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Cat Person
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| "Cat Person" | |
|---|---|
| Short story by Kristen Roupenian | |
 Lead image of the story, by Elinor Carucci | |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Fiction |
| Publication | |
| Published in | The New Yorker |
| Publication date | December 2017 |
"Cat Person" is a short story by Kristen Roupenian that was first published in December 2017 in The New Yorker before going viral online.[1][2] The BBC described the short story as "being shared widely online as social media users discuss how much it relates to modern-day dating".[3]
The story has been adapted to a film of the same name directed by Susanna Fogel.[4]
Synopsis
[edit]The story follows the brief relationship of Margot, a twenty-year-old sophomore college student, and Robert, a thirty-four-year-old man who is a regular at the movie theater where Margot works. After an exchange at the concession stand, he asks for her number, and they carry on extensive conversations through texts. Margot finds Robert witty and funny through text, and their conversations grow frequent, including running jokes about Robert's two pet cats, but he is more awkward and inscrutable when she tries to see him in person.
When Margot returns from visiting home for winter break, she and Robert go on a real date: they see a movie, go to a bar (during which Robert learns her age), and then return to Robert's home. Despite being disappointed and uncomfortable during the date, Margot consents to sex with Robert rather than navigate turning him down. After the distasteful sex encounter, which largely disgusts her, Margot learns that Robert is thirty-four years old and reflects that their conversations have been impersonal. After not seeing Robert's cats in his home, she wonders if their existence and other aspects of Robert's persona while texting were fabricated.
Margot resolves to tell Robert she is not interested in continuing to see him but ignores his messages while she is unsure of how to do it politely but firmly. Her roommate eventually impersonates her in the break-up text. A month later, she sees Robert while out at a bar with her friends; she is unsettled by the idea that he is looking for her and avoids him. That night, he texts her repeatedly, his messages at first insecure and politely questioning if she was with a new boyfriend but becoming more needy, jealous and belligerent as Margot does not reply, ending with calling her "Whore."
Reception
[edit]The Washington Post described "Cat Person" as unique among the content in The New Yorker because it resonated with a younger audience, commenting: "for one of the first times, something in the magazine seemed to capture the experience not of print-oriented, older intellectuals, but of Millennials."[5] The story was the year's most downloaded fiction published in The New Yorker, and one of the most-read pieces overall of 2017. The Atlantic notes that "The depiction of uncomfortable romance in 'Cat Person' seems to resonate with countless women", and describes it as a "literary adjunct to the latest #MeToo moment".[6] Personal reactions have been largely, but not entirely, along gender lines (drawing comparisons to Jane Austen),[7] and for many readers, it captures what it is like to be a woman in her twenties in 2017, including "the desperate need to be considered polite and nice at all costs".[8]
Following the story's success, Roupenian secured a seven-figure deal with Scout Press for her debut book, and was the subject of a bidding war in the American market, with offers exceeding $1 million.[9] She received a $1.2 million advance for her 2019 book You Know You Want This, an anthology series which includes "Cat Person".[10]
Real-life inspiration
[edit]In July 2021, Alexis Nowicki published an essay in Slate magazine alleging that Roupenian had appropriated details from Nowicki's life and that of her ex-boyfriend, and used them for "Cat Person", with Margot representing Nowicki and Robert representing Nowicki's former partner, only identified in the essay by the pseudonym "Charles". Nowicki's essay points out salient differences between "Cat Person" and her relationship.[11] Elisabeth de Mariaffi notes that "the entire weight of Cat Person, what made it resonate, was exactly the part that Nowicki says bears no resemblance to the truth."[12] In contrast to the action of "Cat Person," Nowicki categorized her relationship with "Charles" as generally positive and said that the two had remained friends following an amicable breakup, and that she had only come forward following Charles' "sudden death" at 35 years old.
