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“Cat Person” and Me

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Re: “Cat Person” and Me

#101

Post by gpcr1949 »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #56

To me, the most disturbing part of this is the following section: I made plans to rent an apartment with some girls from my econ class the following year, but they told me they’d changed their minds when they found out about my older boyfriend. I'm a woman and I blog. I have made a stab at writing fiction, often loosely based on my life. People tend to assume it is 100 percent true . When I was getting divorced, if I…

> I made plans to rent an apartment with some girls from my econ class the following year, but they told me they’d changed their minds when they found out about my older boyfriend.

It's definitely no problem to me that people do not want to flat-share with a couple where one partner is 33 y/o and the other in, or shortly after, their "senior year of high school", which if a web search is to be believed usually means 17 year old turning 18. I'm not talking about the law re:that relationship which depending on the jurisdiction might be 100% legal, but these housemates are absolutely in their right to not want to have anything to do with that. Personally, if i was a 18-19 year old looking for a flat to share, I probably also would like to avoid regularly meeting the type of 30-year old that dates a teen, despite the fact that in the author's specific case it was apparently fine and also still fine on retrospect.

Re: “Cat Person” and Me

#102

Post by scotty79 »

gpcr1949 wrote: post #101
DoreenMichele wrote: post #56

To me, the most disturbing part of this is the following section: I made plans to rent an apartment with some girls from my econ class the following year, but they told me they’d changed their minds when they found out about my older boyfriend. I'm a woman and I blog. I have made a stab at writing fiction, often loosely based on my life. People tend to assume it is 100 percent true . When I was getting divorced, if I…

> I made plans to rent an apartment with some girls from my econ class the following year, but they told me they’d changed their minds when they found out about my older boyfriend. It's definitely no problem to me that people do not want to flat-share with a couple where one partner is 33 y/o and the other in, or shortly after, their "senior year of high school", which if a web search is to be believed usually means…

Because old people are generally gross?

As 42 year old your comment sounds to me like the one that people not wanting to rent a flat with someone that has a black partner is perfectly fine because they might not want to meet that kind of people.

Some older men are interested in younger women. And some younger women are interested in older man. Assuming that this automatically means they have character flaws worthy of ostracism is very prejudicial.

Re: “Cat Person” and Me

#103

Post by barrkel »

AdrianB1 wrote: post #72
DoreenMichele wrote: post #56

To me, the most disturbing part of this is the following section: I made plans to rent an apartment with some girls from my econ class the following year, but they told me they’d changed their minds when they found out about my older boyfriend. I'm a woman and I blog. I have made a stab at writing fiction, often loosely based on my life. People tend to assume it is 100 percent true . When I was getting divorced, if I…

It does not matter what was the hair color of your ex; as most women are looking for men with a future, most men are looking for women without a past and not take serious one with a past. The hair color is just an excuse. The entire evolution of humankind built that into men, it is in the genes, it is what they are. Societal pressure to vilify relations between older men and young women comes mostly from women. Studi…

Young women are sexually attractive for the reasons you state, and I do think that some older women resent the attention that gets, but there's more to it.

The difference in maturity means it's harder to relate. I personally wouldn't want a young girlfriend, despite finding them sexually attractive, because I could not imagine trying to share my life with them - our interests would be too divergent. I think there's a real risk, when one party in a relationship is much less mature, the other party may have an unbalanced or unhealthy set of interests - interests that may end up hurting or harming the less mature party.

Re: “Cat Person” and Me

#104

Post by scotty79 »

ceilingcorner wrote: post #67

I just read the original article after reading this link. This situation is a perfect microcosm of how the media / contemporary culture at large will take a very human situation with complex personalities and shape it to fit the ideological narrative. The actual story (this link) is nuanced and filled with insights on modern dating culture, while the semifictional New Yorker piece is pretty one-dimensional. As far as…

I grew to hate literature for its inaccurate representation of reality that shapes and skews imagination of the readers and makes it aligned with one persons grim fantasy.

People internalize that children left alone will reanact Lord of the flies and people reading this will internalize that every relation with significant age difference is an abusive relation filled with negative emotions and dynamics.

Re: “Cat Person” and Me

#105

Post by truculent »

Lio wrote: post #87
normac2 wrote: post #81

The most obvious takeaway here is how she was wronged by Roupernian, but maybe a just-as-interesting takeaway is that the real Charles was a three-dimensional person with some good traits, and not just an avatar of all semi-neckbeardy creepy men. Of course, it's pretty clear the story wants to serve as some kind of stylized and boiled-down version of some of the disturbing stuff that women experience dating. But this…

I think we should be wary of anyone that tries to manipulate emotions against an "other" group. It's popular because it triggers existing prejudices about your so called "semi-neckbeardy creepy men". Even that phrase links appearance to bad behaviour. (I mean in general terms here and not specifically anything about your post, I should point out). However it's pure fantasy. The original story takes two people's perfe…

> It's popular because it triggers existing prejudices

I think it was popular because it rang true to a lot of peoples' real-life experiences. It seems strange to dismiss this and assume it's all about baseless predjudices.

