Loving a dog is fucking easy. Here’s how your relationship with a dog works: you enter their life; they enter your life. You either like or do not like one another. The latter is very rare. There. That’s how complex your relationship is.

Cats, on the other hand, require that a relationship be built over time. You don’t just go to the pound, pick up a cat and become besties 4 lyfe. There is no best-friend contract with a cat. The only thing you are committing to is a life-long struggle with one another. Similar to a relationship with a dog, over time you will find that you either like or do not like one another. How you get to that point with a cat is very different than how you get to that point with a dog.

Let’s talk about a cat’s personality. It is a subtle thing that you must work to understand. You could spend years trying to figure out a cat, decades spent feeding and grooming the thing like its a precious bonsai tree that you don’t completely appreciate, but you maintain it in the hope that one day it will really mean something to you. Once you realize the great many nuances of your cat’s personality, you are rewarded with a bond that you simply cannot have with an affable, stupid dog. Dogs want companionship, snuggling, and food. As a rule, cats need food. You may eventually get to the point with your cat where he wants companionship and snuggling in addition to food–but it’s not a given. You’re not guaranteed snuggle-time with a cat.

Now let’s talk about why dogs are truly horrible: They love to make you feel guilty. You leave them and they cry. (Some cats do this as well, but probably only about 5 percent of them, which is a very small percent.) Dogs hate it when you’re gone, and they’ll attempt to trick you to get you to stay by their side. Dogs are full of these tricks. They are mindgamers. They’re vicious strategists who play with your emotions. Dogs behave like jealous lovers.

A cat might be sad when you leave, but you wouldn’t know it. You can be gone for an entire workday and not have to think, “Oh, poor Norman, all alone. I wonder what he’s doing? I wonder if he has to pee?” You don’t have to worry about this because you know what Norman is doing. He is either a) sleeping, b) licking himself or another cat, or c) piddling in his litter box, which is right there for him, at all times. You don’t have to think about Norman because Norman thinks about Norman.

The problem with dogs is that they don’t think about themselves; they think about you. They need you, and that fucking sucks.

-Jason Zabel