Fascinated by this pet-related thread

January 10, 2024 9:02 AM

This recent petfree dating Ask greatly surprised me. I’ve been thinking about it a lot - specifically, the assertion that “most cool and loving people out there these days have or want a pet.”

There was general acknowledgment in the Ask responses that this is a commonly held belief.

I’m a bit shocked by this, as I know many nice people who are absolutely awful pet owners - who, e.g., do not train their pets properly, fail to consider the compatibility of a pet with their lifestyle, get pets with energy level/needs that outstrip what they are able or willing to provide, and so on. I find this type of pet ownership both incredibly unattractive and incredibly common.

For me, the way a person considers the integration of a pet into their life and takes responsibility for training a pet says way more to me about that person than the simple fact of having or wanting a pet. I know many cool and loving people who don’t have pets!

Anyway, I'm fascinated by this topic and would love to hear others’ thoughts on it. Am I truly in the minority with this opinion?

(Side note: I think MT is the right place for this since it’s a chatty topic, but please correct me if this should go elsewhere.)

posted by sevensnowflakes to MetaFilter-Related at 9:02 AM (32 comments total)

I think there are two parts to this

- people who want or have a pet
- people who are good at pet ownership
- people who don't like or enjoy companion animals of other

I feel that, unlike people who have or want children (or don't), it's a little more normative to be someone who doesn't have or want a pet. That is, people don't usually have to defend their choices for not having or wanting a pet the way I think many people might have to if they didn't have or want kids. At the same time, not having or wanting a pet is also different from not liking pets generally which I think is what people were responding to.

I know many cool and loving people who have neither pets nor children. I think AskMe can sometime be strident about their assertions about how "most people" or "most normal people" should live their lives and it's not always the most helpful way to talk about complex life choices like pet ownership.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 9:31 AM on January 10 [15 favorites]

I am a dog person, my dogs bring joy into my life every single day. I would be deeply and fundamentally unhappy living in a home without dogs in it, and in fact was deeply and fundamentally unhappy living with my parents, who didn't allow us to have pets.

I don't think pet rearing is a requirement to be a good person. However I do strongly believe being pet compatible is a requirement to be a good person to date me. I think if you're not a pet compatible person it's extremely important to be up front about that while dating, in the same way a person should be extremely upfront about their interest in having children or getting married or any other nonrefundable life paths.

I think the question was a really good one, a smart thing to ask and figure out, and I didn't get the impression from the majority of the comments that there was a moral argument to apply to pet ownership, just that there are better and worse ways to frame it.

I do think that there is for sure a higher trend of people who are marrying later, having kids later or not at all, and choosing a pet for companionship, so the 30somethings on the dating scene today probably are more likely to have pets than in decades past. Probably a lot more single and childless 30 somethings today, period, than in decades past. OP isn't wrong that it's something they need to get in front of to date successfully.
posted by phunniemee at 9:39 AM on January 10 [11 favorites]

It is also 2023... and while this is anecdata from folks I know in pet industries, a lot more people went out and got pets in 2020, whether or not they might have gotten one before this. I am not particularly surprised to hear that pet-free dating in 2023 is suddenly a lot harder than it might have been in decades past.

(I am personally pro-pet but have a number of good friends who do not own pets and don't want any, usually for any of a wide variety of good reasons having to do with bandwidth, interest levels, and so forth. I also have many friends and acquaintances who mostly or only keep pets that have vastly different and more controllable, containable needs than our usual cats and dogs, such as friends who keep spiders, isopods, shrimp, and other terrarium- or aquarium-specific speces. They are also all excellent people, except for the person who brought a pet Texas giant centipede to the building in which I used to work and subsequently lost it in the building over winter break. That person is my enemy.)
posted by sciatrix at 11:20 AM on January 10 [4 favorites]

That Ask was well answered. As for living with or without animals, we all have to be trained and tested in order to drive a motor vehicle legally. Yet for keeping a pet, apart from licenses and proof of vaccinations it's pretty much katy bar the door. We could require more of ourselves in my opinion. Morally, politically and legally. But as to how to do so,.the devil is in the details.
posted by y2karl at 12:05 PM on January 10

It is also 2023...

I hate to be the one to tell you this but
posted by oulipian at 1:17 PM on January 10 [22 favorites]

I saw that comment, and was riled by it, but decided my riled-ness was irrelevant for the OP so stayed out of the thread! So I haven’t read the comments that came after it. But my take is…

I don’t think it’s limited to MeFi - I feel like one of the downsides of social media has been the raising up onto pedestals of some things that were once just seen as preferences or the-way-life-has-turned out.

