cat person

dmac starting off my "friday" fresh

was watching the Netflix series Love, in which the Gillian Jacobs character’s ex calls her “whore” on two separate occasions, recently and thought about the discussion here about this story. She takes offense, of course, but she’s not surprised. the character reads as scary-angry, but not in a way that casts him out of polite society at all. gotta say I wouldn’t blink if a dude said that to me after a date. I certainly haven’t when street harassers switch from complimentary intrusive comments to “bitch” or “whore” when I didn’t respond in the way I guess they thought I should.

all of this is a long way of saying La Lechera otm

^^^i think this is similar to WAYG, WHYB. in that story she's a girl who's moving towards adulthood and at the same time is exposed to the danger that comes from the wrong type of man, in this one she's a vv young woman who has perhaps one of her first exposures to the arbitrary nastiness men can show to women when things don't go their way, or when they feel spurned as opposed to being the ones who do the spurning. i guess the primary difference in this one is it's perhaps the first (or the nastiest to date) example for this character of what she'll have to deal with for the rest of her life w/men. one story ends with a knife, another with a deep paper cut, the first of a thousand.

xposts

also tbf i am afraid of men and when I was single i hid in my house most of the time sooooo I might not be a representative sample in terms of my expectation of hearing a gendered slur after a date.

it's totally normal imo and during this thread's initial cycle i repeatedly closed tabs containing gis results for "queen gertrude gif"

(in response to various forms of the "his portrayal went too far" take)

so over this story tho lol, not its fault, or anyone individually else's really

lol Hamlet is the ur-Robert

the funeral red vines will coldly... nah gonna face it i got nothing.

(btw people do buy red vines, all the time; in my art theater experience they might be the most popular concession stand candy. had hoped to feel superior to the workshopped nyer writer over this detail in kind of an elmore leonard beat of the street way but then i remembered flirting isn't something you do because it's true)

saw the author got a SEVEN FIGURE book deal, well deserved imo for writing the first ever short story that went viral

i didn't find robert exceptionally toxic or misogynist. perhaps mra-leaning, but not really. he was sadly familiar and common asshole, his misogyny garden variety as marcos said.

ok i have a question about the reaction to the story when it blew up: saw a lot of people saying "NOO! Don't you see?? BOTH characters are loathsome." --- wtf? the girl is 20. 20!!!!!!!!! idk how you could interpret her words or her decisions as loathsome, she's a fucking college kid. idk what you could question her for, if it's going home with or falling in a crush high with this schmuck dude, ... she's a kid... come on. anyway i should look up these criticisms, which will be difficult, because they were tweets.

yeah the protagonist is maybe a bit naive and just, you know, young. she doesn't read the warning signs that robert is a prick, which imo are there the whole time. but that's hardly something to dislike her for or think she's an asshole

i like the part where her friends hustle her out of the bar and she thinks, am i being a mean girl? but i do feel sick and scared tho. thought that part was working on a much higher level than "they both suck" or even than "they both behave hurtfully"

i think there's something very subtly terrifying (and even moving!) about that seemingly minor moment bc it's both pretty universal in the experiences of women, i think, and it shows how sometimes you have to follow instincts and gtfo of there. terrifying in the sense that women sometimes feel the need to escape men even in seemingly minor social interactions (not just extract themselves from a conversation but leave a building) and moving in how her friends are there to protect her. i'd need to reread it to get more details. i'm also speaking from a male perspective, so i'm not sure how much my take here holds up.

xxp yeah the warning signs are there from the get go. but again, she's 20. she had a crush high. having a crush totally warps and narrows your vision, no matter the age, but especially when you're that young

i like the part where her friends hustle her out of the bar and she thinks, am i being a mean girl? but i do feel sick and scared tho. thought that part was working on a much higher level than "they both suck" or even than "they both behave hurtfully"

Right, that was great, and very real. she's figuring out how to live, how to interact, how to date. everyone knows that shit is often excruciating and confusing and very hard.

i gotta find these criticisms i saw bc wtf... now that i think about it, they might've been criticisms from people that are around the narrator's age

i would not underestimate her decision making capabilities on account of her age. i remember myself at 20. "college kid" is somewhat infantilizing imo.

