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“Cat Person” and Me

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Re: “Cat Person” and Me

#121

Post by DoreenMichele »

scotty79 wrote: post #120
DoreenMichele wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

because a relationship between a teenager and someone in their 30s is seen as 'more likely than not to be exploitative'. I'd like to see some research to back that claim that over 50% relationships with significant age gap are exploitative. These two statements are not identical.

So what exactly more likely than not means? I'm not native English speaker. Or are you referring to the difference "significant age gap" vs "30 year old and teenager"? If so I conceed. Those kinds of relationships are so incredibly rare among all relationships that I have no idea about the statistics there.

That's not the important difference in those statements. The difference is "someone in their 30s dating a teenager" versus "a big age gap generally."

Re: “Cat Person” and Me

#122

Post by [deleted] »

GeoAtreides wrote: post #83
sdwr wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.bulwer-lytton.com/ What are you trying to say? This comment made me the most upset×angry I've ever been on HN. Feels like an abuse of language.

It's not abuse, it didn't even registered to me as something special, and I'm an ESL speaker. Some people, by dint of having read many books, have a rich vocabulary and use it without giving any thought to how well-read (or not) are their interlocutors.

[deleted]

Re: “Cat Person” and Me

#123

Post by freshpots »

scotty79 wrote: post #104
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.

Literature is not one-dimensioned like that.

Re: “Cat Person” and Me

#124

Post by civilized »

GauntletWizard wrote: post #4

I dated a girl seven years younger than me. We were both in our twenties at the time, and I assumed she was a few years older and she thought I was a few years younger and when it actually came up I struggled with it but went forward. She's got an interesting background, and has been horrifically abused, and once told me I was the first person she ever trusted after having sex. Not that the confession was after sex,…

> a set of bitter people who regret everything, but didn't do anything worth regretting.

Now this should be a story.

Re: “Cat Person” and Me

#125

Post by scotty79 »

freshpots wrote: post #123
scotty79 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Literature is not one-dimensioned like that.

I think it's more of a rule than an exception. What makes a creation attractive is mixture of percieved veracity with addition of some oddity. So the most popular works of fiction mix some pretty accurate descriptions of reality with the oddity comming from the authors imagination. As such it attracts the reader with the promise of learning the truth about the world but instead it moves them away from the reality towards specific authors fantasies that are weird or gross enough to be interesting. What's more it draws more strongly the people who already share the same skew as the author and draws them even further from accurate understanding of reality.

Cat Person is great illustration of this, where it borrows endearing details from true healthy relationship but then serves the reader the image of exploitative and abusive, repulsive older partner. Furthering prejudices some readers already had and pushing them further away from accurate description of reality which is really varied as the relationship that was basis of this story shows.

Sometimes even though there's no repulsion, exploitation or abuse and older man just gets abandoned as the young girl finds new friends and there's just mature moving on without any abuse or retibution.

Re: “Cat Person” and Me

#126

Post by orange8 »

vkou wrote: post #110
scotty79 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why is it exploitative for a 33yo male to date an 18yo female? Are they not both adults? And who is doing the exploiting?

What about a 70yo male and a 33yo female? Still exploitative?

Re: “Cat Person” and Me

#127

Post by wizzwizz4 »

zozbot234 wrote: post #96
ReptileMan wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that this effect is localized in what can be described as "deep blue feminist college educated media women" bubble. That just happens to be uniquely vocal because of the media positions they hold. In the real world it is more nuanced (and nobody really cares)

On the contrary, vilifying men who don't meet one's arbitrary social standards is a deeply conservative idea as well. The fact "deep blue feminist college-educated media" folks share such notions doesn't mean the other side is any better - if anything, the whole idea of men's rights as something that's inherently worthwhile is still remarkably niche.

A lot of people who “support men's rights” are really just supporting the (sometimes former) status quo (which isn't great for men, either!), and trying to push back against the idea that women should have rights. They should be distinguished from the people actually trying to solve men's issues – but then again, it's not hard to tell the difference.

Re: “Cat Person” and Me

#128

Post by 7952 »

darkerside wrote: post #118
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…

Could it not be the fact that you said he was blond, but the way you said it? If it were described as a positive attribute, all those reactions make a little more sense.

Suprised me a bit that hair color of an ex would even come up in conversation.

Re: “Cat Person” and Me

#129

Post by canadianfella »

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…

You’re a creep.

Re: “Cat Person” and Me

#130

Post by wizzwizz4 »

scotty79 wrote: post #125
freshpots wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Literature is not one-dimensioned like that.

I think it's more of a rule than an exception. What makes a creation attractive is mixture of percieved veracity with addition of some oddity. So the most popular works of fiction mix some pretty accurate descriptions of reality with the oddity comming from the authors imagination. As such it attracts the reader with the promise of learning the truth about the world but instead it moves them away from the reality tow…

> So the most popular works of fiction mix some pretty accurate descriptions of reality with the oddity comming from the authors imagination.

Then eschew popular works of fiction. Talk to a reader or a book club, and get some suggestions, maybe? All books have this problem, but some less so than others. If you're aware of this issue, then reading a wider variety of voices can only help your understanding of the world.

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