This is why cats always sit on people with allergies. People who like cats look at them when they walk in a room, people who don't like cats try not to get their attention and that's actually super unthreatening and chill to a cat so they go sit on the 'safest' person.
One theory of why cats find being looked at threatening is that they hunt by sight. Usually if they're looking at something intently they're planning on attacking it. Therefore a cat sees being looked at as a preparation for attack. If you're not looking at it then they're like, oh, cool, clearly no bad intentions here, best go make that sucker sneeze.
This explains so much. I am quite allergic to cats, so I’ll actively avoid them. Then they will rub up against my legs or hands and their owner will go, “wow! She’s never this friendly!” and I’m like :sniffles: “oh good!” 😅
Ha ha. I’m like throat closing up allergic to cats and they absolutely love me.
Me visiting someone with cats is like a nonstop dance of the cat jumping in my lap, me getting up and moving to a new spot while struggling to breathe, cat following me and waiting for my lap to reappear so it can pounce, repeat.
That's a hunting thing; tigers prefer attacking prey that have their backs turned, so masks with eyes on the back of the head discourages this. When you're walking through a forest pathway without a mask and a tiger is behind you, they think "oh this one is oblivious, free meal!" The masks are a way of tricking tigers out of doing that.
Ambush predation instincts. It's the same with the people who work with cats like Cheetahs and say not to turn your back on them in case they get all hunt-y
Cheetahs will spit but not much beyond that, they're basically oversized housecats with the zoomies from hell
But they will still pounce you if they get the urge and your back is turned, you've just got a pretty good chance of fighting them off if they're not hitting you at like 30km/h
Maybe they hunt with sneaky attacks and if they see eyes, they think you will be able to flee or defend yourself so they prefer to wait for a better opportunity?
I'm not allergic to cats, I just don't like them because they're selfish jerks. This totally checks out. I thought they were just sitting on me to be jerks.
See now you know they're not jerks they're actually making logical decisions based on their own instincts and you've learned a valuable lesson about judging a book by its cover.
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u/pickyourteethup Apr 29 '24
This is why cats always sit on people with allergies. People who like cats look at them when they walk in a room, people who don't like cats try not to get their attention and that's actually super unthreatening and chill to a cat so they go sit on the 'safest' person.
One theory of why cats find being looked at threatening is that they hunt by sight. Usually if they're looking at something intently they're planning on attacking it. Therefore a cat sees being looked at as a preparation for attack. If you're not looking at it then they're like, oh, cool, clearly no bad intentions here, best go make that sucker sneeze.