/lit/ - Literature

Why dark skin with ginger beard

probably because you're posting a paywalled article and a picture of people making out on a SFW board

cat person is now a bannable offense

anyone posting cat person will be permabanned from all boards

posting the last two posts cause they were nice

Lol @ all the bitter /r9k/ers in this thread.

Robert is a fucking loser.

"Ooohh laa dee fucking dah loook at me I'm a pretentious wanker with no bedframe but multiple shelves of culture produced by others (wow, isn't it so hard to consume media? I must be sooooo smart [btw, I watch Rick and Morty! xD]). I'm so cool I buy weird candy and creep on girls more than a decade younger than me because I have no prospects with experienced women my own age."

Not to mention the blatant objectification:

"Wait a minute... you're not muh manic pixie dream girl waifu who likes holocaust films on the first date? B-b-but you work at my favorite artsy movie theater..."

Or:

"You are a delicate flower and I'm totally inexperienced but instead of taking things slow I'm going to have demeaning sex with you because you are nothing but a semem receptacle to me despite all my pretense otherwise."

The fact that he's so inexperienced at his age should be proof that there's something wrong with him. And there has been for a long time.

>inb4 "ur just a roastie, stahp hurting muh feel-feels :("

>>10378251
So just because its from New Yorker? The article itself is free to access and read

>>10378259
REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

>“Concession-stand girl, perform the transaction now”

>>10378259

girls fuck older dudes for some reason. when you're virginal until you hit that age when for some reason 20 year olds finally pay attention to you because you're a weirdo smart guy who actually reminds them of an adult, of course you're gonna act a bit retarded. robert was finally getting attention from a girl, and even got to fuck her. he was sad and desperate, and margot got to live a fantasy of hers, which of course reality could never live up to. they both got lost in a fantasy, he with his manic pixie dream girl and her with the idea of an older man that cherished her body like it was perfect, even though she was really just the first hot young thing that ever paid him attention (and judging from the authors photo and the fact that it's inspired by a real date, she just liked the idea of being thought of as "hot"). they were both using each other and fucked it up at the end.

>>10378260

>>10378280
Running oldcel game truly is the patrician’s choice

>>10378284
>someone reads the new yorker so much that they can't read this until next month

lel

>>10378284
Looks like house of leaves

>>10378284
>Running out of free articles because you actually read the New Yorker
>lel

>>10378248
if you want to prove you're not just posting clickbait for the new yorker/author, post a screencap. you're shillposting and that's against the rules on all boards.

you've to prove it worthwhile art, enough to fuck the author and publisher over for, rather than expect /lit/ to give the new yorker views for what's probably a mediocre story not worth screencapping.

Authorial intent: www.newyorker.com/books/this-week-in-fiction/fiction-this-week-kristen-roupenian-2017-12-11/amp

https://www.scribd.com/document/366773966/cate-person-lel

here fags

>>10378318
thanks dude

jesus christ she tells the entire story in the passive voice as if there was no mutual attraction and life is some sort of process that simply happens to her

the ending was pretty great though

>>10378284
Two and a half sentences and I'm already completely uninterested, very nice.

Good read. Thanks for posting.

I'm OP of second thread, got a 2 day ban for global rule 8, I'm sure you'll be banned in the next hour.

This was good, and extremely accurate. Even as a younger guy who is social well adjusted, I still feel this nagging fear of being like Robert. I probably spend too much time on here.

>>10378248
Despite the author's 'panafrican feminist victimisation dance theory' intentions masked under the veil of an impartial third person narration which merely serves as a projector for the female protagonist's point of view, she had enough talent to have stumbled upon something revealing.

I think the piece reveals two pathologies. The sexually inexperienced male, infantilised by his inadequacies and insecurities, who self-medicates with his image of what a mature man his age should behave like. Self-prescribed medication rarely works, so he naturally reverts back to his broken self when rejected.

Then you have the narcissist female who sees her partner as a mere projector of her ideal of the male gaze. She is to fine tune his lens until the image behind his retina conforms to her desire.

These traits are common in every man and female, but pathologised in these two characters. The author unknowingly stumbled upon a contemporary tragedy.

What's even more tragic is her readership's response. Conversely, 4chan's unequivocal siding with the male character.

Pretty sad.

>>10379299
Good post.

>>10379307
Thank you, I wasn't expecting to react so viscerally to the story. What bugs me is the reactions it provokes. The 4chan archetype naturally sides with the male character, but this is purely out of shame - the aggressive tone is clearly an indicator of this. I know, because part of Robert lies deep in my psyche and I think this is true for any male.

What I don't understand is the female Twitteratti #metoo response. I wonder if it's masking a kind of inadequacy as well, whether it's shame or something else, or should I take it for what it appears to be, a visceral reaction unfiltered by self-awareness?

Is this some kind of viral marketing effort?

>>10379299
Have you read the thread? its far from equivocal

>>10379364
Surely you mean far from unequivocal? You're right. I had two other deleted threads in mind when I qualified it as that.

>>10379372
Thanks for correcting me but yeah. I share your view on the story, it reminds me of Tao Lin in a depressing sort of way. Two people interacting not with each other but with a view of themselves they are sort of helpless against

it was okay
easy pickings

I paid for an escort to cuddle with me last night and it is pretty much certainly the most pathetic, self-defeating, embarrassing thing I have ever and will ever do. She looked very little like she did in the picture I saw online, but even so I could just tell within seconds that she didn't give a fuck about me or even really acknowledge my existence beyond the money I was carrying and the function she was supposed to perform in my company. I made it clear I wasn't going to try anything more than just cuddling as agreed (£500 for an hour) but she kept interrupting me about the payment, and plus she was Slavic so her English just wasn't good at all. I thought he may wear some nice lingerie or even take a shower before hand. When I suggested we shower beforehand together she first said the "water is no working" and then said "how much more you have?" obviously meaning the water was in fact working. So I took off all my clothes anyway, and it was a really cold night so my willy wasn't erect which made me feel like a cuck. She went down to her underwear, which looked well-worn and to be honest a little stained (from I don't know what). I was going to ask her to be completely nude but I knew she would just waste more time explaining I hadn't paid to have sexual intercourse with her. I only laid there for about 15 minutes with her spooning, with me behind and holding her. It felt so one-sided and non-intimate that I eventually just said I was going to leave early. I half expected her to apologize and say sorry, I'll be more friendly. But she immediately put on a bathrobe and spoke on her phone standing by the window with her back to me. I left and walked all the way home which took like one and a half hours because I was too guilty to pay for a bus since I'd wasted so much money already. What a waste of time. I'm lonelier than ever. And it snowed this morning but my childlike excitement was extinguished in seconds when I realized I'd just end up walking around alone.

>>10379577
I paid a fraction of that for an outcall with a really friendly and relaxed native English girl who looked more like her picture than most girls do in their normiebook profiles. You need to be more careful about who you pick.

>>10378284
Turn on incognito to get around paywall

The woman in this story is precisely why I can't be arsed with women.

Her expectations are so delusional it's comical and so many women are like this. They just expect every man to be so good at everything, like it's learnt out of thin air.

Robert was a kinda typical internet addicted sad lad, needs a bit of therapy to learn how to deal with his insecurites in a healthy way.

>>10379577
>£500 for an hour
Jesus christ mate

>>10379595
>women expect so much
>like a 30+ year old knowing how to kiss

The probablem with the story is in the very premise, in Robert's extreme, explicit, and intensional underdevelopment. He isn't so much a person as he is an abstract, indeterminate potential for violent misogyny. I'm sure this will generate pushback, but I think it's an unforgivable sin for a writer to create an abstraction in place of a specific human being. I think the author really shows her hand when she has Margot's roommate send the cruel breakup text. It divorces Margot from responsibility; she assumes a position of transcendent moral untouchability, while Robert takes on the full brunt of responsibility for his cruelty. Upon the last line of the story, he crosses over into (from the authors point of view) unforgivable sin, rendering him unworthy of empathy, and thus retroactively justifying her decision to complete exclude his perspective and his concrete specificity as a human being.

>>10379610
just in case it's not clear, in the last sentence, by "her" I mean "the author"

Also, sorry for saying "unforgivable sin" twice in the same paragraph; forgive my shitty prose, I'm actually very intelligent

>>10379577
This is a contemporary masterpiece. Try to publish this anon.

>>10379614
>forgive my shitty prose, I'm actually very intelligent
No probablem

>>10379604
Yeah? Not everyone has the same chance of romance mate, only 40% of men historically have had children. It's not hard to fathom how people might not get the chances.

Also, how do you think people learn? By doing, they don't want that experience though, they want every man to be 100% capable regardless of age.

>>10379610
I empathisized with Robert after the last line, and because of it. He's very lonely, inexperienced and tries to overcome his "nice" persona by acting like a badass.

>>10379637
>not literally everyone knows how to do this
>therefore it's "delusional" to expect someone to know it

>>10379654
Me too, but we are certainly not invited to empathize with him by any means, is what I'm saying. To the avg New Yorker reader, and the author herself, this is precisely where he moves beyond deserving it.

www.newyorker.com/books/this-week-in-fiction/fiction-this-week-kristen-roupenian-2017-12-11/amp

>Q: Which of these characters do you feel the most sympathy for, at the end of the story?

>A: Well, at the end of the story, Robert calls Margot a “whore,” so I hope that most people lose sympathy for him then.

>>10379671
>explaining your story

Pessoa is right, being understood is just prostituting yourself.

I wonder if this cunt got STEINED.

>>10379678
>STEINED

huh?

>>10379691
Oh wait I was thinking of the Paris Review (Lorin Stein getting fired for jew shit).

The New Yorker has some other kike in charge.

>>10379610
I tend to agree, but I don't think Robert is as comical and over-the-top as you say. He's in fact a very real, very desperate sort of man, a bundle of insecurities and ultimately something every man can recognize in himself.
His reservation and nervousness reveal his fear, his hectic and tactless kisses and sexual performance just reveal a pent up desire and ultimately loneliness.
Both he and Margot seem pathetic in different ways, the difference being that there's clearly hope for Margot but very little for him. The ending is brutal, but it's fitting (maybe unintentionally so)

>>10378259
Women can't even form a coherent argument without using "Lol" and "@" symbols because they're "not like the other girls"

Go back to reading 1984 and wearing chokers and doc martens while being some counter culture whore

>>10378248
Was super warm because of how much I loathe the New Yorker and everything it represents.

But this was brutal. All of the cringe that we have fun with online, humanized and made real instead of just satirized with memes.

Robert is relatable as a character that most everyone on 4chan is or once was. The insecure net-male floating through life emotionally shielded with self delusions that he envisions as the correct, confident way to live. Robert is why. Never quite willing to understand his own failures and forever finding scapegoats to explain them away.

t. recovering Robert

>>10378284
>Reads the New Yorker often enough to run out of free articles
>Doesn't know how to get around a paywall

You played yourself, nigger

>>10379362
Yeah because some feminist featured in the New Yorker is clearly trying to mine 4chan for future readers

>>10379595
Pathetic post

>>10379874
Nothing draws interest like controversy, and posting this story - this particular story - on /lit/ is bound to cause a reaction, from which controversy can be drummed up, with the notable 4chan brand attached in the clickbait articles which will appear tomorrow morning. How this brave and heroic feminist author speared the heart of the bitter arrested development misogynists! with comments from the the threads and Twitter demonstrating the wounded immaturity of angry young white men at this bold truth-speaker. Silly women will like, comment and reblog. This isn't plausible, if not highly probable, for why this stupid story keeps getting spammed? You are naive and oblivious.

This reads like ISIS propaganda.

this is what i imagined robert looked like

>>10379886
People are allowed to dislike or not bother with women anon.

>>10379946
Cum Town > Chapo

>>10378248
I will give my honest opinion as a reader and a writer who has been published (though not in anything close to New Yorker level).

