The Home of Steven Barnes
Author, Teacher, Screenwriter


Friday, April 30, 2010

Poll: A Third Say Pets Listen Better Than Husbands


If your pet is more intelligent, sensitive, and understanding than your spouse, you'd better think about something: you chose him/her. That was the best you could do? Whoa.



www.diamondhour.com
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

9 comments:

Pagan Topologist said...

"...you chose him/her. That was the best you could do? Whoa."

I do not know how pervasive the way I was brought up is, Steve, but I was taught that thinking oneself worthy of anything good at all was to commit the sin of Pride, a grevious sin indeed. (My parents and other adults in the community did not use the term 'deadly sins,' as all sins were equally bad.)

It took me decades to work through this, and it is still easy to fall into. When I was attempting to date in the 1960's, I felt that any female who treated me with kindness was really superficial. Fortunately, eleven months ago I married someone who does treat me kindly, after being single for almost thirty years. I doubt this transition could have been made any more quickly.

Pagan Topologist said...

Sorry. I realize that my post above was unclear. My first amrriage lasted from 1965 until 1980, although we did not live together after 1976.

Anonymous said...

This reminds me of another news link from a few years back:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/animals/newsid_3723000/3723749.stm

(I remembered seeing a news report in the aimed-at-adults BBC News site about a study showing what % of children in the UK confiding in pets more than in parents, teachers, or siblings, but now I can't find it and this link is better than nothing)

Also, comparing pet listeners and human listeners reminded me of these posts I saw even earlier:

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.sf.written/msg/fc7d396e787d5aba?hl=en

"...Cats have a small repertoire of showing-affection behavior.
That doesn't mean that they don't *feel* affection, it means that they
have a limited number of ways to show that. Dogs started with a wider
range of interaction behaviours, and so they don't have to (as often) use
distantly related actions to show their affection: grooming activities,
feeding activities, because they didn't have very manyspecific affection
displays to start with.

"If anything, it's evidence that cats *do* feel affection, in the way they
desperately coerce vaguely-related behaviours into the service of
affection displays."

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.sf.written/msg/f2ac713f5d5aae89?hl=en

"> If anything, it's evidence that cats *do* feel affection, in the way they
> desperately coerce vaguely-related behaviours into the service of
> affection displays.

"To overload a tortured metaphor with a tortured cliche', cats are like men.

"When you're upset when something has gone wrong, a woman who loves you
will talk and bond and cry with you and ask about your feelings.

[unless she's like me. I'm a woman and I'd *try* to do that but not be sure I'm doing it right...]

"When you're upset when something has gone wrong, a man will go and try to
fix it.

[...and I'd go and try to fix the problem too.]

"This gets men (and cats) labeled as 'insensitive to feelings'."

I suspect some people have labeled women like me "insensitive to feelings" too. Odd how they label some *other* women "catty" instead of us.

Personally, I'm trying to learn the more verbal-commiseration approach even though it's difficult for me because I don't want to come across as cold to people when they're already upset. :( I hope to become better at *both* the "talk and bond and cry with you and ask about your feelings" *and* the "go and try to fix it"! :)

Anonymous said...

"...you chose him/her. That was the best you could do? Whoa."

...and/or you chose the matchmaker who chose him/her (like "sure Dad, go ahead and post a profile of me on Shaadi.com, I'm too busy at work to find a husband myself and I trust your judgement")...

...and/or you have much bigger problems (like having been forced to marry, stuck with and probably raped by someone you didn't choose who was found by a matchmaker who you didn't choose and agree with either).

Scott said...

Well, you chose both, right? If your pet's a dog, which one is more attentive and loving is a coin flip. Penny - 13 year old Siberian husky in my profile photo - has been smarter than me since she was about six months old.

If your goldfish or snake or cat is better than your spouse, though, yeah, that would be problematic.

suzanne said...

having had more than 100 cats
in my lifetime
to date
I've only met on
you could say wasn't loving
and extremely capable of communicating that love
the exception ws the only
psychotic cat Ive ever known
he eventually had enough of domestiCATion
and left home
for the wilds
visited once three months later
and then terminated our relationship

I've had dogs too
(and loved them)
but
I am most definitely a
cat person

Anonymous said...

People complain.

If you complain to a pet it doesn't matter as long the belly rubbing continues.

For the human (husband) the complaint is meant as punishment and is treated as such.

It doesn't end well.

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