Catting like a boss
By David Futrelle
The lady-hating wannabe ladykillers who call themselves Red Pillers love to trash talk cats and those who love them, forever “warning” feminists that if they don’t change their ways, and pronto, they’ll end up living their last years alone, surrounded by cats.
Dudes, I hate to break it to you, but this is not exactly the cutting insult that you think it is because, well, have you seen cats?
Sure, they’re little agents of chaos that leave tiny trails of destruction in their wake, but they are also some of the most delightful creatures on our green earth. Seriously, dudes, go watch some cat videos on Youtube and tell me with a straight face that being surrounded by cats is somehow a bad thing.
Thing is, beneath the disdain that so many Red Pillers profess to feel for cats you will often find a deep, if not very well-hidden, undercurrent of jealousy. How is it that these weird, furry, self-absorbed brats — I mean cats, not Red Pillers — have won the hearts of women (and men) around the world without even trying?
Some Red Pillers are convinced they have the answer: Because cats are assholes.
In one thread in the Red Pill subreddit from a couple of years ago, one enterprising fellow known as poopin urged his fellow alpha male wannabes to “Have the personality of cats. Bitches love cats.”
“I have always hated cats personalities and wondered why so many girls were so attracted to cats,” poopin wrote.
Cats treat you like shit, are mostly unaffectionate, and are assholes. Yet a LOT of girls love cats. You never hear of cat guys (as opposed to cat ladies).
I have always wondered why girls are attracted to an asshole pet. The Red Pill has made it all clear to me.
He then posted a long list of cat traits, real and imagined, that in his mind make them the ultimate alphas. Cats, he assured his fellow Red Pillers, are
*Cute
*Aloof
*Independent.
*Want affection(rare) on their own terms …
*You serve ME, I do not serve you attitude. …
*I do what I want. …
*Indifference mildly peppered with punctuated affection (to keep interest).
*The only interaction you get is when you play with me (sex)
A note of caution: If you think that sex and playing with cats are basically interchangeable activities, chances are good that you’re doing at least one of these things very, very wrong — unless your (human) partner has, say, a fetish for batting at dangly things.
Poopin is hardly the only Red Piller to suggest that his fellows emulate the “aloof” behavior of cats. “If you want to be more alpha, strive to act like a cat not a dog,” wrote one of his colleagues in a post last year. ” Commenter torodinson agreed:
You ever try to pet a friend cat you just met? They will likely avoid you like the woman and the thirsty beta. But if you ignore a cat they well need your attention like the woman and the independent alpha.
In a thread from last week, someone called Porespellar declared that
Cats are masters of holding frame
Cats rarely break frame. You can yell at them, threaten them, etc and all you’ll get is a bemused stare back at you. We can learn from this.
As something of a cat enthusiast I have to say that Red Pillers understand cats about as well as they understand everything else — which is not very well at all.
Yes, cats can be assholes. They more or less do what the hell they want, even when they know full well we don’t want them to do it.
But cats are hardly the aloof, indifferent creatures Red Pillers — and a lot of people who don’t actually own cats themselves — think they are. Red Pillers think cats are all like this:
What they don’t seem to understand is that cats are also like this:
Yes, cats can seem pretty aloof to people they don’t know or like, but sometimes their seeming aloofness isn’t the result of indifference but of their social anxiety. Many cats that are notoriously standoffish with guests can be endlessly and often ridiculously affectionate with their owners and other trusted humans, and not just because they want to mark “their” people with their scent. One of my cats insists on curling up in my arms like a (human) baby multiple times a day for as long as my arms (or my patience) can stand it, while the other stares at me affronted like a jilted lover in a Mexican Telenovela.
Cats also have a number of other habits, some deeply weird, that aren’t a good idea to copy if you’re looking to charm your way into someone’s heart, or at least their pants. They like to watch people poop. They sit on your head when you’re trying to sleep. They stick their butts in your face when you’re just trying to watch TV. They walk across your keyboard and sometimes take naps on it. They bring you dead animals as gifts. They sprint around the house at 4 AM for no discernible reason. As the video above demonstrated, some of them just really enjoy knocking things to the floor.
So here’s a thought, Red Pill dudes: Instead of trying to emulate animals, whether gorillas, lobsters, or cats, why not try emulating, I dunno, decent human beings? Play “hard to get” if you want — it’s a time-honored and basically harmless romantic trick of the trade — but don’t fetishize aloofness or turn it into a lifestyle.
There is, however, one thing about cats that some Red Pill pickup artists would do well to emulate. Cats are pretty good about cleaning their own asses without making a fuss about it. Just something to think about, Roosh V.