The Luv Doc: Beige Carpet Cat Castle

Dear Luv Doc,

I have been on several great dates with a truly lovely man and had a wonderful time on each of them. Last night he offered to cook dinner for me at his place. I accepted the invitation although I was a little bit concerned that things were moving too fast. This is the first thing I saw when I entered his front door foyer (picture attached). I wanted to turn and run, but I stayed and suffered through beef bourguignon with watering eyes – not because I was allergic to the five cats arrayed around the table like they owned the place, but because I know I will have to break it off with this guy even though the beef bourguignon was heavenly. Am I being unfair? He really could have been the one.

– Gone Girl

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OK, yeah. I see your point here. That's never a good signpost for any relationship. It's basically a giant warning sign that Toxoplasma gondii is in full control. To a "cat lover" and the parasite working its joystick, I bet that giant, carpeted cat castle probably seems like a fully unfolded plume of peacock feathers. "Look at me! I'm a desirable human breeding companion! And also I love and take care of my many cats!" If a one-celled protozoan could shit itself from being impressed with its own diabolical genius, it probably would.

Most humans, on the other hand, see a cat castle and break out in hives. That fellow might as well have put a giant spiderweb in his entry foyer. At least then there would be an infinitesimal chance you were about to grind spandex with Peter Parker, but a giant, head-high, carpeted cat castle right there in the entryway says, "Abandon hope all ye who enter here." No matter what Dante says, I'm pretty sure that immediately after the gates of hell you pass a giant, fur-covered, questionably stained, beige-carpeted cat castle. It's practically a given. "Hello, excuse me? I was told there would be a lake of fire?"

So no, I don't think you're being unfair. I mean, I'm sure the army of protozoans walking around in that guy's giant skin trenchcoat have a lot to offer as a romantic partner. Case in point: beef bourguignon. That's an incredibly time-intensive dish that, if done well, demands hard work, patience, attention to detail, and love – or at least the ability to convincingly fake a creepy obsession. Sure, those are attractive traits in a potential life partner, but they're really just an intricate subterfuge that will allow one of your lovely man's cats to hop up on the couch and rub its ass on your face. Uuuhhhhhh ... DORABLE.

That scenario might seem pretty far-fetched at this stage of the game, but eventually all long-term relationships winnow down to the bare essentials: housecleaning, Netflixing and chilling. It's inevitable, and with five felines in the house your chances of inadvertently face-planting into some cat anus are something like 1,000%.

The good news is that it appears I'm not telling you anything you don't already know on a very visceral level. I think you should trust your gut and go directly to Kids-N-Cats, which is a protozoan-owned specialty shop in Allandale Village Shopping Center, and buy some cat-themed stationery on which to write your Dear John letter. If he gets it and doesn't get it, you can be sure you did the right thing.