I didn’t actually see the “they’re both awful!” reactions; was that about the moments, during sex, when she reacted poorly to his body? some corners of the internet seemed not to read that part of the story particularly skillfully.

she does seem narcissistic in moments, and I think she is, on purpose, not partic heroic or Mary Sue-ish. some people really want fictional characters to be “likable,” esp if they’re women.

the creepiest thing this guy did was go to the same bar she hangs out at (uni bar)

also the "signs" were only there bc she ended up not liking the guy

plenty of women and men wierdos that love each others' weirdness out there

he got an underage woman drink in order to fuck her. not entirely uncreepy.

saw the author got a SEVEN FIGURE book deal, well deserved imo for writing the first ever short story that went viral

― flappy bird, Thursday, December 21, 2017 12:41 PM (sixteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

these numbers are always fake tho right, if she sells a million books then theyll give her the a million dollars, a publicity stunt

i'm not sure bc i didn't want to spoil the story- just remember seeing lots of people saying both characters were loathsome.

i would not underestimate her decision making capabilities on account of her age. i remember myself at 20. "college kid" is somewhat infantilizing imo.

college is infantilizing (at least ime- i'm 25). i don't think she's stupid or makes any obviously bad decisions- again, crush high- but at that age you're learning how to be an adult in the 'real world' for lack of a better word. the mistakes she made, not reading this guy's asshole behavior, she's learning how to live. that's what i meant- at 20, people generally have v little life experience, especially in dating/hooking up. it's not a putdown on her, it's a fact of life for many people that age now.

she didnt tell him his and he thought she was older as told by the narrator/protagonist

yr kinda pushing it

she didnt tell him hers*

Last weekend while I was grocery shopping a strange man walked right up to me and started patting and prodding me around the shoulders and being like "Heeeey, what's up?!" like a good friend you haven't seen in a while, and he got into my space so fast I couldn't react right away. After a second I was like, "Sir, I don't know you, stop touching me. Please get away from me." His response was "Fuck you, bitch. You think I want to fuck you? I must want to fuck you, huh?" and yelling variations of that while going down the street.

So no, I don't think Robert is unusual at all.

yeah...did he, though? a lot of what he does can be read as neutral, but it did not strike me that way. I didn’t like the story enough to reread it tbh.

xp to be clear that I’m not doubting io’s story. I’m sorry that happened, io.

at 20, people generally have v little life experience, especially in dating/hooking up. it's not a putdown on her, it's a fact of life for many people that age now.

― flappy bird, Thursday, December 21, 2017 1:04 PM (thirty-six seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

id agree with that i noticed recently in conversation with someone around that age that she hadnt really developed the ability to detect extremely obvious scumbags yet, tho i wldve expected her to just based on her personality/intelligence, then i was all oh its just experience, tho obv this ability doesnt strictly correlate with age, also i wld lilke to state for the record im not the scumbag in this story

also the "signs" were only there bc she ended up not liking the guy

plenty of women and men wierdos that love each others' weirdness out there

― infinity (∞), Thursday, December 21, 2017 5:58 PM (eleven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

"Women like being harassed as long as the guy is hot."

Also, NO, you've got that backwards, she ended up "not liking" him because all his kindness and interest in her was fake and he was an unpleasant person who didn't treat her with respect--a user, at the very least.

she didnt tell him his and he thought she was older as told by the narrator/protagonist

yr kinda pushing it

― infinity (∞), Thursday, December 21, 2017 10:07 AM (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

she didnt tell him hers*

― infinity (∞), Thursday, December 21, 2017 10:07 AM (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i mean as the story plays out, he finds out she's twenty and then takes her to another bar that doesn't check IDs and keeps buying her beers.

I constantly need to be reminded that some people develop that skill (scumbag detection) earlier than others
it's a good point
and yet i still think that she is not especially blind to his faults but kind of idly tolerant of them until they start to accumulate and take on the shape of a cat person

sorry that happened to you io -- that sucks. i know the shock and the "please do not touch me" speech and the fuck you bitch routine :( it's like being sprayed with mace-laced axe body spray and lingers the same way

xxxp lol

yea everyone's different, some are more precocious than others, but the narrator character felt very familiar to me, her experience with the dude was very familiar as well. lots of my friends went thru much worse.

