How my relationships with my cat and my girlfriend are no different
Last night, lying in bed thinking and preventing myself from sleep, I finally realized why most of my relationships with girls are familiar. Specifically the current one, if it may be called a relationship.
The idea goes like this:
Max is my cat. He is the coolest cat in the world, at least I think he is. But the thing is, I have a strange relationship with my cat. Most likely it is actually a normal relationship for someone to have with their cat, but I have nearly the same relationship with persons (not people because I want to focus on individuals). This is the me/max situation.
Max is an outdoor cat and a social cat; he likes to be outside and around people or other cats. Whenever he is around other cats or outside, he just completely ignores me. Sometimes he avoids me, and other times he just puts up with my signs of affection like scratching his head or something else. Whenever I see him outside I watch him because I want to make sure he is ok, even though he can take care of himself, I still do. I have learned not to approach him though, because he then seems uncomfortable and sometimes leaves. Same type of thing around other cats. Around other people, he treats everyone the same. He never seems to have a preference as to whom he wants to , nor anything else. He seems to be himself and acts as he wants, but even then he ignores my attempts to hold him in my lap and pet him, and anyone else’s attempts. The strange thing is that sometimes he seeks me out, not as much as I seek him out, but still, sometimes he does. When he does seek me out, he is always looking for affection and hops into my lap for a while, or sometimes falls asleep next to me, but never for very long, and then he leaves again. It doesn’t work when I try to find him and just pet him, but only when he tries to find me, and I have come to expect that. That doesn’t stop me from searching him out, but it does prevent me from bothering him most of the time.
I suppose I should have figured that out by now, and be used to it as well in personal relationships. Now, take the above paragraph about my cat, an substitute she for he, my girlfriend for max, and people/person for cat. That is my relationship with my girlfriend. It's notreally a relationship at all.
I suppose I ought to take some lessons from my relationship with Max and just stop trying. I should just keep watching, and just wait. Learn to appreciate the few, small, sporadic signs of affection and not to expect any more than that. So that will be my attempt for the future.
thanks to chiisuta, themanwho, and dreamvirus for the editing help