Ailurophobia

[xiphias]

A couple days ago, I was asking Lis about the fear of cats, because it's something I just totally don't get. I don't even understand how someone possibly COULD be afraid of a cat. So we looked it up, and apparently, some people are afraid that a cat will jump on them and scratch them.

I thought about how ridiculous that fear was. . . and then I looked at all the scars on my hands, arms, and shoulders from our cats jumping on me, and falling off, and scratching me . . .

Honestly, I bet that, if you laid all my cat-scratch scars out end-to-end, you'd be at somewhere around a foot/30 cm. Yeah, I guess I can't really call that an irrational fear, can I?

Comments

[bluepapercup]

When I was younger I was scared of cats. We didn't have a pet at home at the time (other than fish) so my only experience with animals was with my grandmother's dogs. She trained them extremely well so that they did not bite, jump, bark too much, or behave aggressively toward humans. I assumed housecats were the same way.

I was over at my friend Becky's house and one of their cats was sitting under a bush outside the house. Becky reached down and patted the cat and said "hello cat". Then she asked me if I wanted to pet the cat. Petting a cat was a novel experience and seemed fun. I reached out my hand and while I was trying to pet the cat it jumped up, scratched my hand, yowled at me, scratched me again, and then ran off. I was crying, Becky was confused, and her mom was sure that one of us must have done something to annoy the cat. For years afterward I was skittish around cats and didn't want to pet them or have them near me.

Despite having had a cat in the house from age 13 to 20, and having lived with other people's cats, I still sometimes get that "don't scratch me, asshole" feeling toward a cat and will avoid it if it's near me. I don't LIKE being scratched by cats, and cats that have not had their random, non-play, human-scratching behaviors discouraged are cats I make a point to avoid.