Thanks, hs and ll! Actually I was remarkably unfazed about it after the fact, but that might have been because I was tired enough to drive off a bridge. I feel like it was a turning point for me in my lack of embarrassment at being harassed! I yelled back at him!

I feel like the character notices a lot and her feelings about Robert change with what she notices (what had seemed appealing about his body becomes repugnant, for example) but she doesn’t explicitly make the connection. or feel entitled to blame him, exactly.

she deceived him by not telling him her age so it was not important for her, it fed into her older man fantasy which she talks about in the sex scene

she obv was interested at that point in the story

also someone, albeit very few, like the dom/sub thing, so ya. in the end she was way more normal/avg than him

im not really saying i dont think he is an asshole, im saying there are women who wldnt mind his assholeness

xp I love yelling back! Of course it is risky but it feels amazing.

One time some dudes catcalling near my apt called me a bitch, and I yelled, “THAT’S GODDAMN RIGHT, AND YOU PICKED THE WRONG BITCH TO FUCK WITH!” I am not often that version of myself but I remember her fondly.

lol

lol <3 <3

she deceived him by not telling him her age so it was not important for her, it fed into her older man fantasy which she talks about in the sex scene

she obv was interested at that point in the story

also someone, albeit very few, like the dom/sub thing, so ya. in the end she was way more normal/avg than him

im not really saying i dont think he is an asshole, im saying there are women who wldnt mind his assholeness

I was really close to my door when I yelled it. I credit Ice Cube and how fucking tired I was at the time.

:)

shut up, infinity.

Also, NO, you've got that backwards, she ended up "not liking" him because all his kindness and interest in her was fake and he was an unpleasant person who didn't treat her with respect--a user, at the very least.

I feel like the character notices a lot and her feelings about Robert change with what she notices

this isn't how it read to me at all? she seemed was never particularly interested in or attracted to Robert at any point but enjoyed being desired by someone, and maybe the power of being desired by someone who you don't desire and you feel superior to, she's playing with him to an extent, but then she decides/realizes that she doesn't want to sleep with him but that stage she feels unable to back out and how she thought of the power dynamic shifts, she runs up against the limits placed on her power? I didn't get the impression that there was a point when she realised he was a bad guy and then her feelings about him changed or anything? 'idly tolerant' of his faults seems accurate

she deceived him by not telling him her age so it was not important for her, it fed into her older man fantasy which she talks about in the sex scene

she obv was interested at that point in the story

also someone, albeit very few, like the dom/sub thing, so ya. in the end she was way more normal/avg than him

im not really saying i dont think he is an asshole, im saying there are women who wldnt mind his assholeness

― infinity (∞), Thursday, December 21, 2017 1:21 PM (thirty seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i know what you mean but isn't "deceived" a little strong? she has a very familiar deer-in-the-headlights reaction at many points in the story. again, inexperienced nervous young person going thru new life experiences.

i don't know if you could argue the guy's loathsome behavior is mostly subjective until the final scene. like horseshoe said, his asshole behavior is not close to a BDSM mindset at all. it's very pathetic and nerdy, very mra, very entitled to a woman's affection, attention, and praise.

you dont need to be into bdsm for this

also the story involves a naive woman who ends up finding something about herself and realizes she is not interested in someone she once fantasized being with, in this situation, of course his treatment of her is wrong

it still does not disprove that there are women who are interested in dom/sub lifestyles and its variants, which i never said this was about, so i dont get why you think its so bizarre

no I agree exactly with what your reading. she notices behavior and reacts to it ( after having created a narcissistic fantasy based on nothing but his attraction to her) but doesn’t think of it as bad or good. part of why she loses any physical attraction to him, it seemed to me, is he showed evidence of being an unresponsive lover, though she was also uncommunicative.

she seemed was never particularly interested in or attracted to Robert at any point but enjoyed being desired by someone,

not really true, at various points there is some (very nicely written) language about her feeling a crush!

xxp to soref

(which dissipated when she realized he was kind of a small, petty person) xp

I think the fact that she notes his weight as appealing early on, and then experiences it as revolting while having sex she doesn’t want to have with him later is evidence of the kind of thing I’m talking about