> She wrote an unpleasant fictionalised story about him which is now clearly shown to be untrue.

The story isn't about him though, is it? It's fiction (albeit with some details carelessly lifted from real peoples' lives). The story's merit does not lie in how well it reflects Charles and his relationship.

Re: “Cat Person” and Me

#106

Post by scotty79 »

juliusmusseau wrote: post #80
civilized wrote: post #3

At the end of the day, I kinda don't think this is a big deal. Roupenian was careless not to scrub real-life personal details out of Cat Person, but I think what happened was a bit of a freak accident that she unfortunately failed to foresee, and she apologized. It does make you wonder how much you can trust supposedly slice-of-life fiction, if a friend of one of the "characters" finds the story a poor representation…

Good fiction is not usually judged for how true it depicts a real living person. Heck, even actual Biography (non fiction) isn't even judged that way. Cat Person succeeds because it captures a deeper truth. And boy does that story touch a nerve - a mirror that is hard to look at because of its truth.

Is it a truth though? Seems more like a grim fantasy that's rather exception than the rule. The reality seems much richer and more interesting than the fiction in this case.

Re: “Cat Person” and Me

#107

Post by barrkel »

tptacek wrote: post #33
refulgentis wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't tell if you're really mad about the article and think the author is unreasonable, or if you think I'm being unreasonable, so I'll just respond as if you're looking for evidence that this, at least somewhat, ambiguous: > “Cat Person,” and the cultural reception to it, feels connected to the broader literary debate over “autofiction”—writing that, in its raw and confessional style, seems to blur the boundaries…

"Fiction" is literally in the word "autofiction". The term means "fictional autobiography". You may have confused it with "roman à clef", which nobody says Cat Person is. We do have a term for "fiction inspired in part by real stories"; it's "fiction".

Fiction isn't the binary you are asserting here.

In fact, libelous material is by definition fictional - imputing someone's character by making stuff up.

Now I think that this is fiction, but it is definitely skirting the line and the author should probably have changed a few more details.

Re: “Cat Person” and Me

#108

Post by watwut »

erulabs wrote: post #75
DoreenMichele wrote: post #56

To me, the most disturbing part of this is the following section: I made plans to rent an apartment with some girls from my econ class the following year, but they told me they’d changed their minds when they found out about my older boyfriend. I'm a woman and I blog. I have made a stab at writing fiction, often loosely based on my life. People tend to assume it is 100 percent true . When I was getting divorced, if I…

> I am disturbed and concerned by the general trend that the world seems to think all heterosexual relationships are inherently abusive or something. We hear a great deal about the bad, the things gone wrong, the dark side and sometimes it seems like there are no good examples out there, no discourse on "This is what a good relationship look like." Well said. There seems to be some larger theme going on, not just abo…

There is super odd jump from "we find this big age gap relationship to be red flag" to "all heterosexual relationships".

The girls did not even implied abusiveness in the story. Nor that they would be fine if it was lesbian relationship.

Re: “Cat Person” and Me

#109

Post by truculent »

shp0ngle wrote: post #35

The original article: Even "nice" guys are secretly mean and will treat you horrible, if you don't listen to them. This article: Women will make up horrible things about guys online, even when it's not true, to get clicks. And not even properly apologize.

I think your reading of both the original text and this follow-up are deeply flawed.

Foremost, original text was a story, a work of fiction (not an "article") -- of course it was made up! The fictional character of Robert is not the real life person Charles.

It is strange then, to claim that "Women will make up horrible things about guys online". Is the creation of any unpleasant fictional character a bigoted swipe at large sections of the populace? (There's an additional irony of you generalising this to _women_ and not the author.)

Re: “Cat Person” and Me

#110

Post by vkou »

scotty79 wrote: post #102
gpcr1949 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I made plans to rent an apartment with some girls from my econ class the following year, but they told me they’d changed their minds when they found out about my older boyfriend. It's definitely no problem to me that people do not want to flat-share with a couple where one partner is 33 y/o and the other in, or shortly after, their "senior year of high school", which if a web search is to be believed usually means…

Because old people are generally gross? As 42 year old your comment sounds to me like the one that people not wanting to rent a flat with someone that has a black partner is perfectly fine because they might not want to meet that kind of people. Some older men are interested in younger women. And some younger women are interested in older man. Assuming that this automatically means they have character flaws worthy of…

> Because old people are generally gross?

No, because a relationship between a teenager and someone in their 30s is seen as 'more likely than not to be exploitative'.

I've only known two people who fit that bill, and as a third-party observer, both of them seemed incredibly sleazy and manipulative. I'm sure that there are exceptions, but most people would correctly see that kind of age gap as a huge red flag.

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