Social media users reacted strongly to Nowicki's allegations. In the words of Elisabeth de Mariaffi, in Maclean's, "Twitter went wild, with readers struggling to understand how a writer could justify using such real-life details, and writers rallying to defend themselves."[12] The Guardian writer Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett described the potential for readers to feel that "using someone else's story in this way was unethical."[13]
In a 2021 email reply to Nowicki, Roupenian said she had an "encounter" with Charles and that she later found out about Nowicki through social media. Roupenian acknowledged that information she learned from Nowicki's social media served as a "jumping-off point" for "a story that was primarily a work of the imagination, but which also drew on my own personal experiences, both past and present." She apologized for not changing particulars such as Nowicki's hometown, stating "I can absolutely see why the inclusion of those details in the story would cause you significant pain and confusion." Nowicki has said that she did not blame Roupenian, believing that the writer had no idea the story would go viral.[11]
References
[edit]- ^ Garber, Megan (December 11, 2017). "'Cat Person' and the Impulse to Undermine Women's Fiction". The Atlantic. Retrieved December 12, 2017.
- ^ Bromwich, Jonah (December 11, 2017). "'Cat Person' in The New Yorker: A Discussion With the Author". The New York Times. Retrieved December 12, 2017.
- ^ Sini, Rozina (December 11, 2017). "Cat Person: The short story people are talking about". BBC. Retrieved December 12, 2017.
- ^ Wiseman, Andreas (June 20, 2021). "Cat Person: Emilia Jones & Nicholas Braun To Star In Short Story Adaptation For Studiocanal & Imperative — Cannes Market". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved October 14, 2021.
- ^ Roberts, Molly (December 11, 2017). "'Cat Person' is a next step in the #MeToo movement". The Washington Post. Retrieved December 12, 2017.
- ^ KHAZAN, OLGA (December 11, 2017). "A Viral Short Story for the #MeToo Moment: The depiction of uncomfortable romance in "Cat Person" seems to resonate with countless women". The Atlantic. Retrieved December 12, 2017.
- ^ Welsh, Kaite (December 12, 2017). "Cat Person is 'mundane', Austen is 'dross': why do so many men hate female writing?". The Guardian. Retrieved December 12, 2017.
- ^ Grady, Constance (December 12, 2017). "The uproar over the New Yorker short story 'Cat Person', explained". Vox. Retrieved December 12, 2017.
- ^ "Cat Person author Kristen Roupenian lands seven-figure US book deal". The Guardian. December 20, 2017.
- ^ Brockes, Emma (January 26, 2019). "Cat Person author Kristen Roupenian: 'Dating is caught up in ego, power and control'". The Guardian. Retrieved January 26, 2019.
- ^ a b Nowicki, Alexis (July 8, 2021). ""Cat Person" and Me". Slate. Retrieved July 8, 2021.
- ^ a b de Mariaffi, Elisabeth (July 14, 2021). "The real Cat Person has spoken—but is there a real Cat Person?".
- ^ Cosslett, Rhiannon Lucy (July 9, 2021). "The Cat Person debate shows how fiction writers use real life does matter". The Guardian.
External links
[edit]
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- "Cat Person" at The New Yorker
- What It Felt Like When "Cat Person" Went Viral
- "Cat Person" and Me by Alexis Nowicki
Cat Person
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Publication and Authorship
Kristen Roupenian's Background
Kristen Roupenian graduated from Barnard College in 2003 with a double major in English and psychology.[12] She subsequently served in the Peace Corps in Kenya from 2004 to 2006, teaching public health and HIV/AIDS education in rural communities.[13] [12] After returning to the United States, Roupenian worked as a nanny for several years while pursuing further studies, and she briefly considered a career in foreign service, nearly accepting a position with the U.S. State Department.[12] [14] Roupenian earned a Ph.D. in English from Harvard University in 2014, specializing in African literature; during her doctoral studies, she drafted a novel drawing from her time in Kenya, which marked an early pivot from literary analysis to original fiction.[15] [16] [17] Following her Ph.D., she enrolled as a Zell Postgraduate Fellow in the University of Michigan's Helen Zell Writers' Program, an M.F.A. in creative writing, where she honed her short fiction craft amid a sparse publication record limited to smaller literary outlets.[17] [18] As an emerging writer, Roupenian's pre-2017 output centered on short stories informed by personal encounters and cultural observations, particularly those involving interpersonal negotiations in modern adulthood; she has described her approach as building composites from real-life vignettes rather than direct autobiography.[8] [19] Her debut in a major venue came with "Cat Person," accepted by The New Yorker after initial submissions elsewhere and published online on December 4, 2017, establishing her as a voice attuned to relational asymmetries drawn from lived millennial-era dating dynamics.[20] [8]Writing and Initial Publication
