Women are less likely to swipe right on men with cats – observations

I would like to make some observations about the Colorado State University’s study of 708 straight women aged between 18-24 who decided collectively that they were less likely to swipe right on photographs of men with their cats. In case you don’t know, “swiping right” comes from the Tinder dating app where you swipe right if you fancy a person and you swipe left if you don’t. A whole episode of Grey’s Anatomy is based on it!

Don’t care – a statement

The first point to make is that if a man presents himself on a dating app like Tinder with his cat, I don’t think he really cares if some women don’t select him because they don’t like to see men with cats. Perhaps the man is sending a message to women that he would only accept women who like cats and women who like men who like cats! And that’s a good point. It’s a way of reducing down the selection. It’s more precise.

A range of sexualities

We have to recognise that there is a complete spectrum of sexualities both with respect to women and men. This is becoming far more apparent today with the LBGTQ movement. In the old days people viewed men as men and women as women and the whole thing was black-and-white. Now we know that there is a huge range of sexualities amongst both sexes from one extreme to the other and all are normal and acceptable. The position is entirely fluid, flexible and elastic. Therefore if a woman doesn’t like to see a man with a cat, it is likely that that woman is looking for a macho, alpha male type man who likes dogs and is potentially more aggressive and more ambitious than normal. Fine. This is completely normal as well. We accept it completely.

However, a lot of women will like men who like cats and are prepared to show it to the world. They might like men who are more sensitive towards animal welfare. There are a lot of advantages to selecting a man who likes cats. It shows that the man is almost certainly very decent because it’s impossible to like cats and not be decent! So the woman knows that they are going to pick a decent man who is concerned about others. Yes, that man might not be as ambitious as another and therefore the woman might not end up living in a big house with tons of money and free access to a couple of American Express credit cards which she can spend freely on (I am stereotyping). A lot of women don’t bother about those sorts of things. They are naturally frugal and independent minded and enlightened. They don’t fit the stereoptype. They are more open to the finer aspects of the male of the species.

Statement

Perhaps, before the study, men didn’t realise that some women don’t like to see cat loving men on dating apps. Perhaps there will be a change and we will see less cats in photographs on dating apps. However, this may not be the case because if a man uploads a photograph of himself with his cat he is making a statement about his character and attitudes. As mentioned, it helps to define the man which is a good thing. He is more likely to find a woman who is right for him.

Let’s see more

I would hope that we can see more photographs on dating apps which better define the man and woman rather than presenting to the world a misleading or fake image of perfection. It would save a lot of time when they meet up. I wonder what the failure rate is when people meet up and face the realities of the person opposite them.

I can remember an elderly woman recounting how she went about finding a new husband. She had become a widow and wanted to find a new partner quickly. She used a dating website. She proudly said that when she met up with the selected man she would keep the meeting to a matter of a few minutes if she knew that he was unsuitable. There was no shilly-shallying around. It was to the point. It was real and I admired her for it.

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