Cat Person

Much of the conflict in the story rests on the fact that Margot and Robert are strangers. Margot does not know anything about Robert other than assumptions that she can draw based on his appearance and her limited interactions with him. In this, there is both infinite possibility and absolute assumption: That is, Robert could be anything, but all Margot has to go on are the impressions he makes as well as her own personal biases.

Roupenian addresses this aspect of modern dating in an interview with Deborah Treisman: “In the early stages of dating each interaction serves as a kind of Rorschach test for us. We decide that it means something […] but, really, these are reassuring self-deceptions.” (Treisman, Deborah. “Kristen Roupenian on the Self-Deceptions of Dating.” New Yorker, 4 Dec. 2017).

The conflict of the story, therefore, rests on the ways that Margot deceives herself about Robert. She wants him to be better than he is. She wants him to be sensitive, so she deceives herself into not seeing all of the red flags in every interaction with him: him kissing her on the forehead, repeatedly talking about (and then denigrating) her youth, buying her things, putting her into situations (like the bar) where she becomes dependent upon him.