“Before going to bed, I sometimes watch cat videos on Instagram, with my cat”, a single male acquaintance recently confided to me. Amused, I commented on this confidence through an encouraging person: ” It’s cute ! » He then completed: “Or pathetic.” Or both. » This list of possible qualifiers betrayed an uncertainty as to the very nature of his status as a “cat man”. Should we see in this privileged relationship a cruel admission of solitude, or the demonstration of an altruistic and sensitive nature? Or actually both?
In the middle of this ocean of questions, the only sure thing remains the impossibility of a symbiosis between master and cat when viewing the videos in question. Hugues Martinat, feline behaviorist, decides: “Some species like the elephant or the chimpanzee have passed the mirror test, which means they are able to recognize their own image. For the moment, the cat is not at this stage. »
So no need to consult your cat about choosing the Netflix program. The question remains: is the cat man a polyamorous person who only wants to open up his feline sentimentalism to one or more third parties? Or, on the contrary, a wounded misanthrope, the male counterpart of the horrible stereotype of the “old cat girl”? Most seem in-between, oscillating between cat and romantic partners in a nonchalant confusion of attachments. Vincent, owner of a little black cat, says: “I sometimes give the same nicknames to my friends as to my cat, which means that sometimes they don’t know who I’m talking to. Generally, they find it charming. »
Affective substitute
Journalist Nadia Daam, author of the book How not to become a cat girl. The art of being single without smelling like kibble (Fayard, 2018) his opinion on the matter. According to her, the “liberate cat” males are much more socially valued than their female counterparts: “The cat girl is seen as lonely and depressed, while the cat man is seen as endearing and sexy. On Tinder, many men pose with their cats, as if to show that they are not predators and that they reject the codes of toxic masculinity. »
This difference in outlook is thus revealing of the tenacious prejudices of society towards single women, for whom the adoption of an animal would necessarily be an emotional substitute, whereas for men only the cat would have an enriching dimension. This observation is even clearer if we make the necessary distinction between cat men (singular) and cat men (plural). Among the most famous are Cocteau and Hemingway, who wrote surrounded by what could be called a harem of cats. Nadia Daam comments: “This image of Hemingway surrounded by cats actually refers to an idea of creative force, whereas a woman who lives alone with a dozen cats comes across as crazy, someone who has given up on the ramp. »
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