This was a pretty good story but also the weakest story I’ve ever seen in the New Yorker. The opening is super weak. No real power line or hook for me. This is the kind of thing I would’ve expected to see in my own university’s literary journal, and it’s not because my school is anything special. But the ending is quite good, I will give it that. “Whore” is always a good last word.

I’ve read so many stories a million times better than this though, I’m shocked this made it in. I’m assuming it’s because the writer went to Harvard and seems to have politically liberal beliefs in line with the New Yorker. I haven’t read a ton of stories about young people having sex but I still can think of one or two that are better than this one, Stuart Dybek’s “We Didn’t” being one.

>>10380088
you have the opposite of a good opinion

>>10379767
Wow you really did post your own story on 4chan.

>>10379671
Well, at the end of the story, Robert calls Margot a “whore,” so I hope that most people lose sympathy for him then.

t. Brainlet

The right answer is I have sympathy for both of them for being lost and Godless heathens.

>>10379946
we live in pretty strange times where having a beard is a sure sign of being beta

>>10380093
Explain

>>10379946
Chapo bois are chads. Matt is in a committed relationship iirc

>>10380093
Welcome Kristen

>>10379288
What were you complaining about? That a thread got deleted? I'm genuinely curious, because I don't know why the mods would delete these threads other than the possibility that they could be seen as shilling

>>10380137
only cuz of paypigbux

>>10379299
>Accidental
That is the actual point of the story though. It seems that way because it is that way. There are no accidents.

>>10378258
>>10378248

Yeah I kinda agree that this lines up with my second sexual encounter as well. Me being incredibly eager, a girl that liked me for my cuter side while my masculinity felt validated for "conquering" her. My sexual inexperience and clumsiness matched with somebody sexually secure it may as well be routine. Her seeing it as just another man in a serie to come, me seeing it as a more unique experience.

The story is an excellent example of the current sexual culture, where both parties have unreasonable expectations of each other.

It's nice we can have a story discussion thread.

>>10379667
Did you read the story? Her expectations were insane, she built and entire man in her head from a few texts.

>>10380194
Did you read what post I was replying to?

>>10380148
I don't like to dwell on authorial intentions much, especially not when the author is of such insignificance. I merely mentioned it because she made her intentions clear in interviews, in that the piece is to be read/was written as a mere condemnation of that male pathology -this is transparent in her obvious masking of authorial intent under the guise of a third person narrator who merely serves as Margot's thought recorder-; which is why I called her revealing of both male and female pathologies (arrested development and narcissism) accidental. You merely saying 'it is so just because it is' and 'there are no accidents' does not make it so.

>>10380199
Yes, he isn't wrong.

Her romantic expectations are completly insane, she built them off a few texts, it's literally what the story is about.

She thought he'd be amazing despite having no reason to believe it, hence "thin air" It's what the damn story is about.

>>10380224
That's not what was said in the post replied to in the post of mine that you first replied to.

>>10380224
what I find even more interesting and think should be talked about more is her obsession with having her image projected into Robert's mind in very specific ways. Only when these images are attained she seems to be able to derive contentment and arousal. Her expectation of how he sees her are an even bigger marker for narcissism than her 'texting pixie man' obsession.

I haven't read the story but it seems a complete joke. Robert got some pussy and some more experience, even if hes bitter or whatever it doesn't matter he can move on and do better with the next girl.

>>10380222
She makes that point about Margot in the same fucking interview you're quoting, did you even read it?

i'm a girl and you guys have to realize that this really is what it's like for us

don't be a robert, please

things are hard enough as it is

>>10380249
>I haven't read the story but
Stop doing this

>>10380257
Women live life on easy mode. There is no difficulty at all being a women so you have to make up problems for yourself.

>>10380257
The problem is the guys are tone deaf to the fact that the text at the end wasn't the first thing he did wrong

>>10380270
This. Robert's first, and arguably worst, mistake was expending effort and spending time with a vapid roastie who can't even appreciate Holocaustkino.

>>10380250
Yes. She acknowledges the narrator's tilt towards Margot's experience (not in so many words). I was referring to her bias concerning the characters' pathologies. She only makes the point of Margot being at fault for building an imaginary person out of a few text messages. What was accidental was her revealing of Margot's narcissism which becomes apparent in the sex scene and conversationally, when she obsesses over the object of Robert's perception and her inability to like him unless this object matches her fetishisation of herself in the male gaze. This was beyond the author's intent which is why I insist on it being an accident.

>>10380257
Don't be a robert? Don't be inexperienced?

>>10380277
>I think it’s telling that the moment of purest sexual satisfaction she experiences in the story is the one when she imagines what Robert sees as he looks at her: she’s seduced by the vision she’s created of herself—of someone perfect and beautiful and young. So much of dating involves this interplay of empathy and narcissism: you weave an entire narrative out of a tiny amount of information, and then, having created a compelling story about someone, you fall in love with what you’ve created.
She literally uses the word "narcissism"

>>10378284
>popcorn and red vines are an unusual choice
nigga clearly never worked at a movie theater. that's like a mcdonalds worker saying burger and fries is an unusual choice.

>>10380297
>So much of dating involves this interplay of empathy and narcissism: you weave an entire narrative out of a tiny amount of information, and then, having created a compelling story about someone, you fall in love with what you’ve created.

In the context I've acknowledge in my previous post. This arguably isn't even a marker for narcissism. She is blind to the point I made above which is the main issue.

>>10380284
I think they mean we should all work out and shave so we don't have disgusting hairy bellies when we take our clothes off?

>>10380297
>>10380311
nevermind. You're right. I read it selectively. I'm retarded.

>>10380257
I can't not be Robert. Women don't understand how hard it is for a below average man to form interpersonal relationships. I can't just magically learn how to be around women if women don't find me attractive.

>>10380277
>her inability to like him unless this object matches her fetishisation of herself
What other reason for liking him would you suggest?

Why do so many women insist on loser-shaming men? Being aspergery and inexperienced is unbelievably alienating, and the most empathetic reaction women have to lonely men is to point out how pathetic they are. It makes me want to not be alive.

>>10380341
Thankfully you seldom see such tendencies from men at least.

>dating at all
Daily reminder that the only way about winning the game is not playing it

>>10380332
Oh, okay I though that would be self-evident, but maybe this'll shed some light on differences of opinion.

How about liking him for her understanding of who he is, rather than what she imagines he sees when looking at her? If you think this isn't possible, I'd be happy to hear why.

>>10380356
t. mgtow

contrarily, i've been married 11 years and it's fantastic.

>>10380361
What part of who he is would you suggest for her to like?

>>10380341
Self-preservation. She must only mate with the top dog, the alpha. Women don't hate you, they just don't really even consider you a person.

>>10380364
>t. mgtow
You offend me bro, I am just a literal faggot.
If being married works fo you congratulations, and i hope that you are not getting just pussy whiped into thinking that its good.

>>10380373
That's not for me to decide. If she can't find said part, I'd advise her to look elsewhere rather than make her projection in his eyes the object of her desire.

>>10380341
I’m a loser and women don’t shame me. They’re not a monolith

>>10380404
they call you a 'creep' whenever you look at them though, theyre pretty abusive towards you guys

>>10380434
Only my gf calls me a creep

>>10380387
>Margot's narcissism [...] becomes apparent in the sex scene [...] and her inability to like him unless this object matches her fetishisation of herself
As written it suggests that she's narcissistic for not finding some another reason to like him.
>I'd advise her to look elsewhere rather
Sure, this character could have spent her time better by ending earlier her engagement with a guy she went on one date with.

>>10380458
>engagement
*involvement would probably have been a better word given the subject matter

>>10379577
im assuming this is the author of the article trolling, but if its not, you just picked a bad apple at the grocers... you can probably get a hot cool loving hooker to cuddle with you for like 100 monies or less, you see that event was all a chance little nothing, nothing to make the fuss about you are turning it into...well yeah, you wasted a lot of money, but not an entire reflection of anything other than the fact your illprudence resulted in your being somewhat scammed. Which may be the main point of what you are saying, but I dont know

>>10380458
there doesn't seem to be any disagreement between us. I'm a retard for only skimming over her interview and skipping over the part where she acknowledges Margot's narcissism for fetishising her own image as projected in Robert's mind (I previously thought she only sees Margot at fault for building an imaginary person out of text messages). Her twitter readership is blind to the fetishisation of self which leads to narcissism though.

I think their accusation of Robert holds water, but most of his character flies by them as well. It's a decent short story, pity it falls on deaf ears.

>>10378248
The subject is interesting, but fucking hell this is amateurish writing. This is MFA class-tier meh.

>>10378248
>not that there were that many—six in total, Robert made seven.
>not that there were that many
The West is fucked

>Losing her virginity had been a long, drawn-out affair preceded by several months’ worth of intense discussion with her boyfriend of two years, plus a visit to the gynecologist and a horrifically embarrassing but ultimately incredibly meaningful conversation with her mom, who, in the end, had not only reserved her a room at a bed-and-breakfast but, after the event, written her a card.
Do white people seriously do this shit?

>>10380275
>can't even appreciate Holocaustkino.
>Holocaustkino.
She made sure to tack some /pol/ onto that character

Question for the smart lads in this thread.

>“We should probably just kill ourselves,” she imagined saying, and then she imagined that somewhere, out there in the universe, there was a boy who would think that this moment was just as awful yet hilarious as she did, and that sometime, far in the future, she would tell the boy this story. She’d say, “And then he said, ‘You make my dick so hard,’ ” and the boy would shriek in agony and grab her leg, saying, “Oh, my God, stop, please, no, I can’t take it anymore,” and the two of them would collapse into each other’s arms and laugh and laugh—but of course there was no such future, because no such boy existed, and never would.

Is the narrator saying that no such boy will ever exist because men find the idea of women being fucked by other men disgusting, and so it would never be a "funny story" to any future boyfriend?

>>10380553
but /pol/ hates weepy ponderous holocaust movies

>>10380569
I think she has some multi personality 'child' inside of her, that is reflecting on 'escaping' the real world, and wishing some pure innocent child cheribum boy could just laugh at all the silly, and scary, and weird, and creepy, and gross, and ugly things that happen in the profane material real dream world, away from the eternally divine astral

>>10379610
I don't think her room mate sending the text frees her of moral responsibility. In fact, I think breaking up is a rather a-moral choice when they haven't done anything besides build social expectations for each other. There's no shared assets, no kids, etc. The reason why it was hard for her to break up with him is because she felt robbed of this fantasy and was still clinging to it.

I agree that Robert is slightly underdeveloped, it would have been nice to known just what his job was for the sake of characterization, surely Margot would have known if they had been talking so long, but every aspect of his behavior seemed realistic enough. Hell some of it really hit me over the head with my own memories of similar experience and thoughts.

I agree with what others have said in that they both took a flawed approach to the relationship built more on ego than a shared future interest with the other person. But that's hook-up culture.

>that part where she tells all of her friends about Robert
Why can't women just shut the fuck up about this sort of stuff? Why do they have to spread the shame?

>>10380458
>>10380472
I think the word engangement fits pretty well.

>“Yes,” Margot said. “His name is Robert, and I met him at the movie theatre. We’re in love, and we’re probably going to get married.”

Yes, it's not serious, but perhaps there is something to be said about her casual attitude to love.

