Romantic Comedies Made Me a Cat Person

I blame my love of cats on romantic comedies. I’ll name four films off the top of my head:

• You’ve Got Mail
• Mr. & Mrs. Smith
• How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days
• When Harry Met Sally

What do they all have in common? No, not Meg Ryan (she's only in two of them). All of these movies illustrate a fine line between love and hate. Take You've Got Mail. Joe Fox, as played by Tom Hanks, meets Kathleen Kelly (there's Meg Ryan!) while doing a reconnaissance mission on her small bookstore, intent on putting her out of business. Don't you find it attractive when someone tries to ruin your career? In Mr. & Mrs. Smith (described by screenwriter Simon Kinberg as a romantic comedy pretending to be an action film), the titular characters treat their marriage as a cover before actively trying to murder each other. Many literal shots are fired before their relationship turns into a love match. Then we have How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, in which the relationship starts when each character separately making a bet: Andie (Kate Hudson), that she can drive a guy away in ten days by doing all of the classic things that women do "wrong," while Ben (Matthew McConaughey) bets his friend that he can make any woman fall hopelessly in love with him. In fact, When Harry Met Sally is the only film in this off-the-cuff list that doesn't feature a relationship begun under wildly false pretenses. In that their own particular ways, each of these films taught me that starting off as enemies is a key element of any genuine courtship. Love must be earned, fought for, love is a battlefield, right?

Dogs give their love with such speed and intensity. My sister once had a rescue dog with such bad separation anxiety, she would frequently tear through a window screen and come to find us in the woods while we walked the nearby trails. My cat would never (neither would Matthew McConaughey in How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days). We went through multiple screens each summer. Once, I was even accused of sneaking out because she decided to claw through the window screen in my bedroom. Meanwhile, my cat slept in my lap for the first time yesterday. I’ve had him for five years.

My cat also shows no reluctance to punish me when he’s displeased. It took me a year to switch him from dry food over to wet. Like many of us, he benefits from a less carb-forward diet. But when he was unhappy with the contents of his food bowl, he knew it was time to get creative. First, dragging the ceramic bowl around the room. Next, he would jump onto my dresser and start throwing skincare products onto the ground. When that didn't work, he went to the trash can in the corner and started rustling the trash bag. You can't tell me these were not the actions of a strategic genius. This was his Matthew-McConaughey-in-How-to-Lose-a-Guy-in-10-Days moment.

You may have known a dog who enacts retribution; I certainly haven’t. In my personal experience, whenever I’ve seen a dog behave poorly it’s out of fear, nerves, or a lack of self-control. Malice is more often the purview of cats. The dogs I've known just don't possess that feline flavor of extreme self-esteem.

To the romantic comedy enthusiast, nothing is less attractive than someone who likes you too much too soon. Jane Austen, the mother of rom-coms, spells it out in Pride and Prejudice when she writes: “a girl likes to be crossed in love a little now and then. It is something to think of, and gives her a sort of distinction among her companions.” Maybe that’s why the love interests in When Harry Met Sally--as played by Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal--take twelve years to fall in love and get married. This is what our culture taught me a good soul-mate connection should look like; a journey from hate to love full of mutual insults, bickering, and miscommunication (yikes). In a world that raised me to think I needed to find my own Mr. Darcy, it’s no wonder I grew up to be a cat person.

The thing is that the romantic comedies I grew up on were wrong. There's something magical about the guileless openness of dogs, with their easy smiles, and the way they are so free to give love and protection. By now, I've--mostly--grown out of loving cynics and misanthropes when it comes to human relationships (though my husband can be misanthropic about anyone besides me). I've finally learned that love and hate shouldn’t be fraternal twins on the human emotional spectrum. But when it comes to animals, I’ll still always prefer cats. After all, wicked behavior is a lot cuter and much more forgivable when it comes with a fluffy tail and pointy ears attached.