"Cat Person" originated from Kristen Roupenian's personal experience with a disappointing encounter involving a man she met in her mid-thirties, which she later channeled into the story's depiction of mismatched expectations in early dating stages.[8] Roupenian, who had completed her MFA in fiction from Johns Hopkins University prior to writing the piece, submitted it to multiple literary magazines as part of her early career efforts to publish short fiction.[15] The manuscript faced rejections from these outlets before reaching The New Yorker's fiction department, where editor Deborah Treisman recognized its potential after an extended review period longer than that of other publications.[15][19] The New Yorker accepted the story for publication without significant revisions, framing it as a standalone work of literary fiction focused on interpersonal awkwardness rather than aligning it explicitly with contemporaneous cultural movements like the emerging #MeToo discussions following the October 2017 Harvey Weinstein revelations.[19] It appeared online on December 4, 2017, and in the print edition dated December 11, 2017, comprising approximately 7,000 words.[1][21] At the time of its initial release, Roupenian was an unpublished fiction writer whose work had not yet garnered wide recognition, marking this as her debut in a major outlet.[3]Viral Dissemination
"Cat Person" was published online by The New Yorker on December 4, 2017, and achieved viral status within days through extensive sharing on social media platforms, especially Twitter, where young women propelled its dissemination by relating to its portrayal of modern dating miscommunications.[3] The story's focus on text-based flirtation and relational ambiguities struck a chord, leading to rapid weekend spread across the internet.[22] The publication's timing aligned with the early momentum of the #MeToo movement, which had gained prominence following reports on sexual misconduct in late 2017, thereby intensifying public discourse on consent and gendered expectations in intimate encounters.[22] This context drove a pronounced spike in The New Yorker's online readership, positioning "Cat Person" as the most-read fiction piece on the site for 2017 and the second most-read article overall that year, behind only investigative reporting on Harvey Weinstein.[23][24] By mid-December 2017, the story had attracted millions of readers and generated substantial online engagement, including debates and parodic accounts on Twitter.[3] The immediate commercial impact materialized in a seven-figure, two-book publishing deal for author Kristen Roupenian, announced on December 20, 2017, culminating in the 2019 release of the short story collection You Know You Want This, which included "Cat Person" as its lead story.[24][25]Plot Summary
Detailed Synopsis
Margot, a 20-year-old college sophomore, encounters Robert at an artsy movie theater downtown where she works the concession stand. On a Wednesday night during her fall semester, Robert, who appears to be in his mid-20s, purchases Red Vines licorice from her and engages in brief conversation.[1] Following their meeting, Margot initiates contact by texting Robert, leading to weeks of witty text exchanges that build rapport. She learns he owns two cats named Mu and Yan, prompting playful scenarios involving her childhood cat, Pita.[1] During the college reading period, Robert meets Margot outside a 7-Eleven around 11 p.m., where he buys her snacks. He kisses her forehead and addresses her as "sweetheart," after which she develops a crush and they continue texting.[1] After winter break, Robert picks up Margot for their first formal date, driving her in his muddy white Honda Civic to a multiplex theater for a movie. Post-film, they attempt to enter a bar, but Margot, underage, is denied entry; they proceed to another bar where she consumes beer.[1] The evening continues to Robert's house in a wooded neighborhood, where it is revealed he is 34 years old. They engage in sexual intercourse, during which Margot experiences physical discomfort but continues.[1] In the aftermath, Margot regrets the encounter and attempts to terminate contact via text messages, struggling to articulate a clear breakup. Her roommate intervenes by sending Robert a direct message stating Margot does not wish to see him again. Robert persists with additional texts.[1] Later, Robert spots Margot at a bar with friends and sends her increasingly hostile text messages, culminating in an angry outburst.[1]Key Character Dynamics
Margot, a 20-year-old college sophomore, exhibits youthful uncertainty in her interactions with Robert, often responding to his advances with hesitant enthusiasm shaped by her limited experience in romantic pursuits.[1] This is evident in her initial flirtation at the movie theater, where she engages Robert's gaze and conversation despite feeling a mix of curiosity and detachment, later rationalizing her interest through idealized projections during their texting exchanges.[1] In contrast, Robert, a 34-year-old lab technician, displays overt enthusiasm, initiating contact with compliments on her appearance and sustaining momentum through persistent messaging that escalates from casual banter to explicit propositions.[1] Their primary relational bond forms via text messages, where Robert's witty and attentive responses foster a sense of connection, allowing Margot to curate an appealing self-image without immediate physical confrontation.