's my favorite out of her collection.

xp

My Short Story About Cat Person

I read Cat Person and didn't really like it. xyzzzz__ is a silly boy. The End

the funny thing is the new yorkers short stories are often bad, much worse than cat person, often bad fake deep stories abt young ppl sex with a literate gloss on top and everyone just ignores them