23 Signs You Are In A Complicated Relationship With Your Cat

1. You feel the need to overcompensate for having a cat — God forbid you come off like one of those crazy cat ladies — so you complain about your cat more often than not, and tell everyone that you’re in a love/hate relationship. (Which is not entirely untrue: you love him, he tolerates you.)

2. You don’t even bother setting an alarm clock anymore; he will saunter his little cat butt into your room, mewl right into your ear, sniff your eyeball, and beg to be fed.

3. At 5 am.

4. You have subsequently resigned yourself to the fact that the only thing keeping him from offing you while you sleep is the fact that nobody would be left to feed him in the morning.

5. Your cat’s favorite place to sit is in front of the TV. While it’s on. While you’re watching the one show you love above all other shows.

6. But then they will come over and turn your lap into a cushion, curl up into the cutest little donut, and snuggle like this is your bonding time. (It is.)

7. Every cat owner knows the way a cat will knock something off a tabletop or shelf as if they know exactly what gravity will make that glass votive do. Your cat, however, doesn’t break eye contact with you while doing so.

8. You’re beginning to think that your cat likes to remind you he has claws every once in a while just to prove who exactly has the upper hand in this relationship. (It’s the one with 10 little daggers attached to their fingers.)

9. On more than one occasion, you have contorted your body around the spot your cat has chosen as their spot on the bed. (This spot is usually right where your feet would go, or smack in the middle of the mattress AS YOU DO.)

10. But then you wake up with them nestled on top of your head or in the crook of your arm like some weird interpretation of spooning, and for all your annoyance that they just turned sleeping into a very hot experience for no reason, you just can’t help but find it adorable.

11. They. Meow. Incessantly. And. It’s Like. They. Just. Want. To. Hear. Their. Own. Voice.

12. And then they start doing the thing where they snake around your legs and start purring for the sake of purring, and for all your fear that you’re going to trip over them, your heart melts a little.

13. … But if you dare pick them up, they’ll swipe at you because they just wanted to show affection, but God, they didn’t want it reciprocated.

14. Any door that is not open should your cat possibly want to enter that room is an obstruction and must be opened right now at this very minute… but he’ll go into that room later.

15. You live in a world wherein you realize that the slow-blink your cat performs while looking at you is really little more than unmitigated judgment.

16. You refer to your cat not by their name but by saying, “Hey. You. Stupid,” more often than you’d like to admit, usually as a weak attempt to remind yourself that you’re the owner here. (You’re not.)

17. (Also because you know your cat knows it is 1000x smarter than you will ever be.)

18. You have legitimately turned down an offer to relocate for a job or someone you love because you “just don’t see how Molly would be comfortable” in a new city, apartment, or with a new human.

19. You have also withheld from going on vacation because you don’t trust any cat sitter to do the job “right.”

20. And you’ve excused yourself early from the bar, a bad date, or anything else because you “need to go home and feed the cat.” (And then you thank God for that little angel’s position as a built-in excuse.)

21. Whenever you take your cat to the vet, you surprise yourself with the level of fear and concern you exhibit for your scared little baby, and realize that yes, actually, they need you just as much as you need them.

22. Every person you bring over gets the feline death staredown, and though you say that “she’ll warm up to you eventually” and “she’s just wary of new people,” in fact, you take your cat’s icy aversion to this person as a huuuuuge red flag.

23. But this happens to everyone you date, so you just chalk it up to your bad taste in a love life, shrug, and say, “Welp, Fluffy, it’s just you and me.” And then you research adopting another catfriend because hey, maybe being a cat lady won’t be so bad after all.