Dear Sarah,

Seeing as how you have a cat, this letter might be insulting to you, but I’d like your advice anyway.I hate cats.Very much.I’m not sure why, but I’ve always thought that cats are the laziest and most useless animals around.They are like the philosophy students of the animal kingdom.But this hatred has never caused me to mistreat one or anything.I simply do not like to be around them.

Well, my girlfriend loves cats and wants one to keep at her apartment.Her parents’ cat has had kittens and she has fallen completely in love with one of them and wants to keep it, but she thinks that I am going to get mad at her for bringing the kitten to her apartment.This has been the source of three arguments in the past week, and I’m getting kind of tired of it.I won’t care that she has a cat.I’m not that shallow.I knew that she was a cat person before we started dating (we were best friends for about three years beforehand and have been dating a little past six months now) and it never bothered me.Every time we’ve been to her parents’ house I’ve been nice and petted the cat if it jumped into my lap, and I’ve petted and made “awww how cute” comments about the kittens, so I don’t see why she has it in her head that if she gets a cat I’ll be mad.I’ve told her that I’ll help her take care of the cat and be sweet and nice to it, because I love her and wouldn’t do anything cruel to a pet that she loves, but she still keeps bringing up the fact that I won’t ever like her cat and that that hurts her feelings.

We have a wonderful relationship and are always honest with each other, and whenever we have disagreements we’ve always been able to settle them or at least just comes to terms with the fact that we disagree, but this one has lingered for a week now.She keeps saying if I spend enough with the kitten I’ll learn to love it, and I keep saying not bloody likely.

I don’t want to lie to her, but should I just go ahead and say “why, you were right, honey, I absolutely love your new kitten”?And besides, it is her apartment.I don’t live there, so if she wants to get three cats, a rattlesnake, and paste pictures of naked men all over here walls it’s her business, and I don’t have any kind of right to tell her what she can and cannot do in her own home.What would you recommend that I do?

Dog Lover

Dear Dog,

I will assume that you’ve already told her everything you’ve written here – that she shouldn’t take your distaste for cats personally, that she can do as she pleases, that you’ll tolerate the presence of a feline without complaint for her sake.I will also assume that it hasn’t done any good, so I’ll just bust out a little dime-store psychoanalysis and then get to the advice.

Dime-store psychoanalysis: your girlfriend is looking ahead to the day when the two of you might move in together, and she’s worried that her acquiring a cat will throw a spanner in those works.I’d hear arguments on that, of course, but based on what you’ve told me, there’s more to the kerfuffle than just the kitten.

Advice: Tell her, again, that while you don’t like cats, she should go ahead and adopt one if that’s what she wants and not worry about what you think, because you will treat the cat with respect (if grudgingly), and you will not care about her any less for adding a cat to her life.Then tell her that you don’t want to discuss it again.If she starts in again with the “you’ll learn to love the kitten, I know you will” business again, shrug “maybe” as neutrally as possible and then firmly change the subject.

[10/24/00]

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