Throughout the text Margot comes across as very immature and projects onto Robert an image of an older, experienced wiser man. Before her age was revealed I thought there would be a big reveal that she is sixteen or something, because she acts as though she were still a highschooler.
The end leaves some hope of maturing for Margot, who (although not a teenager) is still rather young, but much less for Robert, who despite his age has not had the life experience he ‘should have had’ by then.
Margot as a character is uninteresting, unordinary, which provides a solid grounding for the story, and allows for the examination of viewpoints considered ‘standard’ by the audience. She meets someone whose life is completely different from hers, but she learns nothing from it; and neither does the reader.
Being told entirely from Margot’s perspective the details of Robert’s life are missing: Why is he the way he is? Why hasn’t he matured? These questions are neither really asked nor answered. This would be fine if his character were treated as a vehicle for Margot’s development, if there were something insightful said about her. But as it is Margot is a mere passer-by in Robert’s life and comes out almost unchanged, only having learnt about the existance of another kind of life.
I really don’t see why short story had to be written: It has nothing to say. The only purpose I see in it is to show that women don’t actually like men like Robert. But even there it falls short: Had it shown how after this Robert realised how wrong he was and renewed himself, people here would possibly praise it. At least then it would have a purpose. Or it could have shown Margot maturing instead, but she becomes timid and passive, showing no signs of introspection. One could claim that this in fact is the point: People are now cowardly, impulsive and immature. But this is nothing more than a mere condemnation. No reason for this is shown – I would have preferred even the tired ‘technology is bad’ meme over this – nor is there any indication of a way forward.
I quite dislike this trend of shoving flawed characters into contemporary settings, and doing nothing with them but showing their flaws to the reader who may recognise some of these in himself or others. This has been a trend for half a century now, but it says nothing and leads nowhere. Perhaps the time of great ideals has ended, but surely this lull is not the answer.

The ending perfectly encapsulates female narcissism. A woman can't just find a guy awkward and unattractive, she has to perceive him as a genuinely bad person in order to feel justified in not liking him. A real life Robert wouldn't text her back ever again.

>>10380569
No man, in the narrator's mind, would laugh at the story of a man shouting "You make my dick so hard," as he loses his erection because men are all in the same position of asserting themselves in the face of flagging masculinity, with the same insecurities sublimated into a need to self-aggrandize Robert displays. It's the kind of superficial understanding of men which has become popular discourse on masculinity on sites like The New Yorker.

>>10380137
>chad
>committed relationship

lel

>>10378280
>girls fuck older dudes for some reason

Because young men have nothing going for them in terms of personality or accomplishments.

> until you hit that age when for some reason 20 year olds finally pay attention to you because you're a weirdo smart guy who actually reminds them of an adult

No what actually happens to you is you go bald at 30 and become fat because you never bothered to take care of your body or diet, and your accomplishment of winning arguments on 4chan doesn't add up to anything sexually attractive to women.

>>10380702
Maybe "men" who write fiction books for a living.

>>10380267
I sometimes wonder about this. Human sexuality is pretty simple when it comes to men. Men care about specific physical traits, ones that suggest good health and healthy potential offspring. Big tits. Big asses. Clear skin. Symmetrical face. Feminine body language.

For women I think sexual attraction is based more on behavior. The whole alpha/beta dichotomy is an extremist simplification but has some truth. In the story Margot mentions how fat Robert is but she more often mentions how his behavior turns her off (or on). It's not the bad sex that makes her reject him--she seemed more amused by it then disgusted--its the absurd jealous fantasy he shares with her right after sex that seals the deal.

A pretty young woman has it easy. Maybe. The Halo effect is nothing to scoff at. But it depends on perspective. Judging by the ending to this story, I'd say "whore" is about the worst insult the author could come up with and consequently the worst insult women can take. And to emphasize the supposed "distance" the main character has from this word, the author decides to do this: >>10380549 and this: >>10380532

The pretty woman seems to be torn between the virginal purity that men expect of her, and the coquetry and attention that her beauty imposes on her. What else is going to happen if not narcissism?

That's why that last "whore" cuts so deep for women. The irony of course, is that Margot *is* a whore--and even the author herself does not realize it, at least not consciously. And they both were complicit in that characterization. What is a whore anyway? What is prostitution? It's sex as transaction. Money isn't involved here, but it's a transaction nonetheless.

Ultimately this isn't a good story, mainly because of this: >>10380682. There is no change. Nothing is learned. Some stories can pull off "life goes on" as resolution. This is not one of them. But the subject matter is at least relevant and true.

>>10380703
the truest chad seeks the cheek worthiest of his seed

>>10380783
A true chad remains a virgin his entire life

>>10380809
>post the pope
>not Kierkegaard

You had one job.

>>10378248
Is this the sort of banality that gets published in the New Yorker now? Stories about ugly, awkward men trying to get laid written in the most pedestrian prose imaginable?

I wonder if the woman who wrote that is reading this thread

>>10380828
Hi there!
You seem to have made a bit of a mistake in your post. Luckily, the users of 4chan are always willing to help you clear this problem right up! You appear to have used a tripcode when posting, but your identity has nothing at all to do with the conversation! Whoops! You should always remember to stop using your tripcode when the thread it was used for is gone, unless another one is started! Posting with a tripcode when it isn't necessary is poor form. You should always try to post anonymously, unless your identity is absolutely vital to the post that you're making!
Now, there's no need to thank me - I'm just doing my bit to help you get used to the anonymous image-board culture!

HEY GUYS CAN WE DO THIS FOR ACTUAL LITERATURE YOU FUXKING FAGGOTS

>>10380856
start a thread bruv

Been paying attention to womens responses on twitter and they're interesting.

They think the story is about how he never makes an attempt to get to know her and she doesn't act like a mother. He holds her responsable for his projections onto her and never treats her like a human.

They never mention her narcissim or that fact she does literally the same thing.

>>10378259
How can you put this much roastie in a single comment, whore? You must have been without some proper dicking for a decade?

>>10380919
>roastie
What is the etymology of this term? I've never understood it.

>>10380839
There is no 4chan culture, welcome to 2012 friend.
Go check out some posts from early 4chan, you might be surprised at what you see. Educate yourself rather than slavishly reposting memes. I take pride in my contributions here and enjoy the recognition I gain.

>>10380809
wew laddy. Transcending dat womanizing past is essential to true chadism

>>10380935
Arbys, we have the meats

>>10380935
a vagina that looks like roast beef

>>10380944
Okay that's what I thought... you/others think having sex a lot changes the appearance of women's labia minora? I'm assuming you guys are being ironic and don't actually think this has a physiological basis, right?

>>10380967
>you/others think having sex a lot changes the appearance of women's labia minora
It's a meme you idiot

>>10380967
Age does change a woman's vagina, but yeah, the roastie thing is mostly just a meme

>>10380935
>>10380967
>i'm retarded please spoonfeed me

>>10380935
it's a /r9k/ superstition that went viral thanks to /pol/. They think sexual activity and promiscuity change a vulva's appearance into ''roast beef'', ie larger labia minora that what their porn-induced vision expect. The more sex a woman have, the larger their labia get according to them. It's only the latest term to sex-shame women.

Really the whole thing would be funny if their lack of basic biological knowledge wouldn't be a red flag of larger more dangerous(for themselves mostly and whom they interact on a lesser degree) psychological problems

>>10380973
I wouldn't be surprised if permavirgins actually believe it.

>>10380967
its a joke but yes it absolutely does anyone who thinks otherwise is lying to women or themselves. just having a recent sexual partner loosens a woman up and from fucking a woman over the course of a week who i know for a fact another man fucked that week, i know its real. no one can tell me otherwise

>>10380991
I'm just not afraid of women/over the age of 12. Sorry bro.

>>10380991
Lel at a tripfag shaming a seeker

>>10380856
No, that wouldn't feed our smugness by allowing us to feel smarter than the author.

This story is poorly written but hit me hard desu, how do I not end up like Robert

>>10380967
>>10380973
>>10380974
>>10381020
Why do you think its impossible? Without access to strict scientific study, I woudlnt be quick to rule out the potential for correlation.

How many times has the average roastie had sex each year, over a 5-10-30-40 year span:

What percentages were with condom?

How large were the cocks?

What percentage of the sex time was to what degrees 'violent' thrusts?

And for how long at what angles?

How much mouth on labia nibbling, pulling, biting, for how long to how many forceful degrees?

What percentage of the time was the subject sufficiently dry for the material of the condom to potentially snag and pull, and rug burn the labia?

How much can those factors inflate the labia (don't even know if that is the correct term for the flaps), swell it from force and pressure to make them larger in appearance?

>>10379577
Almost perfect. Put somewhere that she was smoking, and you have a much better slav description, tho. And alcohol.

>>10380967
>>10380973
>>10380974
>>10381005
>>10381020
There is no way a non woman could have written this right? What would be the purpose? Girlfriend or wife has a roastie?

>>10381063
>t. phimotic virign

>>10381063
What if grills are actually...good?

>>10381027
>>10381033
Regardless, one dipshit's stupidity has turned this shitposting about this stupid story thread into shitposting about women's vaginas thread, which is why retarded faggots need to fuck off. You really can empathize with women who complain about mansplaining when you see the incredible outpouring of autism whenever someone asks a dumb fucking question (usually a woman).

>>10381037

>>10381069
what does calling people virgins have to do with roasties? Either you are a guy who has had 'a lot of sex'...with roasties, so that is your evidence 'if you werent a virgin, you would know that every girl is a roastie'..

Or you are a girl who may or may not have a roastie, and your evidence is all the girls you have seen who had a roastie?

>>10381070
they are, I just didnt think any actually were on /lit/

>>10381089
you'd know if you had nice billowing dick skin like me

>>10381095
>you'd know if you had nice billowing dick (female) skin like me

>>10381089
Shutup about this who gives a fuck

>>10381101
someone thought something potentially wrong, I offered potentially right

>>10378259
Idk if I'm more annoyed with the r9k faggots or with you.

I'm agreeing with you more but I find it distasteful.

wow.....So this is the power of the highly esteemed new yorker I hear so much about..........

>>10380277
>when she obsesses over the object of Robert's perception and her inability to like him unless this object matches her fetishisation of herself in the male gaze

I had never even considered that that could be a thing.

>>10381069
>phimotic virign
kek

>>10381049
>>10381063
I cannot fathom what it must be like to be a 20-30+ year old "man" who is a virgin, as clear as day to all those who know them. What is your relationship like with your father, and is the absence of a woman in your life ever discussed? Or is it verboten, a mutual source of shame that must never be acknowledged?

Clearly your fathers had sex, even if they were losers. They must know you have a sex life too, and just wonder why you choose to spend most of your time online instead of chasing the muff around. Presumably you have a better relationship with your mother; do they ever bring up the idea of a girlfriend/wife/grandchildren?

I would love to witness the tense interactions between a self-proclaimed "incel" and their parents. There must be so much unspoken disappointment, frustration, and confusion on the part of the parents. Especially if you have a sibling who is remotely normal by most standards (eg able to socialize and shows some trajectory of success). I can just imagine when people ask your parents about their kids; they would focus on the able child and say, "well, anon is doing okay... trying to get by, you know how the job market is". And sort of trail off and try to turn the conversation away from the embarrassment they conceived, raised, and still take care of.

There must be many, many families like this. It's kind of a wonderful character study in many ways.

>>10381120
they both do it, but he does it out of shame to overcompensate for his arrested development by pea-cocking what he perceives as manliness, while she does it out of narcissism - she cannot get aroused unless the image behind Robert's retina matches how she idealises herself in the male gaze.

(People really need to stop talking about bloated vaginas though)

>>10381069
>phimotic virign
kek

>>10381049
>>10381063
I cannot fathom what it must be like to be a 20-30+ year old "man" who is a virgin, as clear as day to all those who know them. What is your relationship like with your father, and is the absence of a woman in your life ever discussed? Or is it verboten, a mutual source of shame that must never be acknowledged?

Clearly your fathers had sex, even if they were losers. They must know you have a sex drive too, and just wonder why you choose to spend most of your time online instead of chasing the muff around. Presumably you have a better relationship with your mother; do they ever bring up the idea of a girlfriend/wife/grandchildren?

I would love to witness the tense interactions between a self-proclaimed "incel" and their parents. There must be so much unspoken disappointment, frustration, and confusion on the part of the parents. Especially if you have a sibling who is remotely normal by most standards (eg able to socialize and shows some trajectory of success). I can just imagine when people ask your parents about their kids; they would focus on the able child and say, "well, anon is doing okay... trying to get by, you know how the job market is". And sort of trail off and try to turn the conversation away from the embarrassment they conceived, raised, and still take care of.