[1] This dynamic shifts markedly in person, revealing awkwardness: Robert's fixation on his cats, including showing Margot numerous photos during their walk, underscores his eccentric domesticity, which clashes with her expectations of a more urbane encounter.[1] Physical mismatches further highlight the disconnect, as Margot perceives Robert's body—described as doughy and unathletic—differing from the leaner figure she had envisioned, contributing to her growing discomfort amid his insistent advances.[1] An age and experiential gap introduces a power imbalance, with Robert's maturity enabling him to steer interactions toward intimacy faster than Margot's hesitancy allows her to redirect.[1] For instance, his choice of a horror movie for their date aligns with his preferences, potentially overlooking her comfort, while her acquiescence stems from politeness and inexperience rather than mutual alignment.[1] These behaviors manifest mismatched expectations, where Robert's directness meets Margot's internal ambivalence, evident in her post-date reflections on the encounter's unsatisfying progression.[1]Themes and Analysis
Dating and Text-Based Communication
In "Cat Person," the initial encounter between Margot and Robert at a movie theater prompts an exchange of numbers, sparked by a shared joke about Red Vines candy, which evolves into weeks of text messaging characterized by rapid, elaborate banter that builds mutual exhilaration.[1] These exchanges include playful inventions, such as a fictional scenario of Margot's cats sending flirtatious texts to Robert's, and the use of emojis like a heart-eyed smiley to convey affection after mentions of family inquiries.[1] Frequent good morning and good night messages, alongside quick responses to updates, create a scaffold of intimacy, allowing Margot to project an idealized version of Robert based primarily on his demonstrated wit rather than comprehensive personal knowledge.[1] The story illustrates how texting's inherent ambiguities—such as delayed replies signaling potential disinterest or the absence of tonal and facial cues—foster escalations in perceived compatibility that mask underlying differences.[1] For instance, Robert's prompt, clever retorts during Margot's academic break sustain her engagement, yet subtle inconsistencies, like brevity in responses when she hesitates, hint at unexamined incompatibilities that texting obscures.[1] This dynamic aligns with empirical findings that text-based romantic communication frequently generates miscommunication, with individuals reporting higher rates of perceptual errors compared to face-to-face or voice interactions due to the medium's limitations in conveying nuance.[26] Such mismatches in modern courtship, particularly among millennials reliant on digital tools for initial connections, causally contribute to relational disappointments by prioritizing asynchronous, low-stakes exchanges over early in-person assessments.[27] Research indicates that while texting can enhance accessibility in relationships, its predominant use in pre-meeting phases amplifies idealization and subsequent surprises, as nonverbal signals absent in digital formats fail to calibrate expectations realistically.[28] Emojis and stylized banter may mitigate some ambiguity but often reinforce projections rather than reveal authentic interpersonal dynamics, perpetuating a pattern where digital rapport precedes—and sometimes undermines—verifiable compatibility.[29]Consent, Regret, and Sexual Dynamics
In the story, Margot verbally consents to sexual intercourse with Robert after they return to his apartment, responding affirmatively when he asks if she wants to have sex, despite her internal hesitation and awareness of physical discomfort from his advances.[1] This moment underscores a continuum of consent, where external verbal agreement can coexist with internal ambivalence or incomplete enthusiasm, rather than a strict binary of yes/no; research on sexual consent frameworks supports viewing it as varying degrees along a spectrum influenced by contextual pressures, communication, and self-perception, rather than isolated affirmations.[30] During the encounter, mismatched physical dynamics emerge, with Robert employing a rough, performative style—thrusting aggressively and focusing on dominance—that contrasts Margot's unexpressed desire for gentler, more mutual interaction, leading her to simulate orgasm to expedite conclusion without confrontation.[1] Post-encounter, Margot experiences regret, texting a friend the next day to express dissatisfaction and a sense of entrapment in the act, framing it as an unwelcome but self-initiated progression from prior flirtation.[1] Empirical studies on casual sexual encounters document regret as a frequent outcome, with women reporting higher levels than men—up to 40% more in some samples—often due to anticipatory worry, post-act disgust, or perceived emotional mismatch, rather than coercion or invalid initial consent.[31] [32] These patterns align with psychological and biological factors, including women's greater average investment in partner selection from evolutionary pressures like higher reproductive costs and oxytocin-driven bonding, which amplify dissatisfaction when desires misalign, without implying retroactive non-consent.