anxiety re: pets

[Glides]

so if therapy has done any good for me, it's identifying the fact that the anxiety i attributed to dating manifests itself everywhere. i can get hyperfixated on even the most mundane thing and find some way to psych myself out about it even if it's like the tiniest little thing. because dating is the biggest possible deal, and because there is so much societal shame in dying alone, i have fixated on dating more than anything else. the past few weeks has seen this fear partially shift somewhere so ridiculous that i don't know what to do about it:

i am too afraid to adopt a cat.

i have wanted a pet for ages. i never grew up with pets. i wonder what having a pet could've done for my confidence if i had one as a kid. both of my parents are severely allergic to both cats and dogs and i am allergic to neither. as a result, i never got to bond with an animal as a kid. as an adult, this means i only interact with pets when they belong to friends or (former) partners, and i get along fine with pets when i am not their owner.

however, this is where the anxiety kicks in. pet ownership is comically simple for those who have owned a pet since they were a child (for those who know my rhetoric re: not dating until far later than most: see how this sounds familiar?), and i am far behind now. cats can easily get sick, they are expensive to raise (adoption fees + food + litter box + toys + medication, etc.) as all pets are, they can claw and scratch and bite. i just had a friendship with a person i didn't know well dissolve because they randomly adopted a dog on impulse and then just went off and gave the dog back after a day after complaining about how difficult dogs are. i'm probably never going to adopt a dog. i live in a one bedroom apartment and that's not enough room for a dog. i suspect it's not nearly enough space for a cat either. pets have a separate fee to pay off at my apartment complex anyway. i've scanned adoption sites and not a single one of the cats has really caught my attention, every single one has some sort of medical issue i can't afford to take care of or needs another cat around or needs lots of outdoor space AND, AND, AND.

and then, i do what i have done with dating or my career or anything else: i give up before i have even tried. i settle into the comfortable pattern of failure rather than risk rejection. i am terrified of people requesting to see my tiny shit apartment and complain that it's not good enough, i'm terrified of the thing getting mean as soon as it's there, i'm terrified of it getting sick and dying and having no clue what to do. i'm already driving myself into a frenzy about a mandatory work trip and catching monkeypox somehow, to the extent that i am literally bringing an inflatable mattress and disposable sheets, disinfecting the entire floor and the mattress and the blankets, and just sleeping on that instead of the hotel bed because they're one of the biggest monkeypox spreaders out there. this is how bad this has gotten.

however, the only other solution is to wait a couple of weeks, when two friends will be moving into my complex with a dog, and just settle for hanging out with that dog and having none of the responsibility of taking care of him. i am clearly not capable of the work it takes to maintain a romantic relationship and i don't feel capable of owning my own pet. i am now getting along better with two of my exes as friends than as partners. clearly a successful relationship for me requires extreme amounts of emotional distance, even if it will in turn make me lonelier than ever and think those thoughts the mods get twitchy about me thinking so frequently for most of my life.

so i have no clue what to do here. it feels like i'm at square one of the dating process again, except now i vaguely know how to date and nobody has expressed any real interest in me except that dumbshit former friend over the past half year or so. this always happens. pet ownership is like the most basic fucking thing, just like dating is the most basic fucking thing. i have found a new way to beat myself up over a thing that even most of the incels know how to do properly.

[Enail]

I mean, yeah, this is what anxiety does, but at the same time, it also sounds like you could use a little more exposure to pets so you'd be a bit more comfortable before giving it a go and have a better sense of what you can handle. Hanging out with your friends' dog might be good for that, you don't have to treat spending time with it as a long-term "I'm never getting one myself" decision. If you know anyone who needs some short-term pet-sitting or someone to pop in to check on them when they're at work and you're free, that's also a decent way to spend some time with animals that involves a little responsibility without a long-term commitment. Even taking a few trips to the shelter if they allow visitors to hang out with the animals.

If it helps, lots of people seem to have pretty happy cats in small apartments. My sister's got one in a downtown-sized (meaning very small) two-bedroom along with three people, so pretty tight quarters, and she seems pretty happy there (the cat, not my sister. Though I guess my sister's pretty happy with it too, but the happiness of my sister isn't terrible relevant to this conversation.)

A lot of the things you're worried about are things with a concrete component, so maybe it would be useful to do some planning and problem solving, looking up the costs and the resources you'd need, figuring out what you can afford and what's doable for you? And then you can use that information to push against the anxiety or decide that it has a point in some aspects, seeing if you can find solutions to your concerns that feel liveable.

It seems like it can be a slow process to find a suitable cat for a given person, especially if you're not up for high-needs, so you might have to take it slow regardless of the anxiety. Try not to look at as so black-and-white, you don't have to be ready to do it right this moment or never be able to do it. If it's something you want, you can work towards being able to manage it.

[Hielario]

You could also consider smaller beings: turtles, canaries, or small mammals (Maybe not hamsters, though. Mine had a tendence to die in strange ways). From what I remember, they're easier to care for and less sensitive to space issues as long as they have a good cage. They're not as close, but they can be useful for you to learn how it is to have a domestic animal.

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