“Men, Hide Your Cats”

Absolutely not.

Recently, The New York Times published an essay for its Modern Love series by a man named Michael Zadoorian titled “Men, Hide Your Cats.” Mr. Zadoorian recounts the story of a newly divorced friend who visited his home and expressed interest in he and his wife’s cats.

That interest, however, was tempered the next day, when the man spoke with a co-worker. She told him that “women didn’t want a man with a cat” since those men appear “weak, feminine, and submissive.”

So he wound up with a dog instead. Perhaps to temper the fact that his friend was so easily railroaded by such ignorance, Mr. Zadoorian asks if she may have been right, and plays a familiar trump card – “The Science.”

Specifically, this science - Not the Cat’s Meow? The Impact of Posing with Cats on Female Perceptions of Male Dateability, published in 2020 by Lori Kogan of Colorado State University and Shelly Volsche of Boise State University. The study included two anonymous online surveys of 708 and 680 participants who identified as heterosexual females aged 18-24 in the United States.

Participants in each survey were shown photos of a man alone and the same man holding a cat and then asked questions about how they perceived each man’s personality and how likely they would be to date them.

Despite the extremely narrow scope and limitations of this study that the researchers themselves discussed at length, news outlets ate it up with a spoon after it was published. Googling the study today presents stories from, among others: CNN, the British Psychological Society, People, The Independent, Cosmopolitan, the New York Post, and local TV stations in Atlanta, Orlando, and Tulsa, Oklahoma.

One sentence from the study’s Simple Summary – basically, the Abstract of the Abstract - features in Mr. Zadoorian’s article: “Men holding cats were viewed as less masculine; more neurotic, agreeable, and open; and less dateable.” This is the sentence that has been ricocheting around the internet for six years. With the amount of coverage it received, you’d be forgiven for thinking the researchers had cured Alzheimer’s rather than quizzed 1,388 internet randos about two pictures.

And this brings us back to Mr. Zadoorian’s friend and his encounter with his co-worker. It’s not a stretch to imagine that at some point, she heard the breathless reporting on this study by race-to-the-bottom, clickbait-slop “journalists.” She clearly felt comfortable offering her ham-fisted opinion, no doubt because she was confident “The Science” was on her side. The result is yet another single person sidelined from their instincts by forces outside of themselves that, as Henry David Thoreau wrote, “chiefly….do not know, but partly…do not mean, any better.”

One final detail in Mr. Zadoorian’s story drives the moral home – “Two years after getting a dog, he got a relationship.” Setting aside the correlation/causation logical fallacy that would give even a perceptive 12-year-old a headache, we see clearly the persistent antiquity that often permeates what The New York Times ironically calls “Modern Love.”

That same old story is thus: to qualify for a relationship, change yourself. Like the right things, in the right quantities, at the right times. Say the right things, in the right tone, to the right people. Go to the right places, but only on ladies’ night. Apply the proper dosages of “masculinity” and “femininity” to the object of your desire like a mind-altering drug to make them see that you’re the best of all their “options.” Treat a marriage license like a promissory note, whereby all that self-denial, preening, and preparing is repaid in full by saying “I DO.”

Or sidestep it all, and pardon my bluntness, just live your fucking life. Light your heart and mind on fire with your passions, your thoughts, and your indwelling wisdom, and let others find refuge in the heat. That is a form of love that no hot take on the “dating crisis” will ever capture.

And, if you’re a man and you love cats – please, adopt cats. I wrote here about the passing of my dear friend Perry last December. On Memorial Day, my cat journey began anew with Boo and Casper, two young adult tuxedoes. Hearts will grow fonder. Fun will be had by all. And my life will continue to be changed by these mysterious creatures.

Maybe, per our world-famous study, 23-year-old Desiree from San Antonio isn’t down with that. It would be easier for me to move the moon with my mind than to care.

Boo (L) & Casper (R)