MashReads Podcast: 'Cat Person' perfectly taps into the murky ambivalence of millennial dating

It's hard to read "Cat Person," a short story by Kristen Roupenian, without thinking two words: Extreme same.

The story, first published in the The New Yorker in early December, details a flirtation and then an encounter between Margot, a 20-year-old college student, and Robert, a 34-year-old man whom she (and the reader) knows very little about.

Throughout "Cat Person," Roupenian explores the murky ambivalence of modern dating, in which a chance encounter can lead to someone being both disinterested and also disinclined to let that other person go — to the point where, midway through the story, after she sleeps with Robert, Margot notes, "[I] thought, brightly, This is the worst life decision I have ever made! And she marvelled at herself for a while, at the mystery of this person who’d just done this bizarre, inexplicable thing."

Upon its release, "Cat Person" quickly went viral, in large part because of how extremely relatable Margot's experiences dating were. (The story also sparked a conversation about race and for whom Margot's experience speaks.)

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Just weeks after the story's publication, reports are circulating that Roupenian will earn a $1 million dollar advance for her debut story collection, You Know You Want This.

This week on the MashReads Podcast, we discuss "Cat Person" by Kristen Roupenian. Join us as we talk about short stories, what makes this one so relatable, and how Roupenian captures millennial dating so perfectly.

Then we move on to discuss other books and stories we related to intensely, including Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli, the American Girl series, Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction by J.D. Salinger, A Wrinkle In Time by Madeleine L'Engle, and The Giver by Louis Lowery.

As always, we close the show with recommendations:

• Chloe recommends Difficult Women by Roxane Gay. "It's great. I assume that if you're listening to this podcast, you'd be into very interior female protagonists. It's full of them. It's great."

• Nicole recommends A Life Apart by Neel Mukherjee. She also recommends Voyeur, a documentary on Netflix about Gay Talese's New Yorker article "The Voyeur's Motel." She says: "It is fascinating. It made me think about who we are as people and what's okay and what's not okay, and it's very nuanced. It was also great to see Gay Talese talking about being a writer, and to get a peek into his life."

• Peter recommends Blood, Sweat, and Pixels: The Triumphant, Turbulent Stories Behind How Video Games Are Made by Jason Schreier, a news editor at Kotaku. "It is fascinating to me because it's an industry with no parallel in the world."

• MJ recommends The Rules Do Not Apply by Ariel Levy. "What I love about the book is that she observes the world in such a specific, unique way, and she writes about it so well." He also recommends listening to "Into Strangers," a mashup of Ariana Grande's "Into You" with the Stranger Things theme song.

Also mentioned on this show:

• Kristen Roupenian's interview about writing "Cat Person," with Deborah Treisman for the New Yorker.

• The Twitter account Men React to Cat Person.

And if you're looking for even more book news, don't forget to follow MashReads on Facebook and Twitter.