It’s important to keep blunt people in your life. She’s right. I’ve long since accepted it. I’m a lesbian who hates cats, and I am going to die alone.

Do you know who mostly owns cats? Women. Queers. Not all women, and not all queers, obviously, but go on, I dare you — try being queer and hating cats and looking online for dates. So many queers on Tinder or Her or OkCupid are obsessed with their cats. Sometimes they will post pictures of their cats as their only profile picture. The picture they want to show to prospective lovers as representative of who they are? A tabby wrapped in a blanket.

Even if there’s no cat picture on their profile, even if you meet that rare someone who doesn’t show you cat pictures on their phone immediately on your first date, nine times out of 10, you will walk in their front door and see a haughty, fluffy tail moving away from you. “Oh, that’s Shadow,” your new date will say. “I got her with my ex. Watch out when you go around corners — she likes to play-attack.”

No cat is play-attacking you, my friends. There is only attacking and not-attacking, and I am consistently amazed at the number of people who think it’s cute to be pounced on in the dark, in your own home, by something with razor-wire claws.

Cats are the worst pet. Cats can literally eat you after a period of 24 hours if you die in an apartment with them. They don’t wait to see if you’re maybe just sleeping super hard. They start with the eyeballs.

Cats go to the bathroom in a box inside your house, kick their own feces, which can be riddled with nasty viruses, and then hop on counters where food is being prepared or wander lazily on dining room tables, where food is served and eaten. People seem fine with this. People I cannot date.

Cats get litter between their toes and track it all over the house, so the pleasure of being barefoot is ruined at every gross, gravelly step. If you are dating someone who allows their cat in bed with them, then see above: Cats kick their own feces, so now there is both cat litter and cat feces in the bed. The bed is where sex and sleeping happen, by the way — important activities to share with someone you’re dating.