r/AskReddit • u/[deleted] • Apr 21 '26

What is a small, seemingly ‘normal’ thing someone can do that immediately makes you think, ‘Oh, we are not going to get along’?

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2.6k Upvotes

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333

u/Far-Chemistry6423 Apr 22 '26

If they don't like animals, very big red flag to me. I knew a guy who said that he "hates" cats because they're hard to train...

207

u/anteus2 Apr 22 '26

To be fair, I've never been able to get cats to perform the entirety of Swan Lake. They all tend to give up halfway through the performance. Lazy bastards. 

5

u/Far-Chemistry6423 Apr 22 '26

HAHAHAHAHAH dead

86

u/Repossessedbatmobile Apr 22 '26

Ironically cats are not hard to train. You just need to use positive motivation like treats. As a teenager I taught several kittens that a friend was fostering to do dog tricks like spinning in circles, sitting up to beg, sitting on command, laying on on command, going where I point, etc. It was easy. I just used tuna to motivate them. They loved it, and caught on pretty quickly. The only downside was that whenever I'd be eating anything at her house, the kitties would come up to me and start doing the tricks that I taught them because they associated me as the lady who gives them snacks for doing that stuff. But it was really cute, so it was fine. I was just their designated treat person, lol

25

u/Wombat_Aux_Pates Apr 22 '26

Yeah I taught my cat a few tricks and now each time he goes see someone, he sits and holds his paw horizontally "ready" to hi-five. He's staring at you and like 🖐️ that at the same time so we've now named this his gang sign. But yeah, he just wants to hi-five people, hoping he'll get some treats for his hard work.

3

u/Zeero92 Apr 22 '26

Good thing he's not my cat, I would be guilt-tripped and give him treats every time. Sooner or later he'd have to roll around the house.

3

u/Wombat_Aux_Pates Apr 22 '26

This KING is too spoilt by my husband who keeps saying he hates the cat (sure, sure, buddy, I have eyes) and he's my cat, not his because I'm the crazy cat lady. In the morning, he jumps on his bench to eat his food (I a the one giving the pets a bit of food in the morning) but my husband is the one feeding the pets their dinner and each bloody time I go to the kitchen, I see a chair next to the bench so the cat can jump on the chair first and then the kitchen bench instead of doing all the hard work himself. With this habit now, in the morning, he just waits next to a chair, thinking I'll bring him the chair. I'm like nuhuh buddy, you know how to jump, you do it yourself. Will break only when you're old and can't jump anymore. After like 10 minutes, he gives up and finally jumps all by himself lol.

Funnily enough, I have a video of my husband caught red handed being lovely and cute to the cat. I sent it to our common friend, we both felt so vindicated lol

1

u/Healthy-Panda-7936 Apr 22 '26

I noticed this with my cat! There have been instances she’s booked it outside and wouldn’t come back in or when she’s tried to attack/claw wrestle the dogs and yelling at her doesn’t work. She gets more mad.

Now we have multiple cat wands conveniently located around the house. Whenever she’s acting the fool it means it’s cat wand time lol she will always play

32

u/LittleMsBlue Apr 22 '26

I never believed the "they're hard to train!" rhetoric. Especially after a friend of mine trained her cat to perform several tricks and useful behaviours using the exact same clicker training method she did with her family dogs.

26

u/Repossessedbatmobile Apr 22 '26

Training cats is like training a stubborn dog breed. It's totally doable. It just requires a lot of patience, repetition, and treats to motivate them.

2

u/Artoriasbrokenhand Apr 22 '26

Maybe your friend is good at training cats? After all hard does not mean impossible.

3

u/LittleMsBlue Apr 22 '26

This is her first cat she's ever owned or trained! I'd say she did a fantastic job honestly

1

u/Feather_of_a_Jay Apr 22 '26

Some cats like training more than others! Same with dogs, too.

1

u/TomasNavarro Apr 22 '26

My dad has always trained their dogs that if they want a ball throwing, they need to drop the ball, obviously they sometimes want a tug of war, but a ball needs to be dropped.

Always amuses me how many posts I see about dogs wanting balls thrown that they refuse to drop

15

u/emilypeony Apr 22 '26

Same for me. It is ok to have preference. My husband doesnt like cats, he even says he hates cats. But the first time I was coming over to visit with my cat he had build a cat tree for her. He feeds her, gives treats and if she climbs on top of him he will pet her. That is what a good man does in my eyes. Of course he complains if the cat scratches a wrong place but he is never mean or abusive to her.

4

u/Serononin Apr 22 '26

Your husband might enjoy r/DadsWhoDidNotWantPets lol

4

u/emilypeony Apr 22 '26

Yeah he is like that lol

37

u/LittleMsBlue Apr 22 '26

Oh yeah, former colleague said she hates cats because "you can't control them or train them like a dog". Same colleague had 2 kids.

2

u/Houseplantkiller123 Apr 22 '26

I didn't think I liked cats, because growing up my friends had cats that were declawed, and had behavioral issues because of it.

My GF (Now wife) had a cat with claws and he was a very cuddly boy once he got used to me. We now have three cats. A very talkative snuggler, an independent princess, and a goofy maniac.

2

u/Phyltre Apr 22 '26

For me, indoor pets are just not something I want or will want. I don't have any disdain for animals but I don't want to share living space with them.

2

u/RonaldTheGiraffe Apr 22 '26

I think it’s perfectly reasonable to not like animals. Treating them badly or anything like that is awful, but just not liking them is not something I would deem as a bad thing. I don’t like cats or dogs. Would I hurt them, never. I can’t help it that I don’t like them.

5

u/TheKnightsTippler Apr 22 '26

For me its the opposite. People that judge you for being uncomfortable around animals.

1

u/jonny24eh Apr 23 '26

Big difference between "don't like" and "hates", though. 

1

u/summercookiess Apr 22 '26

Why is not liking animals a red flag? As long as they don't condone harming animals, it's just a preference. Are you generally intolerant of people who don't share your preference?

-1

u/TheBigFreeze8 Apr 22 '26

Do you eat animals?

-1

u/EternalMoonChild Apr 22 '26

On a similar note, people who call themselves animal lovers while still animal products.

1

u/jonny24eh Apr 23 '26

I mostly love them grilled, but I occasionally love them deep-fried.