There must be many, many families like this. It's kind of a wonderful character study in many ways.

>>10381134
See:>>10381089

Though I should tack on, its possible there is a band of roasties who are trying to sway the masses to think it is natural, so that all the husbands and husbands to come are not suspicious about their sweet lovely innocent wifes roast

>>10381144
I have no problems with sluts and whores, but there may be a correlation between sex and the beef

>>10381144
SHUT THE FUXK OFF

>>10381162
>>10381144
If you have not had """"a lot"""" of sex and you have mudflaps, I am sorry, you are either the exception, the mean, or the rule.

>>10381144
Incel here. I'm actually developing a book about it from the perspective of a successful sister

>>10381144
My father and I have a decent but slightly distant relationship, due to divorce and my parents living in separate cities (I lived with my father around age 10, but I felt slightly bullied by his wife and stepchildren, then they broke up she tried telling me he was a pedo, but I didn't give a shit at the time and in hindsight it's blatantly false). He has had anger issues though so I'm slightly intimidated by him or now more by the thought of disappointing him. I have half brothers now though, which makes him happy and me as well. My mother is very proud and loving. Neither ever mentioned girlfriends to me. My fathers wife did once, but I just said no. I don't feel a lot of disappointment emanating from them, but I'm a successful uni student with his own apartment. I am also bisexual.

You're welcome.

>women are stupid and incapable of engaging with real life

Don't know why this is such a touchy realization

>>10381189
>I am also bisexual.

Ew Christ, you fucking degenerate shitstain. Keep that to yourself

>>10381189
That's good you have a generally positive relationship with your parents, especially given the divorce etc. It is obvious that you are not totally consumed by a lack of sex/partnership, which is why you are not in the same category as most "incel" types.

Being bisexual, you have twice the selection of partners. Are you a virgin? If I was bi/gay, especially in this society with social media at our disposable, I couldn't imagine not being able to find a partner or, at the very least, getting laid.

>>10381186
That would be pretty interesting, as long as you don't turn the characters into caricatures: i.e.: the incel is an ascetic mendicant and the sister is a dirty slut who ends up contracting HIV. An honest and sympathetic study with self-deprecating humor would be best.

>>10381216
>you have twice the selection of partners
Yeah because 100% of guys are gay. Nigger do math

Amazing how the insults start flying over this harmless little story. Really a lot of projecting here from both guys and girls.

>>10381233
>Amazing how the insults start flying over this harmless little story

It literally ends with her being called a whore

>>10381231
I said twice the selection, not twice the number of partners

>>10381241
What, no. If like 5% of guys are gay being very generous then its only 10% more selection

>>10381073
Wrong. Because if this thread was included in a metastory about the story, the roastie angle would be relevant, and as revelatory of culture as anything else in this thread or the story itself.

>>10381237
And? Because someone in a fictional story insults someone that means everyone here has to start insulting and pointing fingers too?

>>10381248
No but it does point in the exact opposite way than the point you made you fucking dumb dumb

>>10380307
can confirm

>>10381216
>Are you a virgin?
Yes, it was the only criterion he was looking for. I'm afraid of being embarrassed and have a low opinion of my social and sexual qualities. Plus I don't know if I would like it, because the selection of sexual partners for a low-value person and the selection of pornography are clearly very different. It feels more like acquiring a partner would be a lesser problem than actually dealing with that person afterwards.

>>10381144
t. roastie

>>10381258
This desu people act like getting a gf is the problem but I'm just a pussy volcel scared of inevitable disappointment

>>10381258
I had a fear of being embarrassed and, as time went on, women knowing I was totally inexperienced. I look back at this and shake my head, because I turned down many opportunities when I was a freshman because I was afraid. A stupid thing: avoiding something you want because of fear, which only increases said fear.

When I finally did start having sex at the age of 19, it was a period of joy, excitement, and confidence. Sex and a girlfriend doesn't automatically ameliorate your problems, but it is of course important and getting over a major source of fear and anxiety is liberating.

I was preoccupied with my penis aesthetics and, as I mentioned before, my inexperience. Now it is sort of like looking back at a baseless childhood fear, but one that actually prevented me from moving forward earlier.

Never let embarrassment stop you from doing anything. The worse thing that happens is they make an excuse and leave, but at the end of the day, that's not a big deal. And realistically, most men aren't going to turn down sex, so what is there to worry about?

People typically regret what they didn't do in life, not what they did. Don't be paralyzed by unfounded fear.

>>10381287
>When I finally did start having sex at the age of 19
>preoccupied with my penis aesthetics
Fuckoff normie

>>10381287
I don't really care for any of the women I meet, except maybe "oh she's cute". I had a crush on a girl in my freshman year, but it was clearly not going to happen, that was the only person I've ever actually had some sort of romantic feelings for. I don't get out to meet people much either, if it wasn't for classes i'd probably go feral.

>>10381254
>>10381248
Be more clear in communication both of you

>>10381321
Get fucked you cretin

>>10381063
trolling faggot. I get off on faggots like you thinking of me that I'm female, however, didn't write this

>>10381349
>I get off on faggots like you thinking of me that I'm female

Hmm tell me more Anon

girls make fun of guys dicks, embrace equality

>>10381379
fug

>>10380713
>projecting

>>10380713
breh you need to relax. being an older yet wiser failson is like catnip to dem broads

Why is this meta thread still up?

>>10381463
Gookmoot said we can have one active meta thread per board

>>10381144
Incels are a parents fault, it's a parents responsibility to raise an emotionally developed child ready to take on the world, if your child isn't that it's your fault.

>>10381592
Nah some people are just naturally faggots

>>10381592
Parents can only do so much.

>>10381594
>>10381601
Ok, well outside of the outlier type people, it's their fault. Bad parenting can set you back years.

>>10378248
before I read the thread...as a gril...this story is bad especially the very end and people are pathetically sharing it bc they think a story being "relatable" to their unfortunate life choices means it's good
until the very end the girl sucks as much as the guy in it, what a jerk for him to not read her mind and know that she found him disgusting when she went on a date with him then asked to go home with him!

>>10379697
the author's near 40, outside his usual age range and the paris review doesn't publish things quit this bad

>>10381637
It's a promising premise that should be redone by a good writer or atleast one who can bring out it's full potential

>>10381654
>the author's near 40
shes really hot though, like bodacious level babe

>>10381594
handsome faggots get laid idiot, you all want to dance around the issue


here is the issue none of you wriggling cowards will spell out: incels are often some of the more sensitive, intelligent members of the species we know this because on places like here and twitter the best content always comes from them. They tend to be spiritually oriented, artistic, creative, autistic, thoughtful people who cannot bridge the gap between them and the rest of reality. Unfortunately they're usually ugly, short, weak and come from autistic or abusive backgrounds. Handsome, socially adjusted people tend to be awful sociopaths who do not deserve any of the things that they have. The more attractive they are the worse they tend to be. The incels obviously deserve to be the happiest people, especially the most creative ones, the mentally ill fat sad sacks at least deserve to have a wife and kids. We all know they cannot have kids or a wife and that will never happen. We all know most of them will die early, homeless or suicide. We all know that theyr'e miserable every waking moment and that if any of us had to abandon our social status for theirs we would probably ourselves contemplate suicide. We all know most of them cannot, not will not, cannot make it. The laws of natural selection and sexual selection dictate that they will die cruel deaths without love. We all know they deserve better, we all know they are worthy and we all know there is not the correct sequence of events available, the cards are not stacked correctly, for them to find that one girl who would adore them and wake them up. Most of them, again will die alone and without friends or any help or love or progress. This is a tragedy, it is not remediable and there will be only more of them with time thanks to technology and shifting sexual selection pressures. There is nothing else, its abominable, I can't think of anything sadder than all those men in China and America who are going to die at 55 from suicide or drug overdose. The fact that NONE of you have the balls to admit any of this proves a few things: most people are functionally sociopaths, they let social cues and their own status dictate who they are willing to empathize with; most people love being superior to weaker people and when given the chance, like these thinly veiled biological hate threads, they pounce upon the weak and abuse them thoroughly (every chicken farmer is a mass murderer waiting to happen); lastly most people are not mentally equipped to fathom things where there is no solution, global warming and incels are two of these ideas. Simply put you're all horrific whimpering children with broken souls and the incel question has no answer and will become a global social issue which only the most perverse solutions will be offered for (sterilization, euthanasia, conscription and of course placation with panaceas like robo-waifus and chemical castration via anti-psychotics)

there /thread

>>10381666
Post

>>10381665
the love affair of nathaniel p is a better version in this general style, written by a woman written from the perspective of the guy (who's a jerk but not really a loser), that book had the same effect a lot of women sharing this story say it had on them

>>10381669
>handsome faggots get laid idiot

What if they smell like catpiss all the time. Or literally shit themselves when they try talk to girls. Or have a hilariously squeeky voice

>>10381692
>What if they smell like catpiss all the time. Or literally shit themselves when they try talk to girls. Or have a hilariously squeeky voice
extremely unlikely and implausible, also irrelevant to my post. Good job tho you are probably a very clever Socratic type in the classroom and social situations. Little things like that will make you very popular at law firms and with your sociopathic board room friends and fellow execs and literati. Bravo anon, you're blossoming into a fully fledged robopath

>>10381696
>robopath
I like this new word

>>10381692
the constant mentioning of his weight and the high pitched "feminine" noises being disgusting is pretty messed up, like it's not his fault for having traits she finds unattractive and they're presented as character flaws/warning that he's a jerk before he displays that he is

>>10381670

>>10381700
Being overweight is a character flaw though

>>10381669
>I might suck but that's just because I'm too good and nice to be good at life
this is the most disgusting and pathetic shit I've ever seen on this site and I only read the first 5 sentences. Neck yourself rather than clinging to life.

>>10380918
yes, the response from women is worse than the story itself, in the interview the author shows that's she's way more self aware than people sharing it, though I disagree with some of her choices
kind of a "maybe the common denominator in all men you hook up with being jerks to you is you" situation

>>10381711
Thats a basic bitch and she's like a 3/10 outside that generous angle

all in all she made a decent, good, piece of art

>>10381713
whatever, some people are into heavier guys
when they're having sex she's literally just imagining making fun of him in the future and giving no input on whether she likes what he's doing or not, earlier she was fake moaning so what he he supposed to think? he thinks she cares about his emotions, is interested in him romantically since she pursued him, and had a good time having sex with him because she didn't do anything to suggest otherwise besides ask to get dropped off and was faking being super turned on
also the him losing his erection=not manly enough=character flaw is mean spirited and unfair

>>10381734
Are you fucking kidding me. I was practically gagging trying to get through this piece of shit. She can't write and its interesting only as a nasty reflection of women her generation

>>10381734
But it's completely devoid of both meaning and purpose. Although some people seem to get quite worked up about it, that doesn't really make it any better.

>>10381734
more like piece of fart, although in this case it would be a queef

>>10381740
>whatever, some people are into heavier guys
That too is a character flaw
Otherwise I agree with your point

>>10381729
I will marriage this “3”

>>10381740
>I didn't like the main character so it's bad.
Are you a woman posting on goodreads?

>>10381740
>also the him losing his erection=not manly enough

Women always say this because they can't stand the idea they're just not worth an erection

>>10381688
hmm thanks

>Women are garbage
No need to write a whole story.

it's so weird to me when people tie themselves in knots defending the actions of a fictional character who is so clearly in the wrong. guy stopped just shy of stalking her then immediately berated her via text message and somehow y'all think he's blameless. she definitely is no saint here either but be honest with yourselves

>>10381669
fucking bravo just for effort

Amerimutts are so tricky with their names and ethnicities. Is Roupenian Jewish? Armenian?

