My Engteacher feminist mother hated "Cat Person!"

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TL;DR She almost took Robert's side maybe because she identified me with him much more than I'd ever want her too, almost like an insult. Please read the rest, good explanations below. Read the story when you have time though Trigger Warning as always, and don't be like me who read it in the afternoon then was insecure and off his schmooze game at a political meet-and-greet (facepalm). I put this in Media because I felt its focus on a viral story put it there, but it's a roaming post that could go just as well in Family or even L+D (though I wonder if it would do as much good there as the other two)


A little bit of background, since I haven't seen it brought up searching the board. "Cat Person," by Kristen Roupenian, is the short story saga, which she later revealed to be semi-autobiographical and published in The New Yorker in December 2017 as #MeToo was exploding but before the semi-analogous Aziz Ansari post in Babe.com. In it, a 20-year-old college sophomore named Margot, a mix of third-person protagonist and unreliable narrator in a brilliant literal selfie, is charmed in spite of her worldly façade by a seemingly quirky 34-year-old guy she sells candy to at a movie store. Robert and her build up a months-long text courtship that ends after a one-night stand at his house after a movie date and bar stop that makes both parties feel violated but only one seems to move on from, namely Margot, whose friends shield her at a different bar from an implicitly stalking Robert who subsequently texts her a string of increasingly concerned questions and statement, finally deeming the girl who started off selling him candy and teasing him about it a "whore" in the last word. The story went viral, there are endless thinkpieces and even a reply from Robert's point of view by a guy who, like some commenters, says the A-word about Robert that a lot of us on this board often dread to hear said of the "scary guy" in a story.

I'm 4-5 years younger than Robert, and often find myself in the situation of women my age being able to "just tell" from my mistakes how inexperienced and fumbling I am at relationships and younger women (18+) being forbidden fruit in the same boat but scared of the power differential which makes me look like a predator. I would never do half the things he does, but also have never gotten as far with a woman in my life, partly because I second-guess myself as much as Margot does which doesn't help a man be cool and smooth. What irks me most is the way Robert uses every trick in the PUA book, from the bold approach to the "cocky-funny" texts to the negging about her looks to the leading her from one place to another on their date to try and coax her to the bedroom, that whole seduction as assembly line approach that can appeal to a struggling guy, and while he "gets laid," the objective the PUAs glorify as supreme, he never becomes "the guy she comes back to" that he envies and remains a loathsome object of her fears and fantasies, depicted in vivid detail by the story's ending commentary. Margot, for her part, is working her way through college (economically vulnerable) and grows up it's implied in a conservative environment where her first boyfriend is closeted gay and she doesn't learn good boundaries, like so many in the hook-up culture (this and many other plot points reminded me a lot of Lena Dunham's show Girls), but the question remains open how much she's come to see sex as a trade for attention that only lets her down when the man's physicality does, as when she encounters a pudgy belly and performance anxiety that seem to horrify her more than an in-bad-taste murder joke (!). In other words, in a perfect mirror, Margot thinks he's attracted to her mind or personality (including her bad jokes), but like herself he's just fixated on his perception of her body and the kind of porno fantasies he vocalizes, and he actually finds her personality insufferable; and Robert thinks she's attracted to his body, when like himself she's just fixated on her perception of his personality and the stories he spins in his texts, and she actually finds his pudgy dad bod repulsive.

My mom's a 69-year-old part-time sub, but she worked for over 25 years as an English teacher in primary, secondary, and university contexts, earning a P.Hd. for her literary analysis. I expected her to be a harsh critic in some ways, and to call out a "Mary Sue" when she saw one and whatnot, while turning over some of the ideas she had. In retrospect, I respect some of her oedipal discomfort and "talk to your father and male therapist" tut-tutting she did when we got home from talking about it on the way to and from and during a walk around a (not at all crowded) city park. However, I thought she might have important things to say since she has always espoused viewpoints supporting a woman's right to choose, to own property, to maintain her dignity, etc., and has personal experience with abusive men and a deadbeat Dad of sorts who won't honor the divorce decree meant to help deal with the costs of supporting my disability after I aged out of child support.

The first words that came out of her mouth once she was done critiquing the writing style, comparing it to books she liked better and what-not and criticizing me for not reading more fiction, was "he was right to call her a whore." My jaw hit the ground as I asked her what she could possibly mean, explaining that I thought both parties saw the relationship too transactionally as part of the way (in my opinion) aristocratic mentalities of woman-as-property-token affect working-class and middle-class gender norms. She doubled down, stating that Robert's primary mistake was not the PUA BS or beating a dead horse about a hopeless relationship, stuff I'm younger than him and already know doesn't work; in her eyes, the problem was that he was naïve enough to fall for her feminine wiles, and compares her and her ilk to a female version of the "player" who just sees Robert as a pathetic "notch" on her belt, the "we could be that mistake" of Superbad lore that Margot admittedly talks about joking about for fun alter on. I reminded her a guy less stable or more short-tempered than me or even the testier Robert could hurt her badly in some of the situations Margot found herself in, though the odds aren't as bad as she claims in her internal monologue in his car; my mother blew it off and acted like this obviously immature character was Wonder Woman and could handle herself no matter what.

It was like I'd logged onto a redpill forum or listening to some schoolmarm from a Western warn her son to stay away from the painted ladies in the saloons, and I got home relieved by her warning to never seek dating advice from her again (can you tell I never had a bro?). I thought this Hillary-voting, intellectual woman was inclined to side with the feminists, and she sounded like an MRA, perhaps simply because of her protectiveness towards her son. I half expected her to post me on #HimToo (so glad she's not on social media now!), and it made me realize that while I'm sometimes worried about being perceived like Robert, I'm not like him as a man despite my dating woes, perhaps in spite of my mother's experience and counseling, and perhaps before. I'm autistic but wise, I don't fall for BS anymore, I say what I mean, and I choose to be a bonobo and not a posturing chimp, and see no reason, unlike my disappointed mother, that I should not become the imaginary boyfriend in the story of the wised-up woman (the author's 35 now) that Margot like any woman could one day become, who wants to leave the chimp harem and be an equal, caring bonobo like me. I take pics of birds, frogs, and turtles, and speak three languages, ladies!