Of cats and men

For two weeks I had somebody to say “I love you” to every day. Somebody to come home to and cuddle with constantly. Somebody to eat meals and watch television with. Somebody who always listened to what I had to say. It was love and companionship at its best. It was the perfect relationship. It was my friend Steve’s cat.

We moved her into my apartment for two weeks while Steve went on vacation, and it was wonderful. Not only was there a soft, furry kitty inhabiting the same space as me, but also I achieved a complete and total understanding of, and empathy for, the male sex! It was quite a beneficial two weeks. 

It’s like this:

I’m a cuddler. I also happen to be prone to fits of anxiety and paranoid thoughts about relationships late at night, which need to be discussed. Right now. Even if one half of the relationship is asleep. Hugs are also in order. Not to gender stereotype, but I think it’s kind of a girl thing.

Though, whenever this happened to me in the past, the boyfriend inevitably mumbled that he was sleeping, and I inevitably huffed and puffed and got the creeping hot feeling in my chest that if he really loved me, he would wake up. I didn’t understand. I hadn’t lived with a cat yet.

When Steve’s cat woke up in the morning, she did one of two things: chewed through the bag of cat food on top of the refrigerator or attempted to wake me up. I didn’t have a steady job, so, needless to say, I was sleeping in until about 1 p.m.

The same is not true for kitty. At 8 a.m. she was at her most affectionate (hungry) mood, wanting to curl up in a ball on my stomach and have me interact with her – pet her, tell her how pretty she is, kiss her furry cheeks, analyze the time we went to Navy Pier and how I neglected to offer to buy her cotton candy, et cetera.

But I didn’t want to cuddle at eight in the morning. I was asleep. “It doesn’t mean I don’t love you, sweetie,” I would mumble. But she wouldn’t believe me. So she’d huff and puff and go chew through the bag of food.

The experience was, to say the least, surreal. After a couple days with kitty, I recognized a chilling familiarity between the way I treated kitty and the way my no-good-ex-boyfriends-who-didn’t-appreciate-me-anywhere-near-enough-God-damn-it treated me. Because I loved this kitty. I really did. But I just didn’t feel like waking up to cuddle at eight o’clock in the morning, woman.

And there it was. I had come to resemble my ex-boyfriends. A startling empathy for the male condition unfolded in front of my eyes, and I transcended my very gender.

So, men, a word to the wise: If you are running into this problem with a current girlfriend, consider just filling her dish of food the night before. It works wonders.