>>10381760
it's bad because it takes the easy way out by having the guy call he a whore, thus retroactively justifying (to most readers) her behavior to him and taking away her own moral responsibility for her actions, which helps lead to the simplistic readings you're seeing with people sharing the story
the interview with the author made me like the story a little more though

>>10378248
How the fuck is saying that it's weird that you bought a box of Red Vines flirtation or an insult?

What's wrong with these people?

>>10381699
its not my word its from Dabrowski

>>10381783
On researching it myself earlier I came to no clear result but its distribution in the US suggests British origin, possibly an Americanized Celtic name

>>10381787
In an interview she said actually met the guy online and made up this proposterous exchange because she didn't want people to know she was a loser whp could never get a date IRL

>>10379637
Could I get some sources on that 40% figure?
It's interesting if true

>>10381779
>ask girl out
>have sex with her later

Without the end texts how was he a villain at all? He was just in the bar when she came in.

>>10381815
I remember this discussion in another thread, the figure comes from the entire humane genome being analyzed to reveal that we have far more female than male ancestors (due to overlapping ancestry on male lines)

The figure for civilized era is nowhere near that number and the figure itself doesn't even indicate that the other men didn't reproduce but rather simply reproduced less.

>>10381815
here you go anon:

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1203.6231.pdf

>>10381321
>lol why are people insulting over a story
>GET FUCKED YOU DUMB DUMB CRETIN

Unbelievable the reactions from this guy.

>>10381844
Oh go suck piss you self rightious cunt

>>10381818
he's there alone at a bar he'd already said he would never go to but knows that she frequents

you're either willfully ignorant or bad at reading

>>10381818
Don't you understand a true gentleman should've been able to see that only him was having a good time when they were together despite acting like she liked him ?

>>10381851
So he liked her and wanted to speak to her again, what a monster

>>10381851
Tbh I didn't even read the full thing cause it was boring.

>>10381669
>incels are often some of the more sensitive, intelligent members of the species we know this because on places like here and twitter the best content always comes from them

sometimes

>Handsome, socially adjusted people tend to be awful sociopaths who do not deserve any of the things that they have. The more attractive they are the worse they tend to be.

maybe "the more socially adjusted they are the worse they are" I could sort of agree but there's no more overlap between being good looking and being a bad person (pride) than being bad looking and a bad person (resentment)

>The incels obviously deserve to be the happiest people

what? what if they deserve their fate, for instance for refusing to be honest with themselves and blaming other people for their misfortunes, indulging in self pity and misanthropy, and other character defects that incels are famous for?

>the cards are not stacked correctly,
who are you to say that? are you sure you understand the order of things well enough to claim that it's corrupt to this degree?

>most people are functionally sociopaths, they let social cues and their own status dictate who they are willing to empathize with;
no, that's just how empathy works. affection for the ingroup, hatred of the outgroup. you're like this too, look in the mirror

>Simply put you're all horrific whimpering children with broken souls
11/10 self pity and projection. You're talking about yourself, like literally your diction here is a sniper scope aimed at your own forehead

your worldview is rotten to the core. the universe doesn't owe you a girlfriend or anything else when you skulk around with a heart full of hate

>>10381786
I don't really think it justifies any of her behaviour, nor does it take away any of the responsibility, but you're confusing two arguments here: (a) the main character is an irredeemable whore; and (b) the story is resolved poorly. (This is entirely distinct from (a).)
(a) (which really is a matter of opinion) does not by itself really make the short story any worse; in fact I think it improves it significantly. Imagine an alternate story where Margot is a perfect angel who does nothing wrong.
(b) This is something with which most people here seem to agree. I find the ending bad not because it shows Robert as the insecure cunt he is, but because it resolves nothing. The story feels like the first ten pages of a twenty page story. It ends halfway through before there is any time for it to mean something and so the entire story remains meaningless. Why was this story even written?

So I was just pointing out that not liking Margot is a poor reason to criticise the story. I think she is decently written character but serves no purpose in the story, which is criminally underdeveloped.

>>10381851
He just wanted to know what he did wrong. He is desperate and awkward, but no monster.
But I agree to some extent and find it kind of weird that people here cannot separate their own lives from those of fictional characters.

The issue here is that his character is not addressed well: there is no resolution or explanation for his actions; the reader is not shown why Robert became who he is or how to prevent this. Alternatively the story is about Margot, but she doesn't really learn anything either. The story is just too short and pointless. It might work as a novella if at least one of these characters is developed, but as it is it is a pointless work.

>>10381935
>It might work as a novella if at least one of these characters is developed, but as it is it is a pointless work.

i don't think its pointless, if anything it's rather didactic, at least implicitly.

robert is an anatomy of everything broken in hikkimori-type 2010's males. if you think there's no inherent value just in depicting that accurately, look at the stunning amount of butthurt in this thread, more i think than any literature discussion ive ever seen on 4chan, over a SHORT STORY. bitter medicine is bitter

the other side of it is Margot letting her propensity for fantasizing to lead her into having a horrible experience with someone she should have recognized for what he was much earlier on. so it's like, stop indulging in fantasies and WAKE UP TO REALITY or the disconnect between the two will burn you. i think that's a fairly wholesome message about sexuality

>>10381982
>Margot letting her propensity for fantasizing to lead her into having a horrible experience with someone she should have recognized for what he was much earlier on
This is a good point I don't think any woman who reads it will learn. I've been in a relationship for years, and so talking to women from a disinterested perspective you see they're really, really fucked up. One I spoke to in-depth about what she was doing, how it was self-destructive, how she was indulging in fantasies which would mentally and emotionally break her. She shrugged and quoted Marquis de Sade and said stupid shit about how entropic principle and it's better to be on the winning side, aestheticizing her suffering. The kind of arty women who will read this shortstory will see Margot as something to live up to, not as something to be avoided, which is absolutely sickening.

>>10381982
>character does something vaguely bad
>wow perfect anatomy of 2010 hikki male so spot on! wow!

except not really at all. for one they wouldn't even be out with a girl and for two most of this crap happens to normal people all the time not just hikki males. the reason this has blown up so much is because of finger pointing like this. i don't believe there is a person who hasn't at some point in their life done something stupid when it comes to dating or relationships.

>>10382003
>The kind of arty women who will read this shortstory will see Margot as something to live up to, not as something to be avoided, which is absolutely sickening.

well, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink

>>10381982
>the other side of it is Margot letting her propensity for fantasizing to lead her into having a horrible experience with someone she should have recognized for what he was much earlier on.

On the otherside making a knee jerk decision about him without giving him more time instead of writing him off after a single date

>>10382003
yeah, the lesson I hope people take away from this story is that and to be more honest with yourself and to consider that maybe if you act ways counter to how you actually feel it's your own fault if the other person believes you
also to not go out with or hook up with people you have contempt for and that you think you're better than, which applies to both men and women in straight or not relationships

>>10381935 here,

>>10381982
I agree with your assessment of Robert, but I'm upset at the story precisely for its lack if didactism: there are no instructions for Roberts of the world in this work.

I also agree on your opinion on Margot, and I suppose here the message is better conveyed, though I think it could have been done more clearly. But perhaps that might be seen as too moralising.

>>10382039
>there are no instructions for Roberts of the world in this work.
clearly he should have killed her

>>10382029
her being repulsed when she sees him undress and while they have sex is a good enough reason to not sleep with him again, but her repulsion is not his fault, but that doesn't justify the (kind of unbelievable for someone not in high school or middle school to do) break up text, just as her avoiding him doesn't justify the maybe stalking and the calling her a whore

from his perspective: girl says weird thing to him at the movie theater, flirts with him another time, gives him her number when he asks, texts him a bunch and they have a rapport, then she agrees to go out with him, they go to a movie and he seems to not want to go to drinks after and she suggests it, he kisses her and she kisses back, she asks to go home with him, they have sex and she fakes like she's into it, she asks to be driven home so he does, then she ignores his text except when she says she'll get back to him later, she sends a message saying to leave her alone after that, and then (when he goes wrong) he shows up at that bar to see her then sends her an escalation of rude messages, obviously out of hurt and anger

>>10382029
>>10382070
And what does the reader gain from all of this? The knowledge that people like Margot and Robert exist? Nothing else?

>>10382085
Pretty much yeah

>>10382085
I think it could be a wake up call to not project all these qualities on a person you don't really know and
>>10382036
>>10382003
seems like people are mostly just taking away that men are assholes and they'll lash out when angry and hurt, but don't most people know the latter and it isn't exclusive to straight men
a lot of people seem to miss the intended critique of the female character

>>10382096
>a lot of people seem to miss the intended critique of the female character

If you read her accompanying interview she has no such self awareness

>>10381752
>Although some people seem to get quite worked up about it, that doesn't really make it any better.

Art in the ad-revenue era.

>>10382107
the author does more than people who love it

what is wrong with (straight women) who say this is ALL of my sexual experiences in my 20s/college/now? if you only have sex with men you think are disgusting maybe you're choices are the problem

>>10382107
>If you read her accompanying interview she has no such self awareness

Maybe her talent transcends her self awareness? Or more modestly, maybe the story goes places and touches on things that she didn't intend it to.

>>10382115
Shit like pic related is just what fucking pisses me off.
Women like her complain about never being able to trust or understand what men are thinking then at the same time categorically refuse to ever understand the sort of anger that she drives them to.
>HE CALLED ME A BAD WORD, HE'S A HORRIBLE PERSON
Fucking stunted children

>>10382124
>Maybe her talent transcends her self awareness?

>>10382124
Maybe she's describing an experience that happened to her with the intent that people side with her but in fact she's a piece of shit also and she doesn't even realise it. Wow my mind is blown.

Female narcissism is a bigger problem than male neediness in my opinion -- particularly because if you look at places like /r9k/ and reddit a lot of men realize they're pieces of shit and just feel confused. Women do not realize they are pieces of shit. They really, really don't. This kind of thread with multiple perspectives on Robert's behaviour, many of them critical, is impossible from women about Margot. She's the victim and that's it.

Can someone give me the quick rundown on this story? I don't feel like reading it but don't want to feel left out of the discussion. Thanks

>>10379667
A LOT of people don't know how to do it and the only way for them to get better is by helping them learn is what he's saying, what's wrong with you?

>>10382129
yeah I hated that choice to end it that way, there were so many more interesting and nuanced ways to end the story
there's even songs from katy perry and taylor swift reacting to being rejected by a guy by calling them gay (you're so gay you don't even like boys and the swift song is "i'll tell your friends you're gay"), both men and women can and do reactive in angry cruel ways when rejected
imagine if the female character had felt bad and reached out to meet again as friends and he had said fuck off and she had said "fuck you fag" or "limp dicked fatty"
>>10382142
it's 15 pages of very simple prose, just read it

>>10382142
It takes 10 minutes and the prose is extremely simple. Just read it.

>>10382142
>Girl meets guy at work
>gives him her phone number
>texts him for weeks and develops a crush on him
>goes on date with guy
>Decides she doesn't like him in person anymore
>asks to go back to his place and fucks him anyway
>asks him to drive her home after
>ignores his texts for days
>friend eventually writes a text for her telling him she's not interested
>runs into him at the same bar where the date happened
>she's with another guy
>texts her later and gets angry calls her a whore

>>10381037
Genuinely engaging with others. The fault of both of them is that they attempt to use the other to fulfil their own desire, but never quite communicate enough to understand each other.
Plus you should lose that belly and get a bedframe.

