How Do You Know If Your Cat REALLY Loves You?

(A Tongue-in-Cheek Look at How We Think Cats Show Love)

Krista Schmitt

Ah, the majestic household feline—nature’s four-legged enigma wrapped in fur and filled with disdainful affection. Let us part the veil on what we often mistake for love in the twisted world of cat-human relations.

When your cat graces you with its presence, winding between your legs in a perilous dance of tripping hazards, one might assume this to be love. But, dear human, you are mistaken. This is not affection; it is a test. Each calculated figure-eight is a challenge: Can you balance on two legs, or will you topple like the feeble biped you are?

And what of the “purring,” you ask? That gentle, rhythmic vibrato that seems to signal contentment? It’s a ruse! A sly tactic to lull you into a false sense of security as your feline overlord silently judges your choice of evening wear from its throne atop the fridge.

Let us consider the phenomenon of the cat’s “gift-giving.” Oh, how we gush when kitty presents us with a deceased rodent or an ex-bird; or, my personal favorite, the damp hairball strategically placed right where my bare foot hits the carpet after leaving bed in the morning. “My cat must love me,” you say, as you dispose of the carcass. But make no mistake, your whiskered companion is not gifting; it is warning. “Behold my prowess, human,” it seems to say, “and let the dread fill you at what I could do if you ever forget to clean my litter box on time.”

Sleeping near you is another supposed act of love. Yet, make no bones about it, you are merely a convenient heat source—a fleshy radiator. The cat has deemed you useful in its never-ending quest for warmth and thus tolerates your presence in its bed … which you mistakenly call yours.

Headbutting, or “bunting,” as the scientists call it, is perhaps the most profound display of what you wishfully interpret as love. But in the complex calculus of cat affection, this behavior is simply the equivalent of a medieval lord bestowing knighthood upon a lowly squire. “I dub thee mine,” the cat says. “Now go forth and fill my food bowl, servant.”

Lastly, the slow blink—an exchange of long, languorous eye contact that owners interpret as “kitty kisses.” In reality, this is the ultimate power move, a demonstration of such supreme confidence that your cat can literally fall asleep while looking at you, secure in the knowledge that you wouldn’t dare disturb its slumber.

Thus, the life of a cat owner is one of servitude masquerading as companionship, a perpetual quest for approval from an animal that epitomizes the art of feigned indifference. The cat does not love; it tolerates, it permits, it condescends. And yet we wouldn’t have it any other way.