[33] The dynamics reflect causal realities of heterosexual encounters where incomplete pre-act communication—exacerbated by assumptions from texting—leads to discovery of incompatible arousal patterns, such as differing preferences for touch or pacing, resulting in mechanical rather than reciprocal satisfaction.[1] Margot's pretense during sex illustrates a common adaptive response to avoid escalation or rejection, rooted in social conditioning and immediate risk assessment, but highlighting how such gaps perpetuate unsatisfying outcomes absent explicit negotiation.[34] Regret here functions as a learning signal for future mismatches, not a determinant of prior validity, consistent with findings that prior regrets do not predict reduced risky behavior but underscore the prevalence of imperfect alignments in casual contexts.[35]Gender Roles and Expectations
In "Cat Person," Robert embodies the traditional archetype of the older male pursuer, initiating prolonged text exchanges, funding dates, and escalating physical intimacy, while Margot, as a 20-year-old college student, navigates expectations of youthful experimentation tempered by caution and selectivity in responding to advances. This dynamic reflects longstanding societal scripts where men are positioned as active initiators in courtship, often leveraging status or persistence to secure mating opportunities, and women as evaluators who signal interest indirectly to maintain options. Such roles persist despite modern egalitarian rhetoric, as evidenced by the story's depiction of Robert's repeated invitations and Margot's flirtatious yet ambivalent replies, which align with observed patterns in heterosexual interactions where males invest more upfront effort due to asymmetric reproductive costs.[36] The narrative underscores a clash between evolved mating strategies: male persistence in pursuit, driven by opportunities for lower-commitment reproduction, versus female selectivity rooted in higher parental investment and risk assessment. Evolutionary psychology posits that men, facing greater variance in reproductive success, adopt tactics like resource display and tenacity to overcome barriers, as Robert does through elaborate texting and assuming mutual intent from Margot's compliance. Conversely, women exhibit heightened choosiness, particularly in short-term encounters, weighing long-term compatibility against immediate costs, which manifests in Margot's internal deliberations and post-coital regret. This tension, inherent to sexual strategies theory, generates the story's miscommunications, such as Robert's interpretation of her presence at his apartment as affirmative consent to aggressive advances, highlighting how uncalibrated persistence can override selective signals without mutual calibration.[37] The seven-year age gap between Robert (34) and Margot amplifies these role expectations with empirical risks, including power imbalances that disadvantage younger women in relational dynamics. Studies indicate that adolescent and young adult females paired with significantly older males experience elevated rates of adverse sexual health outcomes, such as unintended pregnancies and STIs, alongside diminished autonomy due to experiential disparities. In age-disparate couplings, women report higher dissatisfaction and vulnerability to coercive elements, as power differentials—stemming from maturity, resources, or social leverage—can distort agency, mirroring Margot's discomfort during intercourse where her hesitations yield to Robert's momentum. Yet, the story balances this by illustrating reciprocal agency: Margot actively sustains the flirtation, declines a ride home to extend the evening, and only later ghosts him, countering absolutions that frame her solely as victimized by entrenched male dominance. Both characters operate within scripts but exercise choices, underscoring causal realism in how individual decisions interact with broader expectations rather than deterministic victimhood.[38][39]Critical Reception and Interpretations
Positive Feminist Readings
Feminist readings of "Cat Person" have interpreted the story as a poignant depiction of women's strategic navigation of unwanted male advances in casual dating scenarios, resonating amid the 2017 #MeToo movement's focus on sexual harassment and power imbalances.[22] Interpreters emphasize Margot's internal monologue as exposing the subtle coercion inherent in encounters lacking mutual enthusiasm, thereby advocating for affirmative consent models over passive acquiescence.[40] This perspective aligns the narrative with broader critiques of how societal expectations compel women to prioritize male comfort, often suppressing their discomfort to avoid escalation.[41] The story's acclaim in such readings stems from its articulation of silenced female experiences, including the emotional labor of feigning interest through text-based flirtation and the regret following mismatched physical intimacy.[5] Outlets like Stylist praised it for capturing the "nuances of consent" in modern hookups, arguing that it fosters necessary dialogue on "bad sex" as a cultural failure rather than individual fault.