Why women are like cats and men behave like dogs…

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Cats confuse me.

And the way they look at me confuses me.

I mean, when a dog looks at me, I know exactly what it’s on about. “I want to go outside.” “I want to go inside.” “I want to go to the beach.” “I want you to throw the ball for me.” I want you to feed me.” “I want the rest of that lamb chop you are guzzling with relish while I’m just left to sit here and salivate.”

Nice and simple. I know where I stand with dogs. And they know where they stand with me. I eat the lamb chop. They get the bone. And then we get on with life.

Not so cats. Take this one that’s sitting on this verandah, looking at me. I have totally no idea of what’s it trying to tell me. Probably something like “I know you’re writing some rubbish about cats, using the way I’m looking at you right now as some feeble excuse to cat-bash and I want you to know that you’re getting it completely wrong. Just so you know.”

Pure evil: The house cat glares at me in disgust after pulling its bum-in-face manoeuvre Pic: Hatman

But I don’t know. Cats are like, um, women. Men like to think that they know about women. But they, er, we don’t. Perhaps that’s why most women love cats. Because they have some secret language to which men and dogs aren’t privy. Wait. I think I can develop this thread of thought. Yes. That’s it. Women are like cats. Men are like dogs. I could be politically correct – or gender-sensitive or whatever it’s called – and put the word “most” before “women” and “men”. Or even before “cats” and “dogs”. But I won’t. Because you know what I’m trying to get at here. Men because they will agree with me. Women because they are thinking “They (men) just don’t get it. And they just don’t get us (women and cats).”

No, we don’t. I mean, take this cat right here on the verandah. I want to say “my verandah” – because I’m paying the rent here. But I can’t. Because I’ve just moved in and the cat, well the cat has been around forever. It comes with the house. Hah. There’s a difference between cats and women. Women seldom come with a house. They usually leave with it. But I’m not going there.

Back to the cat. After realising that it was dealing with quite a stubborn sort of male blogger writing absolute dross about not understanding – or taking the trouble to stop to really understand – her (yup, this cat is both female and a cat), it slinked towards me, blinked alluringly, purred loudly and, as I started to smile, jumped on to the table and swung it’s ass around and into my face.

Nice. Are you getting my drift? No? Well, bear with me, ladies.

Aah, sweet: Dogs truly are a man's best friend and super-willing to plug into some fun and games Pic courtesy of McGugan & Walne

While in the early stages of recovering from having my line of vision sullied by a furry black bum, I sought solace in putting on the kettle and then checking my Twitter account. In no time at all, two tweets about cats minced through cyberspace. Both from women. Of course. Let us analyse these two tweets, which are surprisingly different in tone.

Tweet One (from “laurasomethingorother”): “Oh, sorry. And kitten. PsychoKitty reminded me that I also need to extend my greeting to all feline inhabitants of Earth. So…meow meow.”

Let us pause for a deep breath here. Right. Now, I don’t know about you – and I really don’t want to read too much into this, probably because it scares the hell out of me – but I would say that somebody has woken up somewhere in the world and feels bad because she said good morning to all of her cyber-friends (known to her or otherwise) without extending the same greeting to all of the cats (known to her or otherwise) of the world. That are united only in their penchant to sit around and stare at us. And, once they have concluded that what they are staring at is male and not taking the trouble to understand what it is trying to communicate, stick their asses in our faces. Before sliding off to try to kill a bird.

What is that all about? Why did “laurasomethingorother” feel moved to purr out a “have a good day” tweet to the planet’s cat population? You tell me. Somebody who knows a lot more about these things (undoubtedly a woman, or perhaps a psychotherapist in San Francisco or Green Point) might place this firmly in the category of phenomena which encompasses why females feel the need to own 96 pairs of shoes or why, at age 47, a woman neatly props up a small army of cuddly toys on her pillows before heading off to her high-powered office.

I don’t know. Because, I am all too slowly realising, I am not meant to know. It’s like why one never sees baby pigeons. Or why Julius Malema hasn’t spent some of his hard-earned dosh on hiring a PR spinperson. Or why mosquitoes exist. Simply inexplicable. Like this frigging cat that, after licking the same bum that it just shoved into my face, has resumed the “Sitting In The Same Place On My Verandah While Staring At The Silly Old Blogger Who Just Moved In And Thinks That This Is His House” position.

Tweet Two (from “amandasomeoneorother”): “Why do cats wash themselves, loudly and right next to your head at 3am?” Ah, I’m more confident about this one. Because you didn’t kick it out of the front door, close all of the windows, block up the chimney and fortify your bed with steel mesh before going to bed? Duh.

Right. I’m now feeling better about everything. Well, almost everything. And you’ll know why I added that caveat. Yes. This bloody cat.

