RULE # 37: THE TWO CAT RULE

RULE # 37: THE TWO CAT RULE

If you write a blog eventually, there will come a moment when you offend people. I’m starting with this rule to take the suspense out of waiting for that moment. Contained within this rule are comments that will offend some cat owners, some women, and some other people. But if I’m going to lose readers, I might as well do it early in the process so I can stay focused on my intended audience: my children.

This rule is focused on helping my sons, but I think Abby and Rachel might learn something from it too—when the time is right.

This isn’t about being a “cat person” or a “dog person,” because you kids know our entire family are dog people (and should remain so for many generations; and yes, I intend to haunt the first great?grandchild who isn’t). It’s not that I have disdain for cats—it’s just that they have an inherent creepiness likely caused by their staunch independence.

I also think my feelings about cats stem from my love of the jokes around them. One of my personal favorites (PG?13 version) is:

“A little girl cried: ‘Daddy, Daddy—Fluffy is dead!’
‘That’s okay, dear. Fluffy has gone to Heaven to be with God.’
‘But what would God want with a dead cat?’”

But I digress. This rule isn’t about cats. It’s about the importance of selecting a good mate.

Most of the happiest people I know have a life partner whom they love, share things with, and who helps them build relationships with friends and family rather than alienate people. The saddest people I know feel trapped in toxic relationships where their partner doesn’t share the world with them, making them withdraw from everything.

When it’s right, it’s golden. When it’s wrong, it’s crap.

Choosing who you date is the key to success, because in the dating process you are often choosing your eventual mate—unless you go the mail?order path, which I do not recommend.

During the dating process, no matter how hard you try to deny baser impulses, you will often be driven by appearance and sexual attraction more than any other factor. You can intellectualize it and say it’s about “intelligence” or “personality,” but in the end raw chemistry often wins. Unfortunately, that drive can sometimes send you into crazy?town.

Erotic passions, impulsiveness, and “free?spirit” attitudes of many potential partners make them seem like fun people full of life. But many times, these “fun” people are the automobile wrecks on the expressway that make us slow down and stare as we go by. What attracts men isn’t always what’s best; sometimes it’s what’s coolest. And when you’re in the prime dating years (around 19?28), you don’t yet have the life perspective to distinguish “adventurous and fun” from “dangerous and reckless.”

Part of the problem is, all men are pigs. (Yes, you heard that.) I love you sons, but like all men, you are pigs. Some men can control those pig?like qualities, and with maturity learn to channel them into respectful admiration of women. But in those prime dating years, you’ll often be driven by those less controlled urges, and you’ll want to enjoy life in a pig?like way.

Though pigs are considered among the most intelligent animals on earth, they still eat garbage and will mate with any sow that wanders into the pen. Their selection skills are horrific.

Sons, you need a universal measure—a gauge to tell whether the road ahead is leading you toward paradise or crazy?town. You need to be able to evaluate the actions of the person you’re dating and clearly say, “This girl is whacked—and I’m out of here.”

That brings us back to the cats.

Many normal, stable women decide to have a cat for companionship—often a kitten they had since childhood. Occasionally, those women decide Fluffy needs a friend… And we are still clearly outside Crazy?ville at this point.

But the moment two cats become three, then four, then five… crazy has arrived.

Yes, there are intelligent, high?functioning, non?crazy women with more than two cats, but in my experience the probability of non?crazy drops the more cats there are. Here’s my estimate by number of cats:

As I said, there are exceptions—women with four cats who are perfectly normal—but this isn’t about finding a diamond in the sand. It’s about using probabilities to help find a great life partner.

Here’s my rule: compare everything you see in the person you’re dating to the “crazy meter” set by the 2?cat rule.

Of course, if you walk into her apartment and find three cats, plus she feeds five feral cats outside (yes, feral cats that she leaves food out for count too), you should run—not walk—away.

The challenge is to compare other behaviors and life choices against this standard. For example, if you date a woman and discover she has ten piercings and a tattoo of a satanic symbol on her thigh, ask yourself: is that crazier than owning two cats? To help you with this example, I’ll give you the answer: yes.

This rule is about selection, about control, and about finding an ideal life partner.

Choose wisely, sons. There will be few decisions as important in your lives.

Love, Dad