>>10380141
I asked the mods if "they were retarded" and if we needed to maintain a shitposting quota to keep the thread from getting deleted

This shit is like the lite version of An Honest Woman by Ottessa Moshfegh

>>10382170
In the old days you had to at least call someone to break up with them, or write a letter. What's this world coming to? Pretty soon they'll invent virtual sex as well, mark my words.

it's trending on twitter now...is this going to be like that "my family slave" story where people praise it and then more people read it and are disgusted, already seeing some backlash over the "fatphobia"

>>10382225
The narcissism is incredible, its practicially solipsistic. She finds it acceptable to just leave him completely in the dark after an encounter like that and then acts like his reaction is out of proportion.

if you like excruciating character studies try this

>>10382243
Consider this from the author.
>That option, of blunt refusal, doesn’t even consciously occur to her—she assumes that if she wants to say no she has to do so in a conciliatory, gentle, tactful way, in a way that would take “an amount of effort that was impossible to summon.” And I think that assumption is bigger than Margot and Robert’s specific interaction; it speaks to the way that many women, especially young women, move through the world: not making people angry, taking responsibility for other people’s emotions, working extremely hard to keep everyone around them happy. It’s reflexive and self-protective, and it’s also exhausting, and if you do it long enough you stop consciously noticing all the individual moments when you’re making that choice.
In her mind, Margot, in fact, unfairly took responsibility for Robert's emotions. It doesn't seem to occur to her, and I doubt any of the female readers, that caused Margot's entanglement with this man was her narcissism and cowardice. She fell prey to an elabourate misunderstanding which made her the victim of some man she didn't realise was a big fat clumsy rude stalker pig.

>>10382129
You realize the world is not 4chan and you don't just say that kind of shit to people, right?

>>10382107
Read for once in your life >>10380297

>>10382085
If anything the people's reaction to the story is the true resolution. Not only that women relate to Margot and men to Robert but that there are many of them. A utter failure of our society.

But it doesn't matter. AI will render us all obsolete anyway.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFXJWPhDsSY

>>10382261
ok as a female reader yes I agree with your reading and I've seen critiques of it along the same lines from other women, but the fact that so many seem to be not realizing the faults of Margot is very disturbing (and, to me, alienating)

I'm inclined to believe that the author is quite insightful and self-aware, the only issue I have is that his "whore" comment is apparently disgraceful. I can totally empathise with him lashing out blindly in pain. I've never done it myself, but it doesn't make him a villain in my eyes. It's also the most fitting ending. Good piece all around.

>>10382263
You realize 4chan is part of the real world and people, even women, say mean shit when they're angry

Robert did nothing wrong.

>>10382281
>ok as a female reader

Post asshole

>She’d say, “And then he said, ‘You make my dick so hard,’ ” and the boy would shriek in agony and grab her leg, saying, “Oh, my God, stop, please, no, I can’t take it anymore,” and the two of them would collapse into each other’s arms and laugh and laugh—but of course there was no such future, because no such boy existed, and never would.

What's she talking about, of course that boy exists, you can find him sucking dick in a public restroom most Fridays

>>10382353
have some kekkles

>>10382312
That's a pretty weak ass excuse for it

>>10382370
Its not meant to be an excuse. People can use whatever word they feel appropriate and if he felt appropriate to call her then fuck that whore and fuck you for getting prissy about it

the story reminds me why I love mary gaitskill, she doesn't let her characters male or female get away with anything

>>10382281
t-there are girls on /lit/ right now?

are there any stories like this but about queers

asking for a friend

>>10382407
Unfortunately, yes

>>10382414
But they can't understand literature, so why would they be here?

>>10382407
>>10382414
There are no women on 4chan.

>>10382290
>the only issue I have is that his "whore" comment is apparently disgraceful
It's disgraceful to a degree but it's also understandable. He wasn't at all privy to Margot's inner dialogue, she left him in a mess of confusion, disappointment and heartache. I can feel a lot of empathy for both characters and to say that one is clearly undeserving of that is unfair to their respective conditions.

>>10382423
personally I don't even read any books desu

>>10382433
That's exactly what I was saying, or meant to say at least.

>>10382423
They always smell out guys enjoying things without them and look to get their attention and ruin their fun. Its a weird instinct they have

The question the piece seems to pose is: how did man become so demasculinized? Why is the mistake of a female his only chance at sexual success?
>My high-school boyfriend is gay, Margot imagined telling him. We were pretty sure of it in high school, but after a year of sleeping around at college he’s definitely figured it out. In fact, he’s not even a hundred per cent positive that he identifies as a man anymore; we spent a lot of time over break talking about what it would mean for him to come out as non-binary, so sex with him wasn’t going to happen, and you could have asked me about that if you were worried; you could have asked me about a lot of things.
Why isn't Robert a real man? Robert is Margot's high school boyfriend. Neither was capable of normal, healthy relationships with women, hence their awkward sexual encounters with Margot. Margot only lost her virginity with her mother's mediation- this is the world she lives in, where the feminine has ultimate control. The masculine is eternally unsure, second-guessing itself; Margot's first lover questions his sexuality and then his gender identity, and she perceives Robert as filled with insecurity. Not that Robert is insecure- we are never told that- but that is how things seem to her. Listen:
>She was starting to think that she understood him—how sensitive he was, how easily he could be wounded—and that made her feel closer to him, and also powerful, because once she knew how to hurt him she also knew how he could be soothed.
She, the female, is powerful; he, the male, is fragile, sensitive, weak. Both men in the story are. But every woman is empowered. Her mother books the bed-and-breakfast, her roommate sends the breakup text, her friends block Robert's view. Women are subjects with real agency, in Margot's view. Meanwhile Robert is awkward, her old boyfriend is confused, and her father- wait, what about her father?
>“Hmm,” her stepdad said.
Ah, say no more.
By now it should be obvious that man's weakness isn't the real problem; Robert did a passable job at initiating dates, asking for her number, and so on. It's Margot's view of men that's the problem- they're objects. Executive control and the veto power always rests in the hands of the woman. Robert didn't even want sex that night, but she vetoed that; Robert wanted to have a relationship, but she vetoed that. Note what gets Margot off during sex:
>He looked stunned and stupid with pleasure, like a milk-drunk baby, and she thought that maybe this was what she loved most about sex—a guy revealed like that.
Seeing a man's weakness is what does it for her. That's what seems most right for her. This is why she can't find happiness in the story, and won't, and neither will the author. In short, Margot is an incurable narcissist with an incredibly warped view of masculinity. Call her a feminist if you want.

>>10380093
hey Kristen

>>10382444
>The question the piece seems to pose is: how did man become so demasculinized?

Probably been drinking unfiltered water

>>10381887
>sometimes
hardly, its 90% of the time
>I could sort of agree but there's no more overlap between being good looking and being a bad person (pride) than being bad looking and a bad person (resentment)
strongly disagree, from extensive exprerience being a quasi-socialite in HS and having dealt with classic sociopathic handsome and beautiful people, they are by far more predatory and immoral than incels. Incels propensity for being pedos and drug addicts is there worst sin, the hate for women and minorities is laughable as some kind of character flaw. You literally cannot properly do anything bad to those groups in the west without being already powerful or being an insane person whose going to end up homeless or in jail extremely quickly. And since most /r9k/ nigs are not actually hardcore nazis and most of them don't really hate women at all this charge is purely a stronger, in-group lashing out disproportionate to the threat to their status which is typical of robopathic majority groups that got their status from social gaming.
>what if they deserve their fate, for instance for refusing to be honest with themselves and blaming other people for their misfortunes, indulging in self pity and misanthropy, and other character defects that incels are famous for?
they really don't deserve it and from hanging out with them and talking to them for countless hours and having drifted into the edges of that lifestyle myself I can tell you they're harmless people and their crimes are miniscule compared to the psychic violence of one abusive sociopath in homeroom or one piece of shit in a lockerroom or one lunatic manager or group of evil women.
>who are you to say that? are you sure you understand the order of things well enough to claim that it's corrupt to this degree?
you misread what I was saying in your haste to "le rebut" me. Reread it
>no, that's just how empathy works. affection for the ingroup, hatred of the outgroup. you're like this too, look in the mirror
i don't have an in-group and I show massive empathy towards people on a daily basis above and beyond what is expected of me because of my morals and neuroses. I've done more things for strangers than you have I guarantee it and I've talked people down from suicides and spent literally 24 hours comforting people who were on the brink of psychosis. Please keep your trash assumptions to yourself
>11/10 self pity and projection. You're talking about yourself, like literally your diction here is a sniper scope aimed at your own forehead
i'm not an incel and i don't post on /r9k/, i don't hate "roasties" i despise misandric women and sociopathic-robopathic males who purposefully come into these threads and others to shit on, abuse and lie to lower status males because they themselves are insecure and angry about life. I hate people who kick weak people in the teeth, I want to rip their throats out. People like you whose whole post leads up to "you're trash, kys"

>>10380356
yeah, best way to do it is to go right into proposal with a God-loving Catholic woman who wants to be a mother.

t. Catholic and engaged

>>10380454
mine does too but it's because she has weird molestation/rape fantasies and we like to roleplay

>>10382443
It's their natural impulse desu, because their worth is derived from men valuing them sexually

>>10382454
This is the only winning strategy but unfortunately we're all going to die before women figure this out

>>10381315
it sounds like you don't really care about anyone you meet

>>10382451
>few years ago I would've seen that as a relatively normal dude, maybe a hipster
>now the word "numale" instantly comes to mind
4chan has ruined me.

>>10381850
you do realize that ironic shitposting is still shitposting, right? i guess autism speaks no matter how much shushing you do

>>10382441
Yeah, I agree with you, he said something fucked up but it shouldn't make him the villain, as you said.

>>10381856
are you serious? your characterization of robert is completely inaccurate. robert is obviously an autist who can't take a hint and thinks margot owes him something. did you even read the ending?

>>10382481
>you do realize that ironic shitposting is still shitposting, right?

anyone else notice how Robert and Margot are kind of similar names, almost like they are mirrors of each other, and Margot uses Robert as a mirror for her own narcissistic image of perfection

>When Robert was naked, rolling a condom onto a dick that was only half visible beneath the hairy shelf of his belly, she felt a wave of revulsion that she thought might actually break through her sense of pinned stasis, but then he shoved his finger in her again, not at all gently this time, and she imagined herself from above, naked and spread-eagled with this fat old man’s finger inside her, and her revulsion turned to self-disgust and a humiliation that was a kind of perverse cousin to arousal.

LMFAO what is this shit

>>10382493
also >robert
>albert
she just likes berts i guess.

I think this could have been better if
a. they had met online like the author said of the event that inspired this, Margot knows from the start that she's not physically attracted to Robert so if you have her like talking to him without seeing hi in person first this makes her choices a little more understanable
b. Margot wasn't 20 or if they were the same age, her being that young (though, to be fair he had assumed she was older) makes her flaws and mistakes able to be chalked up to youth and inexperience, which is the easy way out
also unless the author was meeting people from online in the late 90s she was way older than Margot, having the main character be older I think would have made it a more honest story
>>10382490
I don't think he's written as being literally autistic, just awkward

>>10382499
The weakness of women. Literally unable to select a partner on their own without accidently getting raped

>>10382519
>>10382499
also...as far as she knows he's in his mid-twenties, the age she assumes he is and then she never asks until he tells her he's 34, why is she thinking a 25 year old is old?

>>10382531
Women retroactively update their memories to suit their own ever evolving life narratives that make them perfect.
You've just caught one of the many gaping plotholes that appear from the process

>>10382452
I like you anon. I feel the same feels, and get caught up in the same shit because of it.

>>10382452
Say man you seem pretty savvy and coherent, unlike most of the women bashers here. What do you make of this whole article? It's just a story of human awkwardness that should not be a big deal, but clearly it has struck a chord with some people. I mean, the girl had an unpleasant night, the guy got caught up in something that he should not have and is clearly not self-aware enough to make a distinction in between a lot of reality and his own make believe.

I don't know I'm not done but this is confusing - why was this published? It adds nothing to any dialogue whatsoever.