[42] Readers and commentators reported widespread relatability among women, who shared anecdotes of similar dynamics where fear of confrontation or rudeness trapped them in undesired progression toward sex.[22][5] In academic contexts from 2017 to 2018, the narrative has been analyzed as a subversion of patriarchal dating rituals, wherein women's agency is undermined by men's oblivious entitlement and the performative demands of heteronormative courtship.[41] For example, one 2017 analysis highlights the oscillation between power and powerlessness in Margot's compliance, reflecting entrenched gender roles that prioritize male initiation and female accommodation.[41] Subsequent feminist scholarship, drawing on Simone de Beauvoir's framework of narcissism, positions Margot's choices as emblematic of women's entrapment in self-objectifying behaviors under patriarchal scrutiny, blending victimhood with complicity to critique systemic relational inequities.[43]Critiques of Bias and Oversimplification
Critics have accused "Cat Person" of exhibiting a one-sided bias against men, portraying the male protagonist Robert as inherently creepy and socially inept while downplaying the female protagonist Margot's role in sending mixed signals through flirtatious texting and acquiescence to the encounter.[44][45] This depiction, detractors argue, absolves women of accountability in ambiguous dating dynamics, framing male pursuit as predatory rather than a normative response to perceived interest.[5] The story's narrative oversimplifies complex sexual and relational dynamics by ignoring established principles from evolutionary psychology, such as sex differences in mating strategies where males historically engage in higher risk-taking during courtship to signal resource provision or genetic fitness.[46][47] Men's initiation of pursuit, including persistence despite uncertainty, aligns with intrasexual competition patterns observed across species, yet "Cat Person" reduces this to individual pathology without acknowledging mutual evolutionary pressures on both sexes.[48] Furthermore, the portrayal equates Margot's post-encounter regret with a violation of consent, overlooking empirical evidence that sexual regret is not synonymous with non-consent and exhibits pronounced gender differences. Studies consistently find women report higher rates of regret following casual sex—up to twice that of men—often linked to emotional dissatisfaction, disgust, or perceived low partner attractiveness, rather than coercion.[49][32] In contrast, men more frequently regret missed opportunities for sex, suggesting regret as a adaptive mechanism rather than evidence of universal male overreach.[50][51] Research on dating communication underscores that misinterpretations of signals are bidirectional and context-dependent, not attributable solely to male misreading. For instance, expectancy violations theory applied to romantic interactions reveals that both partners contribute to hurtful events through mismatched assumptions about intent, with texting exacerbating ambiguities in nonverbal cues.[52][53] Large-scale surveys of hookup experiences indicate mutual fault in mismatched expectations, debunking the story's implication of dating failures as a predominantly male deficiency.[54] This empirical pattern challenges the narrative's causal framing, where female discomfort stems unidirectionally from male inadequacy rather than reciprocal interpretive errors.Public Response and Controversies
Initial Online Debates
Upon its publication in The New Yorker on December 4, 2017, "Cat Person" quickly gained traction online, with shares and discussions surging on Twitter and Reddit by December 11.[55][56] The story's virality was amplified by its relatable depiction of awkward dating dynamics, leading to over 1 million views on the New Yorker website within days and trending topics on social media.[57] Responses divided sharply along gender lines, with many women expressing identification with protagonist Margot's internal discomfort during flirtation, texting, and the sexual encounter, often sharing personal anecdotes of similar mismatched expectations.[58] In contrast, numerous men critiqued the narrative as portraying male characters unfairly or as propaganda exaggerating everyday interactions into pathology, with some dismissing the plot as unremarkable or overly focused on female anxiety.[58][59] Accounts like @MenCatPerson on Twitter aggregated such male reactions, highlighting sentiments that the story vilified ordinary male behavior in modern dating.[20] Early debates on platforms such as Reddit's r/literature and r/AskWomen threads from December 11-17 centered on Robert's physical description—depicted as overweight, hairy, and unappealing—which prompted accusations of body shaming from some users who argued it reinforced superficial judgments.[55][60] Others countered that the details served to illustrate Margot's subjective regret rather than objective critique, though the mundane nature of the hookup was frequently derided as insufficient for the story's outsized attention.[56][57] These exchanges underscored broader tensions in interpreting text-based courtship and mismatched attractions amid the contemporaneous #MeToo discussions, without yet coalescing into formalized gender warfare.[58]Accusations of Misandry and Fat Shaming
