What Does It Really Say About You If You Don’t Like Cats?

Two days ago, 27-year-old rapper and Grammy winner Doechii shared her real feelings about cats on Threads: “People act like it’s a crime to dislike cats when they genuinely aren’t friendly animals,” she wrote. “They don’t wanna be domestic just leave em alone! Like it’s not organic I’m sorrryyy be fr it’s rare that cats are immediately lovey without years of pain and work put in 😭 ya’ll be scratched and beat tf up by your own animals I can’t lmaoooo.”

While she never explicitly said the words “I don’t like cats,” she might as well have, because many commenters immediately took offense. “Maybe cats just don’t like YOU,” one commenter responded. Another, who clearly didn’t care to consider Doechii’s explanation, simply said, “It’s weird when people try to justify their cat hatred.”

It seems Doechii is not the only celebrity with negative feelings towards cats: Paul Mescal and Jessie Buckley expressed their feline disdain more directly in a November interview that recently resurfaced on Reddit. With Buckley going as far as telling her husband, then boyfriend, ‘It’s me or the cats,’ when they first started dating. As you may have expected, cat lovers in the comments were, again, not amused.

As a cat dad myself, I can understand the kind of fierce devotion and defense displayed in the comments. I’ll never understand why some people claim not to like cats. I say claim because when I ask them why, in most cases I find that their negative opinions are based on stereotypes rather than actual experiences.

Often, I walk away with a feeling of ick. And if I’m not careful, before I know it I’m on a runaway train of judgment, making all sorts of assumptions about a person based on this one thing. I know I shouldn’t. But it’s so deliciously tempting to draw a connection between their dislike of cats and some other negative trait I’ve noticed. And I’m not the only one who does this. For example, this video posted by creator @narcabusecoach Danish Bashir, claims that if you hate cats, you’re a narcissist.

It’s a neat little theory. It flatters my instincts. It confirms my bias. It turns an ambiguous feeling into something concrete. But is it true?

There is no connection between disliking cats and being a narcissist.

Just so we’re clear right away: I am not calling Doechii, who likely would not choose to share her home with a cat, a narcissist. Because despite the confidence with which pop-psychology creators like Bashir make this claim, there is absolutely no evidence to support it. Disliking cats is not an indicator of narcissism. But is there any truth to the idea that narcissists are more likely to dislike cats?

In his video, Bashir argues that narcissists dislike cats because cats themselves are narcissists. This is, in a word, ridiculous. It suggests either a profound misunderstanding of narcissism, cats, or both — or a willingness to oversimplify in order to say something provocative enough to capture attention.

Cats are not narcissistic. Wanting affection on your own terms is not a defining trait of narcissism. If it were, then every human being alive would qualify, because we all want to be loved in specific ways.

In another video posted to TikTok, Bashir claims narcissists choose dogs over cats for “obvious reasons,” presumably because dogs are more demonstrably devoted and less demanding in exchange for their affection. But this, too, relies on a stereotype rather than reality.

Dogs, like cats, respond best to people who meet their needs and treat them with consistency and care. And dogs, like cats, are not all the same. Some are clingy. Some are aloof. Some love to be held. Some barely tolerate touch at all.

The supposed gulf between cats and dogs is largely built on stereotypes. So while one might imagine a narcissist preferring a dog in theory, based on these stereotypes, in practice they could be just as likely to prefer a cat — or no pet at all.

What is a narcissist, anyway?

When you think of a narcissist, you probably think of someone who is selfish and self-involved. While those are certainly narcissistic traits, those traits alone do not a narcissist make — at least not in the clinical sense.

Narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) is far more complex. According to psychologist Dr. Yasmine Saad of Madison Park Psychological Services, someone diagnosed with NPD will typically exhibit a pervasive sense of grandiosity, a deep need for admiration, and significant difficulty empathizing with others. In cases of malignant narcissism, this can also include exploiting others for personal gain, deceitfulness, paranoia, sadism, controlling behavior, and a profound disregard for other people’s rights.

So, where do cats figure into this diagnostic picture? They don’t.

“Not liking cats has nothing to do with clinical narcissism or narcissistic personality disorder,” says Krista Walker, a licensed clinical social worker and clinical director at The Ohana. “This disorder involves a lack of empathy, exploitative behavior toward others, and a need for admiration. A specific preference, including not liking cats, has nothing to do with this — or any — clinical personality disorder.”

Dr. Saad adds: “It does tell you something, but what it tells you is different for every person, because everyone likes or dislikes things for different reasons.”

Why is it so tempting to armchair diagnose non-cat people?

Categorization is comforting. It reduces complexity. It allows us to draw clean lines between “safe” and “unsafe,” “good” and “bad,” “us” and “them.” If someone doesn’t like cats, it’s not enough to say they have a different temperament or preference — we escalate it into a character flaw, even a personality disorder, because that allows us to dismiss them entirely.

There’s also something seductive about theories that flatter our instincts. When a pop-psychology explanation confirms what we already suspect — that ick I felt was justified — it absolves us of the responsibility to question ourselves. It turns bias into insight.

But real psychology is rarely that tidy. People are inconsistent. Preferences are shaped by experience, culture, fear, misinformation, and sometimes nothing more than chance. Reducing a complex human being to a single data point might feel efficient, but it’s intellectually lazy — and often wrong.

So, maybe the question isn’t why some people don’t like cats. Maybe it’s why we’re so eager to turn personal preferences into moral verdicts — and what that says about us.