Calicos and Cacti

My Friend NYCBabylon posted her theory that misogyny could be detected by a dislike for house cats, or rather, that real men love pussies. ‘Cats are complicated creatures and it takes patience, confidence and good communication skills to connect and love a cat,’ she argues. From there she reasons, men ‘who love cats are more patient, emotionally healthy and kinder men than the men who hate cats.’

Maybe.

When I was in college I had a similar theory about houseplants. When I met someone who had an inordinate amount of houseplants, I figured that they must be a very nurturing person, able to form attachments with living things even outside the kingdom Animalia. (I mean ‘inordinate’ in the non-literal sense, obviously, but I mean ‘nurture’ in the literal sense.)


Hemingway loved cats. I even had one of his six-toed feline progeny named, predictably, Hemingway. And Hemingway has somehow become an archetype for what a real man is supposed to be like. But I think Hemingway loved cats for exactly different reasons than Ms. Babylon postulates. He loved cats because they had minimal expectations of him. They would look beautiful around the house and grounds, not require maintenance, and approach him and leave him with an easy coolness and without conflict. He liked cats because they held the appearance of a relationship without the demands of one. He has written much about how this realationship goal was his problem with women.

What I found about my houseplant-raisers was that they—largely—raised houseplants not because their connection to living things poured out from the kingdom Animalia, but because it barely reached into the kingdom Animalia.