Cats and How One Might Experience Love (Abridged Version)

For much of my life, I believed dogs to be the ideal companions. They offered an uncomplicated kind of love—loyal, exuberant, and gloriously affectionate. Dogs, I thought, represented the very essence of companionship, their unwavering adoration filling every emotional void. Cats, by contrast, seemed distant, inscrutable. I regarded them as indifferent creatures, uninterested in the rituals of human connection. If a pet was to reflect one’s own emotional needs, then surely, I reasoned, dogs were the obvious choice.

Yet, with time, my affections shifted. It was not a sudden revelation but a slow and almost imperceptible change in how I understood relationships—not just with animals, but with people, with the world, and ultimately, with myself. In youth, I sought affirmation. I wanted to be adored in the way dogs adore their owners—without hesitation, without conditions. But as I grew older, I found a quiet appeal in the aloofness of cats, a kind of dignity in their self-sufficiency that I had once mistaken for coldness.

Cats do not ask for love; they allow it to happen on their own terms. Their affection is not guaranteed but earned. And when a cat chooses you—when it curls into your lap, brushes against your leg, or follows you from room to room—it feels deliberate, as though bestowed rather than expected. Unlike dogs, whose joy is boundless and ever-present, cats teach a different lesson: that love need not always be demonstrative to be real.

There is an artistry to the way a cat moves—measured, effortless, free of excess. They slip through rooms like liquid, as if always aware of their place in space. Unlike dogs, who crash into affection with reckless abandon, a cat approaches intimacy with restraint. They remind us that connection can exist even in silence, that companionship does not need to be performative to be profound.

Their indifference to our human concerns is, in its own way, a lesson in perspective. A dog, sensing distress, will rush to comfort, eager to share in your sorrow. A cat, on the other hand, will simply sit nearby, unmoved by your anxieties, yet present nonetheless. It is an unspoken understanding: that life, with all its joys and sorrows, must be borne individually, and that love does not always need to rush in with solutions. Sometimes, it is enough simply to be near.

I have come to admire this quiet companionship. Where once I sought the endless validation of a dog’s devotion, I now find comfort in the measured love of a cat. They demand nothing, and in return, what they give feels all the more meaningful.

To be loved by a cat is to be accepted without pretense or expectation. It is a love that does not clutch or insist, but simply allows. And in that, I have found something truly beautiful.