Some commentators interpreted the story as exhibiting misandry by depicting Robert as inherently predatory and emotionally volatile, while portraying Margot's ambivalence and eventual ghosting as relatable rather than manipulative.[61] This view held that the narrative reinforced a one-sided view of male behavior, framing Robert's rejection-fueled anger—expressed in aggressive text messages—as emblematic of broader male pathology without contextualizing it as a response to perceived betrayal.[44] Critics specifically highlighted the story's emphasis on Robert's physical unattractiveness, including descriptions of his "soft and protruding" belly and Margot's internal revulsion toward it, as instances of fat shaming that unexaminedly tied sexual incompatibility to body size, thereby stigmatizing overweight men.[55] These elements were seen as amplifying prejudice by linking Margot's regret primarily to Robert's appearance rather than mutual miscommunication, with some arguing it normalized disdain for male physicality while critiquing male pursuit as intrusive.[56] From perspectives skeptical of prevailing gender narratives, the story was faulted for pathologizing male romantic interest—evident in Robert's persistence despite signals—while implicitly endorsing female selectivity akin to hypergamy, without interrogating Margot's role in escalating then withdrawing intimacy.[44] Such readings contended that the ending, with Robert's rage positioned as villainous, overlooked how the power imbalance favored Margot's agency, potentially excusing female-led relational dynamics under the guise of consent concerns.[61]Real-Life Inspiration Claims
In interviews following the story's publication, Kristen Roupenian described "Cat Person" as inspired by a personal experience from her mid-30s involving a man she met through mutual friends, but emphasized that the narrative was a composite drawn from multiple encounters rather than a singular autobiographical event.[62][8] In July 2021, writer Alexis Nowicki published an essay in Slate claiming that specific details in the story—such as the protagonist's interactions, the older man's name (Robert, akin to her ex-boyfriend Charles), his possession of multiple cats, and verbatim exchanges—were lifted from her own early-2010s relationship with Charles, whom she dated while working at a university near Ann Arbor, Michigan.[8] Nowicki stated she had long suspected the parallels after the story's 2017 virality and confirmed them upon learning Roupenian had known Charles through shared social circles and accessed details via Nowicki's public social media posts.[9][63] Roupenian responded to Nowicki via email, acknowledging awareness of the relationship through mutual acquaintances but rejecting the assertion that the character Margot was "wholly based" on her, while conceding she could understand why Nowicki might perceive strong similarities; she maintained the work's fictional nature and defended drawing from observed real-life elements as standard in creative writing.[63][9] Nowicki expressed feeling violated by the unpermitted use of intimate details, sparking broader discussions on the ethics of mining personal stories for fiction without consent, though no legal action ensued and Roupenian has not publicly altered her composite-inspiration account.[8][64] Despite the claims, no independent verification has established a direct one-to-one correspondence between Nowicki's experiences and the story's events, with commentators noting the inherent unreliability of memory and selective detail in both fiction and personal recounting.[9][65]Adaptations and Legacy
2023 Film Adaptation
The 2023 film adaptation of Kristen Roupenian's short story "Cat Person" was directed by Susanna Fogel and written for the screen by Michelle Ashford, with Roupenian providing input during development but not credited as the screenwriter.[66][67] It stars Emilia Jones as college student Margot and Nicholas Braun as older man Robert, alongside supporting cast including Geraldine Viswanathan and Isabella Rossellini.[10] The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 22, 2023, and received a limited theatrical release in the United States on October 6, 2023, distributed by Rialto Pictures.[68] To expand the short story into a feature-length narrative, the adaptation adds significant backstory, including scenes depicting Margot's family dynamics and Robert's personal history, which were absent from the original text.[69] The ending diverges notably from Roupenian's version, extending beyond the story's final texts to incorporate a confrontation that heightens ambiguity around the characters' intentions and outcomes, shifting from the source material's focus on internal regret to more externalized tension.[70][71] Produced on a modest budget, the film underperformed commercially, earning $55,548 domestically and $317,022 internationally for a worldwide total of $372,570.[72] Critical reception was mixed, with a 47% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes; some reviewers praised the performances but criticized the expansions for diluting the story's sharp psychological edge and introducing heavy-handed elements that padded the runtime without enhancing thematic depth.[11][73][69]