Once upon a time there were some people who had dogs and/or liked dogs, and some who didn’t. There was no moral judgement attached to either position. Same way some people like hillwalking and some don’t. Now, it often feels like the internet has decided that you can’t possibly be a good person and not be keen on dogs. This was the first time I’ve ever seen it written out as such a bald, unquestioned fact.

It reminds me of the way that once upon a time, some people were parents and some weren’t. But the Instagram (and general culture’s) more recent pronatalism has created a world where we’re told that having kids is the ultimate form of human fulfilment and the only way to live a meaningful life, to the detriment of both parents (at times when their experience of parenthood does not feel fulfilling) and non-parents (who are so often made to feel that they can’t possibly ever experience true joy or meaning).

It’s that kind of flattening down to one dimension that social media does so efficiently and brutally, where people who feel that dogs/kids/whatever = good, all find each other, and once that preference has gained a cultural toe-hold, it rises to dominance, then anything else must therefore be bad.

FWIW, I thought the question itself was interesting and useful, and probably the reason it needed asking (and seems surprising to some people) is exactly the cultural trend I describe above. Once upon a time, nobody would presume either way whether you had a preference for dogs or not, and you’d bring it up alongside hillwalking in your discussions of what stuff you liked, as you got to know each other and worked out if you’re compatible. These days, you’re much more likely to hit up against the automatic, wrongful, assumption that “Of course all good people love dogs!” so if you don’t, you have to go out of your way to work out how to swim against the tide.
posted by penguin pie at 1:36 PM on January 10 [8 favorites]

As a child and pet-free person, I was really struck by two things in that discussion: the asker's assertion that they were generally incompatible with other pet-free people, which is interesting and seems rather complicated, and a not-insignificant number of responses that were solution-oriented but seemed to position the problem as "people will think you're unfeeling and irresponsible, here's what you can say to mitigate that."

It is fascinating to me that there seems to be a fairly generalized assumption that having a pet is a proxy for being a warm, nurturing, together person. I know not an insignificant number of people who are mediocre pet carers, at best, and more than one person who's better to their pets than they are to other people. It was one of those "my reality is apparently wildly out of step with society" moments that was very jarring.
posted by EvaDestruction at 1:42 PM on January 10 [6 favorites]

This also struck me as kind of bizarre. Sometimes I feel like dating apps have really warped our preferences in the same way that having access to hundreds of products on Amazon might make you agonize about completely insignificant features. I say this as An Old who has barely dated and never used apps, so, apply salt.
posted by eirias at 2:01 PM on January 10

It's like that dating app stereotype, "I like walks on the beach." I don't particularly mind them myself, but what if I did? What if I'm a mountain person? What do people in Nebraska do for this stereotype? If you hate walks on the beach, are you condemned for it? If you skip over every profile that says they like walks on the beach, then you'll never find anyone. Are we the sum of our parts?
posted by Melismata at 2:07 PM on January 10

If you skip over every profile that says they like walks on the beach, then you'll never find anyone.

I fucking hate beaches with a passion and have never had trouble dating. As a data point.

I've also got years of ask metafilter comments asserting that you will probably have a better time dating if you make yourself less broadly palatable and are more picky.
posted by phunniemee at 2:16 PM on January 10 [2 favorites]

We have lived with dogs since they were wolves and have instinctual responses to their signals as they do to ours. Put one foot forward and stamp on the ground and you get a play bow in response. Wolves play bow to each other, dogs play bow to each other and us as we play bow to them: Let's play chase and do zoomies! Love them or hate them, they are in our DNA. As are cats for that matter in my opinion.
posted by y2karl at 2:32 PM on January 10

Anyway, I'm fascinated by this topic and would love to hear others’ thoughts on it. Am I truly in the minority with this opinion?

Fwiw I was surprised by it too
posted by trig at 2:40 PM on January 10 [1 favorite]

Awful pet owners don’t know they’re awful pet owners, for one thing.

I used to think I was a dog person, then I grew up and met many more dog owners, and they’ve largely turned me off dogs.

Awful pet owners still often love their pets and get a lot of enjoyment from them, driving the popularity of animal-ownership in general.

