I was thinking about my cat recently, I’m always thinking about my cat. I was thinking how much I am a CAT PERSON, and no, not like how everyone says they are a Cat person or a Dog person. But like in a very different, special way that only I have ever felt and can ever fully know. Cat person v. Dog person is only an interesting debate when I enter the ring. I have entered.
(Side note: Once I literally performed at a Fight Club-inspired storytelling show in Chicago (this will only make sense for people in Chicago) on the theme of Cat v. Reptile. I think that was the theme because my story was about how growing up we almost got a lizard, before ultimately getting a cat. There was a story in there. I lost the fight though.)
My therapist told me I am hyper-vigilant. What is hyper-vigilance? It’s being on edge all the time. It’s being prepared at any moment to either bolt out of a room or a stay as still as humanly possible. It’s disappearing in front of people if you need to. It’s constantly scanning the room for imperceptible shifts in moods and energies that are not good. It’s not so much “the vibes are off” it’s the body language is off, or the voice has an edge or the eyes are just a little too glassy and there’s a palpable, slow-moving dread growing inside me. If there’s tension, I can sniff it out from a mile away.
This is textbook cat behavior. Guilty, I’m a cat person!
(This is also why I’ve been deemed “too intense” for icebreakers.)
I don’t know what trauma my cat experienced prior to us adopting her at 5 months, but she is also this way. At the slightest sound, her eyes fly open (I’m convinced she’s never fully asleep), and she bolts out of her bed. She hears the door unlocking and she pops her head up, her eyes get wide and she gets an extremely concerned look on her face. Like me, her two modes are: worry or asleep/faking being asleep.
My cat will only tolerate you for so long before she starts squirming. Same.
In the Cat v. Dog wars, cats get a bad rap because no one can ever see them. They don’t get the public facetime like dogs do. They are primarily indoor animals and when you do see a cat outside it’s got a big scar on its face and is legitimately not something you want to get any closer to. So people that don’t have cats think that cats are mysterious at best, aloof and distant at worst (or want to scratch your eyes out at VERY worst, though I’ve never had a cat that came close to that kind of terror level.)
Maybe cats are just out here trying to live and process their trauma with the limited tools they have? Maybe dogs are also this way and their easy-going, affable front is only masking their pain? Maybe you should just say if you are a Dog or a Cat person and stop bumming everyone out in this round-robin, new hire icebreaker?
Here is where I blame my parents for everything. They wouldn’t let us get a dog! They deprived me of being a good natured, good boy! And instead burdened me with an animal that flees when you walk into a room. Did they detect something in me that said: She can’t handle a dog. She’s a cat person. Now let’s test out that theory.
Was it me, the cat, or the environment I grew up in that made me who I am? Let’s blame the cat and that takes both me and my parents off the hook.
I actually do like dogs, in theory. I admire dogs. I respect dogs. I want to have singular, happy thoughts that loop in my head all day. I want to be paraded around my neighborhood and have every single person we pass go, “awwww, so cute!” (this is what I say when I pass a dog. I love dogs!) I want someone to dress me up in cute outfits and post photos of me to their #furbabiez Slack channel. I want to be the one bright spot in a grim work day, the reason someone momentarily feels less dead inside from behind their computer screen. Oh my god the pressure we put on dogs! What are we doing?!
What can I say? I am a cat person!
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About me: I’m a Brooklyn-based writer, deeply inspired by the 18 years I spent growing up in the Connecticut suburbs during the 90s and early 2000s. My first book, Jokes to Offend Men, is out this October. Pre-order now!