I am suddenly reminded of a hilarious skit produced by Eddie Izzard live at the Palace Theatre in London back in the day. Yes, the one to which the now-very-famous cross-dressing funnyman turned up dressed as neither a woman or a man. Or as both. Well, he had put on full make-up but clearly hadn’t had the time to choose a frock so he was wearing guy’s clobber. This wasn’t nearly as confusing to me as cats. Or women. Anyway, Eddie did this really funny number where he compared the reactions of both a cat and a dog to a new model of car which had whizzed by.

You might know it? The cat sits back, paw on chin, and ponders over the torque capability of the new Renault Clio 1.6l SRX while the dog, tongue lolling out of one side of its slobbery gob, runs wildly after the car, shouting “Wait. Wait! Take me to the park!”

Hang on. I’ve just had an epiphany. A revelation of sorts. Which is quite unnerving. Especially as this infernal cat is now sitting on the table, its back to me, flicking its bushy tail around the screen of my laptop.

Doesn’t Eddie’s gag precisely illustrate the difference between women and men?

I want to be a male fruit fly in my next life…

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There are some animal species in which the male gender have got it totally right. Not so much in the “spiders” category. There the guys are a lot smaller than the ridiculously dominant female and, after he finally gets his leg (or a few) over, she is inclined to have him for afters. As in eat him. Not nice. A bit on the extreme side, if you ask me. Well, as a red-blooded alpha-male type, this would not be a lifestyle I would necessarily recommend to myself.

In fact, if you ask me (and you’re not but I’ll just pretend you are and bomb forth anyway), the inter-gender pendulum has swung way too far the other way since my admirably rugged Neanderthal forefathers used to get back from a strenuous day of hunting / gathering, lob an antelope on the kitchen table and gruffly say: “Cook that, Wilma!” Her indoors (in the cave) would meekly (and, more importantly, uncomplainingly) barbecue up a storm, he (let’s call him Fred, shall we?) would chomp through the whole antelope, throw her a few bones and then have his barbaric but ultimately satisfying way with her for the all-that-is-required two minutes on the roughly-hewn-out-of-rock dinner table before collapsing on a comfy animal skin for a good night’s kip.

After a hard day hunting, Fred was looking forward to a top-notch nosh and some quick nookie when he returned to the cave

After a hard day's hunting, Fred was looking forward to a top-notch nosh and some quick nookie back at the cave

But gradually, and almost indetectably (apart from the odd burning of a bra), this has sadly changed. And caused a highly unfortunate imbalance in our social order which has left real men like me very confused. I don’t see why I should hunt all day for a Fred-sized buck, only to be told to cook it myself while she reads Heat magazine and fannys around with her fingernails in front of the telly. I won’t even go into the manipulative tactics involving the purchase of Jimmy Choo shoes, visits to her mum and putting out the garbage that have to summoned up in order to procure a roll-around in which my tongue is expected to do 90% of the work.

I mean, have a read of this so-called “joke” sent to me by a female “friend” just yesterday…

Duties of Wives.

Three men were sitting together bragging about how they had given their new wives duties.

Terry had married a woman from Greece.

He bragged that he had told his wife she needed to do all the dishes and housework. He said that it took a couple days but on the third day he came home to a clean house and the dishes were all washed and put away.

Jimmy had married a woman from Italy.

He bragged that he had given his wife orders that she was to do all the cleaning, dishes, and the cooking. He told them that the first day he didn’t see any results, but the next day it was better. By the third day, his house was clean, the dishes were done, and he had a huge dinner on the table.

The third man had married a South African chick.

He boasted that he told her that her duties were to keep the house cleaned, dishes washed, laundry and ironing twice a week, lawns mowed, windows cleaned and hot meals on the table three times a day.

He said the first day he didn’t see anything, the second day he didn’t see anything, but by the third day most of the swelling had gone down and he could see a little out of his left eye, just enough to fix himself a bite to eat, load the dishwasher, and call a handyman.

God Bless South African Women!

Not all that funny, is it? That’s not a joke. It’s an outrage. And perfectly illustrates my point that things have got well out of hand. Did you notice that last little dig in the balls… “God Bless South African Women!“? Pathetic! And unnecessarily provocative. If you ask me. Which you did, OK?!

Now let’s have a look at the male fruit fly. The what? Bear with me. This little feller has gone up big-time in my estimation. In fact, as I write this, there’s one buzzing the not-so-pristine pawpaw (papaya for foreign Hatpeople) in the fruitbowl here at Hatman Mansions. I know this one’s a male because he looks very pleased with himself. Why? Well, he’s out of the house looking for food to put on the table (probably inbetween titanic trysts with other really hot female fruit flies) and his missus is home doing the vacuuming, laundry, feather-dusting and whatever else it is that needs to be done in fruit fly homes. Now this is much more like it, yes?

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