Trusting What's in the Mirror of Self-reflection

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The thing that makes me nervous about dogs is that they are blindly loyal. It’s unsettling for me to see a creature so dedicated to one person or a small group of people when we all know that most people aren’t very trustworthy. Even if one person, alone, was untrustworthy, that would be enough to validate my point.

Cats, in their precious nature, are jerks. And that works for me. There’s an understanding between cats and their owners: both of them, when on the same wavelength, have an attitude of, “Deal with it.” Right? Cats knock crap off of tables and such, and cats’ owners force-snuggle with them. It’s a mutual, unspoken communication between owner and animal.
And the term “owner” is too accurate for owners of dogs. Dogs submit their will and their lives to these “owners” through sheer, blind loyalty. Cats don’t acknowledge the concept, though. Cats understand the word “owner” about as much as they understand the word “no.”
It’s this same way with people, for me. The blindly loyal terrify me to no end. What if I accidentally do something that shakes their trust and faith in me? What if I do something that I think is amusing but they take it to be more serious than I intended? And, worst of all, what if they never leave?...

Cold and distant people I can handle. I can even joke around with these monsters, because we tend to have quite a bit in common--one of the main things being a dark, estranging sense of humor. I get that.

Dogs are like the loyal people in your life, and you would do anything to impress or benefit them, yet you’ll always come up short, and even end up hurting them in some small or big way. It’s human nature.

Cats, however, are like the others whom you would laugh and play with just as readily as push them off a cliff (assuming they didn’t die, for insurance reasons.)

 To each their own, of course.

I guess what I might really be saying is: you can’t trust me, if I can’t trust myself concerning people who rely on my trustworthiness.
What’s the fun in being totally trustworthy, though?

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