I learned something from a kitten on monday that I've been thinking about since then, so I thought I would share.

My friend Alexis got a kitten during the last school year, and when I went to visit her got to meet her kitten Zena (at least I think that's her name). She was as cute if not cuter than the picture I found above, and as with all baby animals, I wanted to hold, snuggle, and in general love her. However she didn't want to be held or even petted too much, so every time we would pick her up, she would escape as soon as possible and run as far away in the same room as she could from us. It made me sad, but not that surprised since she is a cat, and they tend to be more aloof. That didn't make me less sad that she didn't want to sit in my lap. It was funny to notice though, that as we paid less and less attention to Zena, the closer and closer she sat next to us. It was never on the same couch as us, let alone in our laps, but it was right up against the couch within arms reach.

But thinking about how Zena reacted to attention and the lack thereof, made me think about how I can be really similar to her. There was this boy in high school that I thought was super cute and wanted to spend more time with (slash date). However the more I tried to spend time with him, the more he pulled away from me, and the harder I tried to hang out with him more. He had it down pat: I wanted attention from him, so he ignored me so I would try harder to impress him. It was probably really flattering to have someone so infatuated.

On the other hand, I've been in the position where I'm ignoring a lot of attempts to engage in conversation with me. There was a boy last semester who I met near the end of the semester and he really liked me. He paid a lot of attention to me and I kinda liked it, but I guess subconsciously I was afraid it would go away if I returned it, so I stayed aloof. And I think that only made him try harder, which was flattering, but made me even more aloof. As I started to actually like him more and more, I wanted to tell him to back away a little and I would come to him, but how do you tell someone that without confusing or insulting them? (my eternal struggle: how to get the point of what I want to say across without being insulting. if I can't figure out how to tell them kindly, I normally don't say anything at all) I guess all I can hope for it to figure out a happy medium, understanding that everyone wants to be loved, and will try desperately for a sign of that love, and that they can also be an aloof object of affection and make others work for their love. and to think that that realization came from the antics of a kitten who isn't even a year old and can't possibly understand how everything works in this world.