I have been slowly befriending one of the local cats that comes into our garden sometimes.

@astronomerritt but they’re soft and huggable, and they make good vibrations—distressingly, they sometimes do this when scared which leads uninitiated, but well-meaning, cat-botherer to continue picking up and snuggling their furry butts.

one more fun fact about cats:

in South Korea, cat lovers are called 집사 or jibsa, which can be translated as “butler”.

we’re cat butlers. feels accurate!

@astronomerritt Reminds me of college when i accidentally socialized a friend's cat. She had two, one was relatively friendly and one she adopted after finding it abandoned as a kitten and it was terrified of everything. She went on study abroad for a term and left the cats with a second friend, with whom I was sharing an apartment. And me being me I spent many of my weekends reading in the couch. And eventually kitty number two would perch in the couch, and be ignored by me because book. So my friend gets home and we all move back to our normal house (it was being renovated) and one day I wander over to her room and she notices that other than her & her boyfriend I'm literally the only person kitty two doesn't hide from. Kitty two was never going to come up to me and want pets, but I was clearly "safe enough" that she could keep sitting on my friend's desk and didn't have to go hide when I stopped by.

I think that made me a cat person despite the fact her little brats (affectionate) decided my brand new bath mat was a litter box (mirrored apartment, the litter box was in the other bathroom, but one of the people in that bedroom had her boyfriend over and shut them out, so what they did was both very smart and extremely passive aggressive).

this is also partially why cats like to come bother you when you’re focused on something else. your behaviour is relaxed and predictable, you’re not making eye contact with them, you’re broadcasting “chill” in cat language.

of course, if the cat is your friend, they also simply want your love and attention, and you don’t seem to be doing anything important to a cat. you’re clearly not hunting or sleeping or eating. so why not cuddle time??? why stare at the glowy box when you could be PETTING THE CAT.

why indeed, honestly.

the flip side of this is that dogs tend to be baffled by me

this is why cats seem to gravitate towards the one person in a room who doesn’t like cats. it isn’t spite or contrariness! it’s just that the cat-disliking person ISN’T BOTHERING THEM.

cats often find human behaviour confusing! but a human sitting there minding their own business and not looking at them is honestly pretty cat behaviour, and thus comprehensible to them as “relaxed, predictable, not being weird or threatening”

Making friends with cats is mostly about proving that you’re safe and then just not bothering them. Cats tend to like me and I swear at least 80% of this is that I respect their boundaries.

one more fun fact about cats:

in South Korea, cat lovers are called 집사 or jibsa, which can be translated as “butler”.

we’re cat butlers. feels accurate!

@astronomerritt occasionally cats completely reject this and are just like HELLO YES PLAY WITH ME. there was a local one we nicknamed socks who ran up to me in the street and let me pick him up and give him fuss. no slow blink timid approach stuff, just right in with the hugs. we moved and I still miss him.

@gsuberland @astronomerritt I have foster cat who adores people. Any people. He leaps into the arms of total strangers and licks their cheeks. In fact, he did that with a team of paramedics and firefighters who were here for a medical emergency. The firefighters were delighted and all whipped out their phones to take photos. (My own cats were all under the bed, naturally.)
Unfortunately, that cat hates other cats.

@LPerry2 I feel like all of the most human-sociable cats I’ve met dislike other cats. My parents’ girl cat likes humans a lot, even strangers, but she has absolutely no tolerance for her own brother.

@astronomerritt Hm. I've fostered a couple hundred cats over the years, so I have a fairly good sample. I've had cats that love people and are okay with cats, and cats that love people and hate cats. But what I have noticed is that cats seem to bond with just one other cat. Even if they are okay with a bunch of cats, they are only friends with one. Period. If that one cat dies or leaves, the remaining cat never bonds with another.

@astronomerritt @riley yep! I was at a friend's house for the first time so I introduced myself to her cat and then walked away. Everyone else was petting and cooing and just basically in his face. He tolerated it for a bit then left the room. He came back in about half an hour later and sat down next to me which I was told he *never* did and I'm sure it was because I interacted on cat terms. (Cat terms seem to be autistic terms, which tracks!)

@astronomerritt imo the whole "don't make eye contact, just ignore them, make soothing noises if they come closer" is a pretty solid approach with dogs as well. At the very least, let the dog come to you first. I mostly ignore other dogs in dog parks unless they come say hi and I've had totally strange dogs come to me for safety when things get a bit too rowdy

I think people very often assume that all dogs love every human being they come across, if not instantly, then after they've had a little sniff, when obviously that's not true. I have two rescue galgos (aka spanish greyhounds) and they are quite fearful of people in general, and so far haven't really grown to like any friend or relative etc of ours (we've had them for about three years now). Entirely possible that they will be aloof at best towards strangers for the rest of their lives. Before these two, I had a smooth collie and she was also often pretty meh about people. Particularly if you were rude with your introductions, which people quite often are with dogs too imo. Most of them just tolerate it with no obvious complaints because they do love humans

@astronomerritt

I only want them to decide they want nothing to do with me but still with the disgusting attempts to lick me. Ew.

@astronomerritt I'm allergic to cats, and my experience is that *cats absolutely love me*. I'm convinced that this is precisely because they very quickly clock me as "rare giant ape who *doesn't* harass me".

@kskehu Dogs definitely find me non-threatening, even anxious dogs. They just also find me quite boring. Like furniture. Generally, though, if I know a dog for long enough, they will figure me out and decide we are buddies after all. Dogs are clever.

@astronomerritt
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