Dating like dogs and cats

I love being in love. I love being in a relationship. But I have always hated dating — and breakups.

Breakups, I’ve learned to master after surviving several. Call your therapist. Lean on your friends. Meditate and do yoga every day. Journal as often as possible. Avoid social media. Never stalk. Eventually, you’ll be fine.

But dating? Dating has always been impossibly awkward for me. I never know where to put my hands, how much eye contact is too much, or when a pause in conversation is meaningful… versus just plain uncomfortable.

How do you get close to another creature, share time and space with someone you barely know? It feels strange, unnatural, almost absurd.

I never imagined that the answer to one of my biggest dating dilemmas would come from watching the delicate, chaotic interactions between cats and dogs.

It all started after a chain of improbable, slightly surreal events. Suddenly, I found myself kicked out of my dreamy little beach house. Overnight, it had been invaded by a dozen construction workers, cement bags, and  incessant hammering — eight hours a day, every day.

At first, I didn’t panic. I thought, Fine, I’ll pack my things and finally move back to the city. I’d been procrastinating that decision for months, seduced by the magical sunsets and my favorite pilates studio. But leaving wasn’t so simple. My car had just been crashed and was stuck in the repair shop, for a month.

By now, I’m used to life’s sudden reroutes, and I figured the worst that could happen was I’d end up in some Airbnb, waiting until my car was ready.

Luckily, I also happen to have the sweetest best friend in the world. He offered me his home while he was away traveling.

It was the perfect solution: safe, loving, and deeply caring.

We’d been talking for a while about how amazing it would be to co-live in some way, but there was always a barrier—our kids: The four-legged ones who ruled our homes: my dog and his cats. 

Introducing them felt like crossing a long, invisible bridge—one misstep could mean chaos, the end of our co-living experiment, or worse, the end of a friendship.

Teo, my territorial chihuahua, is almost the same size as my friend’s cats—male and female—but he barks like he owns the world. Actually, he thinks he does.

The cats are adorable, but the girl is the princess of the house, fully aware of it, and the boy is huge—one glare from him and my little dog might have a heart attack. And yet, fate (and some relentless construction work) had finally brought us together as a family.

I decided to try a very casual introduction, lying near the swimming pool with Teo at my side. The male cat, upon spotting him, made a swift exit. I felt relieved. I was worried they would have a macho encounter, and I was certain my little chihuahua wasn’t equipped for that kind of battle.

The princess, meanwhile, jumped onto a high chair, her eyes fixed on us with cautious curiosity. She knew me and liked me—I’m always around when her dad travels, bringing toys or snacks—but this new canine visitor had her suspicious. 

Teo, curious about the patio, sniffed around minding his own business and innocently wandered closer to the princess’s chair. I relaxed a little, confident that she was high enough out of his reach and that she seemed pretty calm. I thought I could just watch and let things unfold.

And then, out of nowhere, a swift paw came down. The princess slapped Teo—hard enough to shock him. He had literally no idea what had just hit him. He bolted straight into mom’s arms, with only a minor scratch.

As the days went by, the male cat still wanted nothing to do with the dog, but the princess followed us everywhere, keeping a cautious distance yet always close enough to observe.

Teo, meanwhile, was chilled and relaxed… maybe too relaxed. I have no idea what’s going on with his sense of smell, but he genuinely seemed unaware of where the cat was most of the time. So he’d inadvertently jump onto the sofa right next to her and—slap. Turn a corner and run straight into her face—slap. Start bouncing with joy when I brought snacks, accidentally get close—slap. 

I kept thinking: I’m going to learn so much about boundaries from this cutie. So I cleaned the scratches on Teo’s ears, watched YouTube videos about dog–cat integration, and had many deep discussions with ChatGPT about how to evolve into a less-slappy house before their dad came back. I wanted him to return to a peaceful home, everyone unharmed, and ideally with fewer band-aids involved.

From my research, I learned how to use my own body between them so both had enough space. I started saying “¡gato!” out loud to Teo whenever he failed to notice she was nearby, and I learned to gently pet them when they managed to interact at a short but safe distance.

And little by little, I saw something really beautiful happening inside her: trust.Not trust for the dog, of course—she was still not ready for that—but trust in me.

She began to understand that this human genuinely cared about her need for space, that I would make sure everyone (even her new  little “brother”) respected it. I didn’t punish her for the occasional slap—which started happening less and less—and I didn’t judge her for it either.

Relational trust often grows that way: not through big gestures, but through safe, loving boundaries held again and again.

In the middle of all this chaos—boxes, construction noise, unexpected detours from the universe—I met a really sweet man. Part of his job involves making sure everything in my friends house runs smoothly, and somehow, in the middle of my messy transition, he ended up taking care of me too and helped me move in.

In a moment of appreciation, I invited him to dinner.

Then my WiFi broke—he fixed it.Another dinner.

The swimming pool flooded—he solved it.Another dinner.

It started to feel like romantic-magical-realism-meets-chaotic-domestic-life.

Dinners evolved into hugs, hands where held, kisses where close.

And as much as i liked it i began to grow uneasy.

Great, I thought. Just what the world was missing—me, developing avoidant tendencies. 

“I seriously don’t know what’s happening,” I told my best friend while he got ready for his run. “I really like him… and at the same time I want to push him away. It’s exactly like Princess slapping Teo—he comes super sweet and friendly, no harm intended, and I just (metaphorically) want to slap.”

I hate dating.I hate the awkwardness, the misunderstandings, the messy boundaries. How sometimes I want to kiss and somehow end up slapping, and other times I should slap and end up kissing.

I hate the blend of curiosity and fear,the feeling of being rushed,the expectation that I should be ready, open, trusting—on demand.

The truth is, intimacy is awkward.

It takes me forever to trust, to soften, to surrender.And honestly?Sometimes I wish I could skip the whole human experience, crawl into a little basket, and just meow.

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Last night marked our first month of living together — dogs, cats, all of us figuring out this new home. It was raining hard, thunder shaking the windows. We’d already had dinner, and I was on the couch with my dog asleep next to me, all of us listening to the storm.

My princess came into the room slowly. She walked toward the sofa, thinking about jumping up, but the dog was there. I got up and showed her, “there is a dog on the couch, give him space.”

She didn’t want to get close to him, so she climbed onto the tea table instead and just… stared at me. I could feel how much she wanted to come closer and didn't know how.

I moved to the side, made space, and tapped the sofa to invite her.

To my surprise, she actually jumped! She landed, rolled onto her back, and let me rub her belly, kiss her head, even hug her. She fell asleep against me, with the dog curled in on my other side.

“You’re so sweet,” I said out loud. “You just needed time.”We all do.

She wasn’t avoiding.She was taking the time she needed to trust.

Aren’t we all?

Trust takes time. Intimacy takes time. Letting someone see the soft parts of us takes time — and time is exactly what modern dating seems allergic to.

Hookups, situationships, the constant rush to define or undefine… there’s so little willingness to sit in the delicious, terrifying in-between.

So we hurry. We pretend we’re ready. We override our bodies.

And of course we slap, we run, we avoid — not to hurt anyone, but to protect ourselves, to try to catch up with our natural rhythm, and for some of us this rhythm is low, shy, we need to observe, we can't rush.

Yes, many humans will be discouraged by our pace, others will be slapped for rushing, but we need to honor our rhythm, follow our instinct and make only the moves that make us feel safe.

So just like I honored the timing of my princess, I decided to honor mine too. And from that place, steady and unhurried, I chose to stay friends with this sweet, gentle man.

Not as a retreat, but as an act of truth. An act of timing. An act of trust in my own rhythm. And it just felt great.