>When Margot announced that Robert was there, everyone erupted in astonishment, and then they surrounded her and hustled her out of the bar as if she were the President and they were the Secret Service. It was all so over-the-top that she wondered if she was acting like a mean girl, but, at the same time, she truly did feel sick and scared.

literal fucking children, the both of them

who acts that way? holy shit be a fucking adult

>>10382472
I'm not really given a reason to care. I miss being in high school, there my class was 99% rowdy teenage nerds, everyone in uni is so proper.

>>10380572
I actually listen to the Schindler's List soundtrack while flaming Jews online.

>>10382531
This was intentional, before he was slightly chubby and looked a bit older but when the bad kiss, clumsy lines, stand-offish behavior, rough foreplay, unappealing body and terrible sex all came to a head Robert was transformed into a disgusting demon in Margot's mind and the description is made to fit that.

>>10382578
Because it's a proper setting you child. You are not owed a reason to care, but you obviously lack the basic skills and foundations of empathy that would allow you to be a warm person and understand that caring for those within your immediate vicinity within reason is perfectly fine and understandable.

You're the kind of coward that runs out of a room on fire instead of trying to help others.

>>10382452
>90% of the time
nice fake stat
>Incels propensity for being pedos and drug addicts
or mass shootings, or just being miserable people. and the point was not to malign all of these people like the way you're maligning all "classic handsome and beautiful people," just to call for some balance in your warped depiction of ‘virgin vs chad’ psychology. I have life experience too and I’ve known many physically attractive people with good personalities
>i don't have an in-group and...
blah blah blah. more self pity, denial and ego. you're even trying to turn your supposed altruism into an ego thing to beat me in an argument, good on you champ, i'm sure you’re a real modern saint.
>I hate people who kick weak people in the teeth, I want to rip their throats out
there's your strawmanned outgroup, complete with an ugly fantasy of violence, kind of like how half the country wants to "punch natsees" - how righteous! consider the possibility that there's something wrong with hating any category of people regardless of what bad qualities you ascribe to them, that it does something destructive to your own mind you're better off without
>People like you whose whole post leads up to "you're trash, kys"
ahh so you want to kill me? i'm sorry for your sake that i'm not surprised.
you started with a fake stat and end with a fake quote. what i said is that people who are full of hate don't deserve to get what they want, and i'll repeat that again to conclude this post

>>10382444

i think the author is aware of Margot's shittiness, she wouldn't have written it like this if she didn't. ignoring the interview where she right out says Margot's a narcissist, within the text we're given her perspective throughout, and she lacks self-awareness to realize her own toxicity, but the reader *should* (twitter notwithstanding) be able to figure out that imagining how perfect your own body is during sex is NOT at all normal

>>10382589
I don't ignore people but I don't really have anything to share with them. Even the conversations with the guy I hung around with were frequently stilted and lacking content above the level of talking about the fucking weather. And I didn't really restrain myself either.

>>10382607
Sounds like you fucking suck at making conversations then

Do you not do anything interesting on your own time? Do you have no interest beyond the mediocre? You're in /lit/ ffs, talk about something you just read. People are a mixed bag and you never know who you'll meet - I used to abhor others, now I can't get enough of people.

>>10381891
>but because it resolves nothing
Maybe the author did this on purpose, or not, but the result is the same, a reflection of a possible world in which there is no resolution. In the real world these characters exist and their interactions exist and there sometimes is no sweet fairy tale ending. It is a short story is it, what you are almost saying is you enjoy the story so much you wish it went on longer.

>>10382386
>>10382129
It's not the insult that's the problem. The problem is that he's an autist who TWICE creates this emasculation / cuckold fantasy scenario where she's fucking some chad and he's miserable and jealous. The insult is simply a semaphore for that entire fantasy. You can say Margot "drove" Robert to his anger but honestly that's an excuse for his autist rage.

>>10381891
>So I was just pointing out that not liking Margot is a poor reason to criticise the story. I think she is decently written character but serves no purpose in the story, which is criminally underdeveloped.
look at how much attention and discussion the story has generated: Think of how many stories are written every day and year, and yet this is one of the most discussed I have seen, at least on lit, from some magazine or journal, in months or more

>>10382614
>do you not do anything interesting on your own time
no

>>10382648
Abandon hope then. If you hope to relate to others then give them a reason to care. I know it seems needy and pathetic, but humans are needy and pathetic by nature. Relative to each other strength is nothing more than sapient weakness.

>>10382653
there's nothing to abandon

>>10382039
>there are no instructions for Roberts of the world in this work.
The instructions are: Dont be like this, dont do this, you might be worse than you think, dont take advantage of young girls, dont bother them after you get more than you deserve, be tactful and charming and chivalrous and gentlmenly..


but...but wait... theres no instructions.... theres... guys what will we do... what can we do... I dont know how to live... I havent learned anything yet.... I need someone to tell me how to get a girl... no... this cannot be good literature, it is not a self help pick up women dating tip pick up artist pamphlet this is not a good story... failll,,, I wish... I, me me me , I wish it was more like that, so its not good on these terms I have established, everyone dont mind me im just sliding through this thread, and establishing standards and terms and just barking out into the night' nope, not good, cant consider this good, guys, I cant consider this good because she wrote a story, and then didnt tell the people who relate to and sympathize with the retarded grotesque manbaby antagonist how to become chad

>>10382642

what did you expect? robert is the typical /lit//internet pseud and female "victimization" is hot right now. plus it's new, and the prose is super simple, and analyzing an older text is doing homework, where people much smarter and better writers than us have already said what there was to be said about the stranger or don quixote or whatever. so we can feel smarter than the twitter whores saying #metoo by having a slightly more indepth analysis which you can't with a simple jstor search find in 2 seconds.

>>10382461
Sorry you haven't, mate. It was tough enough finding a nice Catholic girl with life goals and of good stock. I'll pray for you, anon.

I do agree that women tend to be far more promiscuous and not as into devotion than men are.

/IMPORTANT/
/IMPORTANT/
/IMPORTANT/

ok, maybe i'm going crazy, but i think a post was deleted. an anon was talking about the kid stuff he had on his room when he was 19, when he first had a brief relationship with a qt (dunno if he had sex with this girl or not)


i was gonna reply to that anon. can someone point out his post to me? can you, anon, answer me if you're rading this.

did someone screencapped it?

>>10382684
>anon, answer me if you're rading this.
yeah whats up

>>10382707
where's your post? a couple of lines at the end were really good

>>10382660
Ok, just don't murder anyone bud. You can be miserable just don't pass it on to anyone else.

>353 posts
>70 IPs
I can't tell if this is a good thing or a bad thing but at least we're having a genuine in-depth (albeit digressive on the male/female shitposting) discussion about a story here.

>>10382707
it's late here, answer me reeee

>>10382596
not that anon, but your comment is like 2/3 damage control and 1/3 shitpost

>>10382596
ill pray for you anon

>>10382717
>>/lit/thread/S10377865#p10378229

>>10382771
why was it deleted?

Man, I was ready to get all indignant about this until I realized that I did more or less the exact same thing Margot did to a woman. Although there were a couple differences.

>She approached me and gave me her number out of the blue (objectified me based off appearances)
>She took the trouble to arrange dates while I merely followed along
>She basically invited me to have sex and I agreed
>I didn't have a friend break it off with her for me, but just quit responding to her texts and gave the excuse that I was overwhelmed
>Neither of us ever said anything mean to the other

That said, she was a whore. I found out during the date that she worked as a stripper and had slept with 25 guys in the course of a year. This is probably why, as I touched her genitals, I found myself becoming increasingly disgusted and eventually had to leave. The other factor is that despite being extremely intelligent, she seemed to be roughly five years behind me mentally. Like how fifteen year-old me would have loved Rick & Morty and hated religious people and thought more science was the answer to everything and sleeping with tons of strangers was empowering. We did share an interest in serial killers.

So I sort of understand where Margot's coming from, except that I have disdain for promiscuous women rather than inexperienced men.

>>10382774

newyorker has a gaywall, but anon posted a scribd pdf of it so no more gaywall

>>10382779
what does this phrase mean?

what happened with anon's girl? :c

>>10382806
>>10382806
>what happened with anon's girl?
are you talking about my post? the girl disappeared from my life. i never saw her again.

no classic happy ending but i was inspired to improve myself and a lot of good things happened in the years afterwards. it remains the biggest wakeup call i've ever had seven and a half years later

>>10378258
Pretty depressing to think what a waste of resources and time the person who wrote that turned out to be. Literature is for a select few.
If you're concerned with "new types," you would probably be better employed as a janitor.

>>10382833
did you at least had sex with her?

>>10379299
Yeah, that's pretty accurate, but I don't think she's quite so self-aware as your explanation implies.
And I feel more than proper pity for the pathetic loser due to her use of the perspective of the female, who seems ready to judge him for initial trivialities. If her purpose was to balance it and reveal attributes of both sides, then it should have been done with more care.

>>10382601
>imagining how perfect your own body is during sex is NOT at all normal
why, whats so bad about that?

Another thing to consider is her choice to make her antagonist physically unattractive (and revel in this through descriptions of Margot's repulsion during sex) while having Margot be conventionally attractive. Would the story still work if Robert were just as awkward but handsome, while Margot was a plain jane or even ugly? Or would it elicit a different response than intended?

>>10382635
>It's not the insult that's the problem. The problem is that he's an autist who TWICE creates this emasculation / cuckold fantasy scenario where she's fucking some chad and he's miserable and jealous.
I know this is trollybait or a genderqueer marxist but you think people who can be jealous and desirous of a female and scared that she may prefer others, or if love can at all in anyway exist, not to suggest this story warrants or expresses that, but if love can reach thousands, or millions of 'love points', then maybe it is in this instance, what drove his desire and feelings, if not purely lust, was '5s or 10s of love points', and so he desired her, for himself, and so he is angered at the thought of not having her all to himself, that he may not get her again:...

so how do you conclude emasculation/cuckold fantasy?

>>10382596
Not previous Anon but wow you are a complete sociopath. Evil people like you make the world a horrible place

>>10382898
it's also that she's getting off on imagining he thinks her body is perfect and how gross he is to her
plus what girls feel that self-assured with their bodies? it doesn't say wether she always feels that way or if it's only when she compares herself to him and how much power she assumes her relative beauty gives her over him

>>10382905
tbf it's unknown if she really is attractive or not, does he even compliment her looks except to say that she has big tits? basically all we know is that she's at least "normal" looking, isn't overweight, and isn't flat chested

>>10382905
If robert were more attractive he could just hop on tinder and find another hole with a different face. If Margot is attractive at all she can just hop on tinder or down to the bar and find another dick owned by another wallet

>>10382931
>what girls feel that self-assured with their bodies?
>I have seen soooo many girls on tumblr and emo movies I watch that are not comfortable in their bodies... its likkkeeee... soooooo commmoon for women to not like their bodies, like not for 1 second, like their bodies near 100%... sooooo... ok here,,, follow with me.... Therer foreeee.... therere forreee....Plus: what girls (I just explained how there are none... so: what ones? None, I have proven above) feel that self assured with their bodies?

>>10382961
okay

marie calloway rip did all this better

>>10382961
Stop typing like a woman.

>>10382915
>>10382961

stop doing drugs

>>10382898

it's basically fapping. who would enjoy that, when someone is trying to make love to you, and you go super inward, rather than connecting to the other person?

>>10382905
her physical revulsion only came out because he was insecure. it never mattered how robert looked -- it was how he acted that cause margot to shift from being somewhat attracted to him into being disgusted by him

>>10383016
>and you go super inward, rather than connecting to the other person?
Why not both? Maybe everyone does not turn their mind off in some situations or every time during sex, but thats totally different than the accusation of:

She enjoyed thinking about how her body looked = weird/bad/mental illness/strange/dumb/silly/retarded/idk

>>10383016
Why is jealousy in relation to someone who there have been all signs apparent to you they might be your love-mate crazy?