I think a core part of the Ask was that people don’t think of pets as a signpost of responsibility, but as a signpost for the fun and funny moments of animal ownership. Saying “I don’t like pets” reads like “I don’t like fun”. “No pets” reads like “the funny dog memes you like are dumb”.
posted by itesser at 2:44 PM on January 10 [7 favorites]

I went to Discovery Park in the Magnolia neighborhood of Seattle some decades ago and chose to go in by the north entrance one morning. After walking through one orb weaver spiderweb after another in a grove of shrubs, I came to a patch of grass and dirt where there was a rabbit warren with rabbit sized holes. And overhead there was a big ass red-tailed hawk hovering in the breeze looking down. Also there was a huge pure black pet store rabbit bigger than a dog which had been dumped there by its former owners -- not unlike those frenzied dogs similarly abandoned at highways you see and hear about. I was in no position to take it home but, oh, it tore at my heart to walk past it.

I hate and despise the especially crooked timbers of humanity who abandon their pets like that. At least take it to a shelter for god's sake! Like I wrote above, in an ideal world we should have to prove our psychological fitness and pre-tested possession of basic competence in their care in order to live with them at all. But good luck with that.
posted by y2karl at 3:34 PM on January 10 [2 favorites]

There was general acknowledgment in the Ask responses that this is a commonly held belief.

I didn't read it the same way as you (not saying you're wrong, just that there are different interpretations) - I read it as more of an affirmation of the OP's experience, i.e. that "unfortunately, I've found people who are "my type" and available in their late 20s/early 30s are especially likely to be pet owners." If I were to do a mental scan of people I've clicked with (platonically or romantically) the vast majority either have had, currently have, or would like to have a pet in the future. That's not to say there aren't people I really like who aren't keen on pets, but they're rare in my experience, and so if this was a dealbreaker for me it would also impede my dating options.

I think a core part of the Ask was that people don’t think of pets as a signpost of responsibility, but as a signpost for the fun and funny moments of animal ownership.

Agreed. I will always want to have cats in my life because they are sweet weirdos who provide me with laughs and affection on a daily basis. I don't judge people who think the negatives of pet ownership outweigh the positives (I get that scooping poop isn't for everyone), but I wouldn't want to end up with someone who would deny me that experience.
posted by coffeecat at 4:20 PM on January 10

But the Instagram (and general culture’s) more recent pronatalism

I don’t think that’s accurate - I do think motherhood has been idealized slightly differently but generations of religious institutions have tied morality to procreation for a very long time.

I do think that there is a new wave of a form of Puritanical-ish or maybe morally black and white thinking going on and maybe let ownership is a proxy for “cares for others.” But I don’t think it’s across all demographic groups.

I do know, with no shade to the OP or anyone else petfree, that I wouldn’t have partnered up with someone who doesn’t want pets just because I did and do. But I’ve never thought it had anything to do with goodness. I know several lousy people who are good to their pets.
posted by warriorqueen at 4:56 PM on January 10 [6 favorites]

Thank you for posting this here. I considered doing the same. I'm absolutely familiar with this as a commonly held belief, but still, seeing "I DO believe that animal lovers, with or without pets, generally ARE more kind and nurturing" spelled out like that is like, sort of rough. (And certainly counter to a lot of the pet-owner-behavior I see in my own neighborhood, but we'll leave that aside.)

Here in real, non-internet life, a friend recently made a "joke" about how I don't have pets because I "don't want to take care of anything" or "have responsibility". What I didn't say, and wish I had -- and low-key wish I'd said in the askme thread so I'm saying it here -- is that my husband and I both work in caring professions. We spend all day taking care of other people, people we did not choose and don't have any personal obligation to, and spending most of our emotional (and sometimes physical!) bandwidth on improving those people's lives.

So yes, I think it's lovely that folks with comfy office jobs have the bandwidth to handle a pet after work (and teachers and social workers too, though I don't know how they manage it!). But do I think they're "more kind and nurturing" for taking responsibility for a dog they picked out than like, the median kindergarten teacher or nurse or daycare aide? Obviously not. And while I could go around saying that I believe that people who work in caring professions are generally more kind and nurturing than other people, I don't ever say that, because it's a weird thing to say, and because just like pet ownership, being in one of those professions isn't actually a proxy for being a good person.
posted by goodbyewaffles at 4:59 PM on January 10 [11 favorites]

I do know, with no shade to the OP or anyone else petfree, that I wouldn’t have partnered up with someone who doesn’t want pets just because I did and do. But I’ve never thought it had anything to do with goodness. I know several lousy people who are good to their pets.

