Roommate's cat likes me too much and makes them jealous
A roommate's cat can become so attached that it starts preferring and sleeping in another person's room. This causes tension and passive-aggressive jealousy from the actual owner, leaving the person worried about accidentally stealing the pet or damaging the roommate relationship.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1Leaving bedroom doors open and letting the cat roam freely
- 2Limiting extra attention to the cat to appease the owner
- 3Reassuring the roommate that nobody is trying to steal the pet
- 4doing something else special with the dog instead of kissing them
- 5petting or scratching the dog instead in a way they actually enjoy
- 6doing a fake kiss by leaning in close without touching and making the sound
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“Whenever I go to kiss my 2 smaller dogs on the top of the head, my larger dog, Rio will run over and get upset that I didn’t kiss him. But, he absolutely despises being kissed.”source ↗
“He will nip at you (not aggressively, but sorta warningly) if you kiss him, which is why I don’t do it.”source ↗
“But genuinely what do I do to satisfy whatever it is he’s wanting from me??? I’m confused!!!!”source ↗
“I try petting him but he’s very iffy on being touched sometimes. Sometimes he loves it, sometimes he doesn’t.”source ↗
“However, I can tell that my roommate is a bit jealous and she’ll make passive comments abt the fact that clementine likes me more and I really don’t know what to do because I don’t want to “steal her cat,” and I know how much clementine means to her.”source ↗
“This is a genuine issue. I live with a roommate and one of her two cats really fell in love with me, and she got jealous.”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 58Why does my anxious cat scream and panic over closed doors?
- 9How to stop a cat from attacking after bringing home a puppy
- 15Why is my cat suddenly attacking my other cat?
- 10Why is my cat attacking me out of nowhere?
- 20How to tell if a neighborhood stray cat is in heat
- 4Why does my cat refuse to use a dirty litter box?