He thought she liked him and they could have something:

It appears he thought wrong: Before that 'thought wrong' fully connected in his understanding and settled and he coped with it and accepted it: he became jealous, because his potential dream, a big deal, finally finding love, the one, a one, his first one? shattered, he was given the lottery and then it was taken away, unclearly, quickly... and so passion and emotion and rage and anger and confusion are real things a person can feel, and from history we know in these positions people can do irrational things... maybe all he was looking for were reasons and closure:

How can someone perform such an intimate act, and then not even speak in any other way to explain why there is something of a restraining order

>>10383076

but that's not what she thought. she was thinking "oh im not attracted to this guy but i can power through it if i think about how hot he thinks i am." this is to counteract her own revulsion towards him. that's unhealthy. someone can certainly enjoy both, but being so self-involved during sex is gross (one thinks of the dude bro in a mirrored hotel room checking out his own body while he fucks some slut doggystyle -- is this not an abnormal way to approach sex?)

>>10382916
>Not previous Anon

No, you are him.

You're embarrassed by how our conversation went and you don't have the moral courage to respond in detail to my last post, so you're pretending that you've disappeared while posting angry messages to put me down from "other anons" because /lit/ doesn't track posting id's and you think you can get away with it

with that have a nice life kiddo, this thread is almost dead anyway

>>10383108
>is this not an abnormal way to approach sex?)
My answer was already why not both? You are unironically talking about a great example of a spook: there is literally nothing wrong with looking at your ripped body in a mirror while fucking a chick, even you could do it and nothing would be all that different for it, I dont think it can be used as such a point to judge character..and for what reason even judging character, am I in a marketing trap... who doesnt understand this story, why is there any confusion or hoopla or controversy or disagreement, ignorant and ilcommunicative people are ignorant and ilcommunicative and ignorant and ilcommunicative occurances occur as result

>>10383132

i'm not saying you shouldn't do both, i'm saying you shouldn't be having sex if your focus is only on yourself, because then you're going to naturally be selfish and not even care about the other person. and that was the case with Margot, in a perverted sort of way, because really the proper act was to be selfish and think only about her desire -- to not have sex, and go home. but she was a coward, so instead she had shitty sex with someone she didn't want to have shitty sex with, and in trying to make the shitty sex work for HER, she had to continue to lie to him while also trying to arouse herself by imagining his desire for her. that's a more complicated situation, but the result is the same, though much more emotionally fraught -- an unsatisfied partner (albeit a delayed dissatisfaction) who wants much more than what she was willing to give

So basically she decided she didn't like him because of one bad fuck.

The rest is as deep as a Rupi Kaur poem.

Why is it posted here? Nobody ever post new yorker stories.

>>10380702
Why was /r/incels removed again? This is comedy gold.

>>10382170
This is pretty much the whole story.

>>10381037
There is nothing particularly wrong with Robert. Not being liked by a random women doesn't mean anything.
The only thing would be his immature behaviour, but I am tempted to say that nowadays people in their thirties aren't very mature either.

>>10383417
>didn't read the thread

>>10383443
hes desperate and lonely and he almost stalked her because he got ghosted instead of just letting it go. he fucked her ONCE but he thought he was entitled to see her again and when he was rejected he called her a whore. that's goes beyond immature into wtf territory.

>>10383508
why couldnt she give someone she shared the most intimate experience with understanding closure?

>>10383577
it was even worse because instead of just ignoring him she told him she'd text him then went back to ignoring him, I think you're supposed to blame it on her age and immaturity, but she sucks for not just manning up and telling him she doesn't want to see him again

>>10383588
there's millions of screeds from women saying how awful it is when men ghost them especially after sex, and how men don't communicate and they're mostly right, but being fair to people's emotions isn't a one way street and girls owe it to guys to be straight up just like the other way around

>>10383508
>hes desperate and lonely and he almost stalked her because he got ghosted instead of just letting it go
wouldn't call what happened stalking, not even "almost stalking"

the main character doesn't show to be particularly desperate nor lonely. he seems unnexperienced, and a slight overreaction in the end but nothing too far off the real world

> he fucked her ONCE but he thought he was entitled to see her again and when he was rejected he called her a whore. that's goes beyond immature into wtf territory.
would make sense in a different context, not in this story
This was not a random person, as you imply by " he fucked her ONCE but he thought". Had the woman been a random fuck with a girl he met at a party it would be just like that, but not in this case where it seemss both characters have been interacting for months.
I think that the involvement between two people is cut abruptly after a night, the ghosted person has all the right to feel pissed off.

>he fucked her ONCE but he thought he was entitled to see her again
"entitled" that's a word a feminist would use
it has nothing to do with "entitlement"

>>10383508
>>didn't read the thread
didn't have to
that's the whole plot

>>10383602
Would something like:
>Robert, I built you up as something else in my mind and lied to both myself and you, this isn't going to work. I'm sorry.
sufficed?

>>10383577

because she was a fucking whore, not saying she wasn't a whore. but he should have been more mature about it. he's fucking 34 and she's 20. he's supposed to act like the adult here

>>10383636
maybe you skimmed it, but dude shows up at a bar he knows she goes to a month after he was ghosted. and he was clearly there to find her considering the texts he sent later.

she wasn't a random fuck, but he had her number, he could have left it by texting her his feelings and letting it go. instead he tries to physically meet her. that's crazy and scary, like what if he decided to stalk and kill her? that could have easily been the story here.

he was entitled. why else would he call her a whore? because he thought he "won" her and the fact that he saw her with another boy made him jealous. she hadn't spoken to him in a month but he still felt like she shouldn't be sleeping with anyone else. if that's not entitlement, i don't know what is.

>>10383651
I don't really see the chracter having that much insight into her actions to write that, but saying something like I don't think we have chemistry/click and I have to focus on school not starting a relationship. He'd probably still be upset and hurt, but at least it wouldn't have been drawn out.
Also, I think he never expected her to actually sleep with him, she's the one who asks him to take her home. It was only after they had sex that he emotionally opened up to her, he was being distant and weird before until they kiss. It's her ego in not wanting to let her idea of him go that leads her to ask him to go for a drink when he seems uninterested and then later to psych herself into thinking she wants to have sex with him. It's almost weird how passive the Robert character is made to be, his only time making the first move is when he asks for her number.

>>10383675

nah man i'm personally a robert and i can attest to being that beta a few points in my life

>>10383671
>he was entitled. why else would he call her a whore?
because it's a word that hurts women and when people are hurt they want they call names to the ones who hurt them
it's natural, like calling another person an ass

It's only a person pissed off. A month later maybe should have moved on, maybe not, we don't know how long they talked before but we know it was a long time.

>dude shows up at a bar he knows she goes to a month after he was ghosted. and he was clearly there to find her considering the texts he sent later. that's crazy and scary
I don't think it's crazy nor scary. People do it all the time, except they use social media to see what their ex's are doing. The fact that he showed up in the bar might be crazy if condition we don't know were given, namely, he explicitly went there to met her, while one could think he just wants to me another twenty year old and knows people of that age frequent the place. Creepy, yes, but still common.

>>10383721
its not just a word to hurt. he specifically uses "whore" because he was jealous of the other guy, just like how he suddenly got cold and jealous when she went home for winter break. he thinks she's fucking all these dudes and he doesn't like that, why? because he thinks he should be the only one she should be having sex with. he's a creep

>>10383741
>he specifically uses "whore" because he was jealous of the other guy
Explain your logic of why you think this is true? What your statement means?

He could have said Cunt. Or: Bitch. Or, Scum.

But you are saying??? It was Whore... becasue he was jealous?

The other poster says, used a word to hurt, he thought would do any damage at all, if any, and used context to come up with the one, she is with other guys, the concept of whore is, often with other guys, there, maybe that will be the word... I dont get the significance or meaning of your interpretation

>>10383824

he called her a whore because he didn't want her sleeping with other dudes. what's so confusing about that? he wanted her all to himself, and he thought because they fucked once that he deserved to have her all for himself. then he gets rejected, can't get over it, sees her with another dude, and all those feelings, his fantasy that they were going to go out and have a relationship, that came rushing back and made him call her a whore because he *thought* this was much more than it was. i was saying he was acting entitled to a relationship because she fucked him (once) and his lonely desperation got the better of him. he should have been stronger, and she shouldn't have been such a coward. but such is life in [current year]

Wow this is the most in-depth discussion of a contemporary short story I've seen on /lit/ in...ever.

>>10383858
he called her a whore because he didn't want her sleeping with other dudes. what's so confusing about that? he wanted her all to himself

Nothings confusing about that. Whats wrong with wanting someone to yourself? Dont lovers usually do such?

You then make the jump that because he wanted her, they he thinks he deserves to have her all to himself:

Again, is that wrong to think, that it is possible for a man to have a woman all to himself? To pursue a relation at all is sort of almost presumed on that potential, at least in that moment, and I get thats key, but more than likely there is a potential for at least the desire to pursue another happening, more

It seems he felt he deserved an answer and understanding on how they can be so close for weeks and months and then have an intimate experience and then not hear anything from her.

I dont know why you are obsessed with this concept of 'him thinking he deserves',

wives without thinking, think they deserve their husbands, by their actions, maybe... due to his actions of wanting to pursue relationship, he thinks he deserves relationship...sure,,, ok... but whats your point, it is as if that word is worth 10 points and if you could accurately show that some iteration of it is represented in activity then it means something significant. Or that he is automatically bad, for thinking he was worthy of speaking with her again, and figuring out some more info on what happened, he thinks the speaking for months and then sex and then stopping talking just like that is a dick move, so maybe he thinks it is perfect justice, or even less, for him to attempt to be such a dick as to speak to her, to understand what occured, what she is thinking....and then it hurts... to see her with another guy, that the truth is, he wasnt good enough, robert..

all his bad went to good, he is good enough, this hot 20 year old is giving him sex...wow, he is good enough, life is awesome, he would probably marry her on the spot... maybe, just making that up.... ghosted.... what the fuck... seen with another guy.... damnn... feelings are real
and he thought because they fucked once that he deserved to have her all for himself.

>>10383871
I never see anything contemporary discussed, and maybe this is mostly because short stories are easier to read

>>10383871
this story is pretty much the modern romeo and julliette. She should write a trilogy and make movies

>>10383910
pls no

>>10383904
ugh dude i wish i knew what you were saying, you seem to be suggesting that he was justified in his actions because he was hurt and confused, and i get that, but as a 34 yr old adult male he should be more aware of how his actions would be perceived, he was acting crazy. he wanted closure just like everybody else, but sometimes you just gotta let go, that's part of being an adult, letting go of things that really dont matter in the end.

>>10383940
I agree, yea, all good.

What I was getting at is: everyone is rating the characters good and bad stat levels, and all the discussion is about disagreements on what actions were how wrong, etc. Idk...

Its just interesting the different levels of harshness, is vitriol the word people are hoisting at these characters, and using in relation to worldview, and views of the other sex

>>10380257
>Don't be a Robert
Why don't you just nut up and tell any Roberts you run into that you're not interested?
Just rip the bandaid off and be honest?
Would you appreciate it if a dude you had unrequited feelings for fed you glade hope because he assumed you weren't emotionally capable of handling the truth?

Not trying to be an asshole, I genuinely want some insight into the female experience. Because it seems really obvious from where I'm sitting, but then there has to be more to it than that.

>>10384205
>glade hope
False hope, my bad, autocorrect is a shite.

>>10380382
This cut fucking deep

>>10384205
well you see in the real world women are trained to feel all the things, so when they have to hurt people they freak out and cant even. so instead theyd rather string boys along and hope that they just forget, and occasionally get gibs from them, and sometimes even fuck them from time to time, but you know, if they think that means we like them that's not our fault, its not like we gave these signals, fucking creepers

>>10382136
I don't disagree, but I feel the root of the problem is society and the way we out women on this kind of pedestal, rather than a problem that's purely rooted in female nature.

>>10382444
Trips for truth

>>10378248
Oh my fucking God, my first time went exactly like the sex in this story, this is giving me nausea.