Yeah man this is exactly it. Wanting a pet or not is perfectly reasonable, and like lots of other preferences -- children or no, city or rural, apartment or big lawn, marriage or no, adventure vacations or cruises, work all the time or lie flat, Star Trek or Star Wars -- it's something you'll have to come to an agreement on with a partner. But it's a bummer to equate it with people's fundamental character.
posted by goodbyewaffles at 5:04 PM on January 10 [4 favorites]

I like animals in general. I do not like having to deal with their literal shit and piss.

A porch cat or two is the way to go.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 5:19 PM on January 10 [3 favorites]

I always disliked dogs and had cats since I was able to support one appropriately.

My partner is a dog person, and we have a dog now, who we adopted in 2021.

I love our dog, and I LOVE how she engages with our disabled, older cat! But Im a bad dog owner. It is a completely different skill than raising a kitten to be an indoor cat. I'm sure this extends to all other animals, its all so difficult.

My partner and wife of 10 years is amazing with DOG and Im grateful. When we met on Tindr, I had a "no dogs in profile pic" policy.

So that's an anecdote.
posted by kittensofthenight at 5:58 PM on January 10

Everything about companion animals is absolutely wonderful, shit and piss and vomit included, except that they get sick and you have to make end-of-life decisions for them, and then they're gone. That part really really sucks and really really hurts.

I totally understand people not wanting to deal with walking a dog or cleaning a litter box, but I also totally understand people not wanting to subject themselves to that kind of responsibility and grief.
posted by seanmpuckett at 5:59 PM on January 10 [4 favorites]

people don’t think of pets as a signpost of responsibility, but as a signpost for the fun and funny moments

seeing "I DO believe that animal lovers, with or without pets, generally ARE more kind and nurturing" spelled out like that

I’m realizing two things about myself:

- if something fun comes with a heaping helping of responsibility, I cannot enjoy the fun unless the responsibility is also sorted

- for me, an essential element of being nurturing is properly dealing with responsibilities, because doing so is a caring act of long-term thinking

Oh dear. Am I no longer rock-n-roll? Heh
posted by sevensnowflakes at 6:37 PM on January 10 [1 favorite]

I like pets but I don't have any. I live alone, I'm not home a whole lot and sometimes run off for the weekend, I don't feel comfortable having a pet without another human around as backup. I would prefer to date a pet-lover rather than a non-pet-lover since I'd like to have pets again someday, or just borrow their pets.

I also note that my parents weren't really animal people (I had fish and rabbits growing up), so I'm used to living pet-free in a way that a lot of pet-owners aren't.

I dunno, if you're not into animals, allergic, don't like being woken up or walkies or being jumped on every day, that's reasonable too. I don't think that makes you a jerk or a non-cool person. It's just one of those things that limits your dating options, like not wanting children when 90% of the world wants children. And most people think you're a jerk if you don't want those either :P
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:23 PM on January 10 [1 favorite]

I like animals in general. I do not like having to deal with their literal shit and piss.

A porch cat or two is the way to go.

It's estimated that cats kill 1.3–4 billion birds each year in the U.S. alone, with 69% of these kills attributable to feral or unowned cats.

Cornell Lab of Ornithology FAQ: Outdoor Cats And Their Effects On Birds

Well at least you're only part of 31% of the problem.
And your hands are clean. In a sense.
posted by y2karl at 11:07 PM on January 10 [1 favorite]

I think two factors here are that single people are maybe more likely now to have pets to have some sort of emotional outlet at home (especially after the lockdowns, natch) and also that there's a specific stereotype of the anti pet dating guy in particular - the one who doesn't understand why people would have pets and expects you to give away or kill yours because he wants to be your only emotional outlet. People dating online read r/relationship_advice and other forums, and those stories are incredibly common. Hell, people dating online are by definition online more than the general population, and thus exposed to cute animal gifs, lolcats and those damn cats getting wedged into scanners. The internet is one big shill for Big Cat.

