Animal Attraction

by Gwen Cooper — August 13, 2007

There are two kinds of people in the world: people who love animals and people who don't. I fall into the first category--growing up I always had dogs, but I would routinely beg my parents for cats, bunnies, hamsters, gerbils, ponies, snakes, and anything else I could think of. I never got them, but I asked. Now, as an adult, I have three cats. And as Robert and I talk more seriously about moving in together, I'm realizing the extent to which he, unlike me, is categorically not an animal person.

Don't get me wrong--Robert doesn't actually hate animals or anything. But I know that, anxious as he is to move in with me, he's not especially thrilled at the idea of taking on my menagerie as well. He claims that this is because he's more of a "dog person," but anybody who's a certifiable animal nut will understand me when I say that to truly love animals is to not make these kinds of distinctions: a pet is a pet is a pet.

That Robert isn't crazy for animals like I am is far from being tragic. In fact, it's probably good to have some kind of balance. And things could always be worse. I have a friend, for example, who has two cats and a dog, and recently got engaged to a man who is allergic to cats. She had always planned to self-select her way out of this potential problem by never getting "serious" about anybody with pet allergies. But when she fell in love about a year ago with a co-worker she'd worked alongside for nearly five years, the die was cast. She learned the hard way, as most of us do, that love tends to choose us far more than we choose it.

To his credit, her fiancé has pledged to take allergy medicine in the hopes that this will make any hard choices (my man or my pet) unnecessary. But, should this fail, my friend has a clear idea of what she'd have to do. "If it comes down to it, I have to give up the cats," she says. "I mean, this is the man I'm going to spend the rest of my life with."

Sounds sensible enough, although for every one person like her there's another pet owner who wouldn't consider giving up Fluffy or Fido, no matter what. "My pets are like my children," another single, pet-owning friend of mine says. "You don't give up your children for a guy."

Sometimes, life presents you with impossible choices.

For our own part, Robert and I are already discussing the logistics that would make life with three cats bearable for him. We have decided, for example, that there will be no cats allowed in our bedroom--although I can't help feeling that the whole reason you have cats or dogs is so you can cuddle up with them in bed at night. But I have to admit that it seems like a fair enough compromise, as far as such things go.

And most of the rest of it, I suppose, we'll work out as we go along. We're not the first couple to face this sort of dilemma, and we won't be the last. And at least Robert isn't one of those non-pet-loving people who makes a potential spouse or life partner give away pets--not because they have legitimate allergies, but simply because they'd prefer not to live with a pet and can't understand the level of pain they're inflicting on the person they love by asking them to give up a much-beloved pet.

That, actually--at least for me--would probably be a pretty easy choice.

Gwen Cooper is the author of Diary of a South Beach Party Girl, recently published by Simon & Schuster. To read all of Gwen Cooper's posts in "The Dating Life," click here.