Because no matter what the cat haters say, a cat makes a good friend. Because a cat will remember, deep down, that you gave it milk and a warm place to sleep when it didn’t have a mother or siblings to look after it. And even though it’ll only be nice to you when it feels like it, once it likes you, it doesn’t change its mind.

And you don’t hold grudges against a cat. Not even when it steals your dinner when you turn your back and pretends the other cat did it. Not even when you know it’s acting happy and purring like a hairdryer only because it wants something you’re holding. It’s manipulative, but without the ugliness. You’ll still hug your cat, even though you know there’s an 80 percent chance it’ll twist away after a couple of minutes and leave behind some scratch marks if you don’t move fast enough. You’ll still hug your cat, because the other 20 percent of the time, it loves you back.

You could live a whole lifetime without talking to another person when you have a cat. Cats don’t disagree with you, they just swipe you if you step on their tails and forgive you after a quick sulk. They don’t say irritating things. They don’t say STUPID things. And they aren’t nearly half as dense as some people. You don’t speak the same language – heck, you don’t even speak – but you’ll be on the same wavelength. Because a cat wouldn’t misunderstand you, or say ‘watever...ure so lame’ because it couldn’t comprehend what you told it.

If you piss off a cat, it just walks away, and comes back later. Like you wish you could do with people, say LALALA I’M NOT LISTENING AND I THINK YOU’RE A BRAINLESS IDIOT SO GET OUT OF MY FACE UNTIL I’M IN A BETTER MOOD, but the politics of pride and EQ don’t let you, of course.

Cat ladies make do with cats as their friends because cats don’t give you the shit and the frustration and the tiresomeness of maintaining a relationship with someone else. Especially if that someone else is as dumb as a brick wall.