cat person

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

btw i keep thinking of him saying "hey, concession-stand girl" even after learning her name and it makes me cringe

Again, the grouping term for that last clause is ‘male’.

infinity I have no idea what you are talking about; don’t get how dominant submissive relationships entered the conversation really

Er many xps to flappy bird.

flappy

i guess deceive cld be a strong word. what wld u call it? withholding info?

sure, again i chalk it up to being in a new situation and not necessarily knowing what to do. & i was responding to the dom/sub observation re: robert's prickish putdown attitude toward her from the very beginning, which idk his particular brand of negging didn't remind me of a dom/sub thing at all. but that was just my take

sure

makes it hard to talk abt robert tho i guess bc not much is revealed abt him

other than his love for red vines

will never look at red vines consumers ever again tbh

ha *the same, but that works too

not much is revealed of him aside from his easily recognized behavioral patterns that match those of people with bad sexual politics (is there another way to put that?)

easily for some, less easily for others

yeah, i feel like plenty is revealed

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

not sure what you mean by this, if the advance is $1m, she'll probably get $400k now, $300k when she turns in the manuscript, $300k on publication, the money is hers whether she sells a single copy or not, so long as she actually turns in a book

will never look at red vines consumers ever again tbh

sort of surprised "red vines" has not already been "reclaimed" as a performative candy choice by rotten people

i never even heard of red vines before the story! are they the same thing as twizzlers?

really??

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

I didn't see this so much as evidence that his weight only became repulsive to her as she notices his personality flaws or that he's an unresponsive lover, more that she felt some degree of repulsion from the beginning, which was appealing in a way when it could be used as part of an ego boosting fantasy but unpleasant when she actually sleeps with him and feels dragged down to his level? like, the fantasy is based on the idea that she can remain 'above' him, enjoy being desired without being begrimed or without any change to her position/status, but t doesn't play out like that in practise

I think the story says that the moment she realises she wasn't going to get anything positive out of the encounter is when he asks her if she's a virgin, and she laughs b/c she remembers how carefully she chose when and how and who with she lost her virginity, and the idea that her first time would be with this loser in this awkward/tawdry situation is ridiculous to her - but she it's driven home to her that Robert sees this encounter in a different way to her and she feels obliged to apologise and tacitly accept his framing on their sex act, which is one where it does 'count' and is part of her life story or whatever, rather than one where she remains uncontaminated - it seems like this is when the power dynamic shifts and she's lost control of the narrative

are red vines a regional thing? i've only ever lived in the northeast & mid-atlantic and all we have are twizzlers

lol holy shit marcos i didn't see your post

yeah, i feel like plenty is revealed

― horseshoe, Thursday, December 21, 2017 1:53 PM (nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm! there was a good post earlier itt (difficult listening hour i think?) about why we don't need to hear this story from robert's perspective because we already know it