(I would totally swipe left because I am not living without a cat, ever. And while I don't judge people on actually having pets, I do judge them on empathy towards animals and understanding that they deserve humane treatment.)
posted by I claim sanctuary at 12:24 AM on January 11 [3 favorites]

I have kids but would never post pictures of them in my work group chat captioned with dumb baby talk or bring them into the office so they can harass you while you are eating lunch. The idea of doing that is horrifying to me. My dog owning colleagues however...I'm a grump on this issue but, honestly, fuck your dog. If you want one, that's fine, but I don't want its hair on my lunch because you think it is such a cute wubby dubby good little boy, and I don't want to keep getting notified that I have new messages in the work group chat to hear you talk about how enjoyable it is to see your dog take a nap near the window. It's a dog, I know what it looks like, you don't have to show me four times a day!

Ok, deep breaths. Phew.
posted by Literaryhero at 2:57 AM on January 11 [1 favorite]

You know who I am talking about, Randy!
posted by Literaryhero at 2:58 AM on January 11 [4 favorites]

I have a pet, grew up with animals, love cats and dogs etc, but I would strongly disagree with the assertion (which I don't think anyone's made in this thread, just to be clear) that to be a loving person you have to own a pet or love animals. They are simply not for everyone. They create mess, need care (especially towards the end of life), cost money, time and energy to take care of, and will not always pay you back in love and snuggles! They are individuals with opinions and not always easy! It's completely rational, sensible and by far the kinder and more moral option to stay out of pet ownership if you're not 100% sure it's for you. It's better than adopting a cat or a dog and then neglecting it because you can't give it the right kind of care. The stereotype that pet ownership automatically means you are a nurturing and loving person is lazy and grinds my gears.

The internet is one big shill for Big Cat.

I agree with this, and I also think that the internet while a great place for pet advice can also be a really judgemental and extremist place when it comes to pets. Like if you're not living your life entirely around your pet, forsaking other responsibilities, relationships and hobbies, it makes you a bad person. If you don't adore animals it makes you a bad person. I'm exaggerating for effect but some of the cat advice I've seen on Reddit etc really skews this way.
posted by unicorn chaser at 3:04 AM on January 11 [2 favorites]

Well at least you're only part of 31% of the problem.

A study which is here, says:

Of all free-ranging domestic cats, feral cats hunt the most as hunting is their sole source of food. However, it is estimated that the great majority of other unowned cats also hunt (over 80% according to Loss, Will, & Marra, 2013), and around 50%–80% of owned cats which are allowed outdoors (Loss, Will, Longcore, & Marra,2018; Loss et al., 2013; Loyd, Hernandez, Carroll, Abernathy, & Marshall, 2013). Studies confirm that typically only a fraction of hunted prey is brought back to the house or the farm, for instance 23% (Loyd et al., 2013) or 10% (Krauze-Gryz, Gryz, & Żmihorski, 2019). Factors that may influence owned cats’ predation rates and species caught, other than the location of their home, include the cats’ age and condition, the extent they are fed and cared for, the use of bells and other anti-predation devices, the time of day cats are allowed outside, and the time of year.

So if they neuter, and use anti-predation devices on the cats and in their yards, then having porch cats or an outdoor cat isn't as clear cut as them being 31% of the problem.

Having 'porch' cats is irresponsible, and I'm not saying it's a good thing, but a cat that is well fed and has a bell will be less likely to be a predator-- there absolutely is ways to mitigate the impact of them, including neutering, but part of that is keeping them in overnight, too. Regardless, it's still unowned feral cats that are the biggest problem.
posted by Dimes at 3:45 AM on January 11

(My impression is that this thread wasn't made to hate on anyone or create melodrama, just out of a feeling of "I'm fascinated by this topic and would love to hear others’ thoughts on it. Am I truly in the minority with this opinion?" The same way your statement wasn't made to hate on anyone either, even though it also seems to have hit some people hard.)
posted by trig at 4:29 AM on January 11 [3 favorites]

Mod note: I would like to request that all of my comments be removed from the other post.

This has now been done.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 5:20 AM on January 11

Hey smorgasbord - for what it’s worth, my intention in starting this conversation certainly was not to put you down or criticize you personally! I truly am just super interested in the very common belief expressed in that original thread.

Clearly using your quote as a jumping off point for the discussion hit you hard, and I sincerely apologize for causing that. Mods, I’m happy to have this whole post deleted if that’s appropriate. Smorg, your feelings are more important than a chat that scratches a fascination itch for me. Best wishes to you and I am again very sorry, this wasn’t meant as an attack on you or anyone else.
posted by sevensnowflakes at 5:21 AM on January 11 [3 favorites]