I think if I met someone who had a severe enough allergy to cats that he could never come visit me at my place, the chances of the relationship getting to the point where I'd have to choose human over pet would be very slim.

---

I swore to myself up and down last night, that I wouldn't enter this conversation for all the tea in China. Apparently I already have enough tea.

I'm violently allergic to cats, and so I have sympathy for the allergic people who otherwise would spend eternity with their sweetie. I didn't choose to have allergies, but I'm not going to put my health at risk to be with someone. I'm a selfish bitch who likes to breathe, I guess.

Yeah. Seriously, I have loved my cats dearly (and my bunnies, one named Harvey, even; and even liked our dear, departed frog). My feeling for them doesn't exist in the same universe as do my feelings for Scott, our children, or my parents.

Had I had a cat, and then become involved with a guy who didn't like cats, if he couldn't slowly be won over to make my cat the exception to his rule, I would suspect that I wasn't particularly important to him (provided the pet wasn't nasty to him, as some pets *do* get nasty to their masters' romantic partners). Think of all the Buffy fans who are married to/living with non-fans. Think of all the people who loathe their in-laws. You tolerate stuff you don't like, when your important people love it (cf Football, Baseball, Disco, Country Music, cilantro).

That's an *entirely* different situation, from owning a cat, and then falling in love with someone who is allergic to them, and from owning a cat first, but then having my husband or child develop an allergy to the animal. The pet would go. Letting go of the pet would hurt, but it wouldn't hurt nearly as much as risking the health and comfort of one of my humans would disturb me. I would feel selfish to make one of my humans take allergy medicine on a daily basis, that they wouldn't otherwise need, just to live in their own home.

And of course, none of these situations is analogous to Susan's situation in the first place. Susan did not own this gun, prior to her relationship with Dylan.

---

from owning a cat, and then falling in love with someone who is allergic to them,

A guy would likely have to come equipped with a note signed by God saying, "This is the one, your life will be complete and tales will be told of your joy and fulfillment if you stay with this guy" before he was around long enough for me to fall in that deep of love with him to give up an established pet.

---

connie is me re: guys and pets.

On the other hand, once I was in love with the person, if he then developed life-threatening allergies to pets we had, I would find the pets other homes. Pets can usually become happy in other homes, and I have no definitive proof that people can be happy without breathing.

---

A conversation clarified things for me - it's not that I'm not an animal person -- I'm not much of a pet person. The relationships that many Americans have with their pets mystify me. I don't think they're not deep or valuable relationships to those that have them, but I've tried living with pets in the house, and I'd have to like a guy a HELL of a lot to enter into that for perpetuity (or even just the lifetime of the existing pets).

Pets are for visiting, for me. Visiting at other people's houses, or going outside into the yard to visit. The whole litterbox in the house where you live, pets in your bed/lap/at your table stuff? I tried getting over it before. I'd love to meet a guy I liked enough to try it again.

---

Not breathing is best done in moderation.

---

A guy would likely have to come equipped with a note signed by God saying, "This is the one, your life will be complete and tales will be told of your joy and fulfillment if you stay with this guy" before he was around long enough for me to fall in that deep of love with him to give up an established pet.

I understand this. This is, I think, how most people feel, when they're going to get married (and/or live together in a way they both assume to be a lifelong commitment). I wouldn't give up the pet for a boyfriend. I would for a husband.

---

DH and I have, for the time being, agreed to drop the subject, with him accepting that I get to be sad about it for awhile (because it's just so. damn. beautiful.). We've also acknowledged that both of us dropped the ball on the camera/rifle thing. I should've realized the type of pictures he was taking and the amount of time he was spending on photography blogs indicated a serious interest, but I didn't, because he'd gone without a camera for years until we got the digital, which led me to believe it was just fascination with the latest in techie toys. And he should've realized from my enthusiasm for the subject and various remarks I made about if I ever found a place that sold replicas of guns from my era, that if I did find such a thing and it wasn't ridiculously expensive, I'd want to buy it.

Of course, he will get the camera eventually, as soon as we come to some kind of mutually agreeable compromise about the money. And I doubt this makes sense to anyone but me, but I'm still feeling heartbroken about not getting my rifle. Partly that's because I'd turned it into the ultimate symbol of achieving my dream, but I also just wanted it for itself. Because it's just so shiny. And while I can tell from what people have said here that DH's reaction isn't at all unusual, it's still so far removed from my own attitude that I can't even wrap my brain around it.

And I have to say, it really does suck when something like this comes up completely unexpectedly more than seven years into a relationship. Obviously we're not going to leave each other over it--that'd be stupid--but there's this part of me that's saying, "How did I end up married to a man who can't understand why this means so much to me?" And I'm sure there's a part of him that's saying, "How did I end up married to a woman who would want such a thing?"

---

John Cusack himself would have to get every shot known to man, visit every probably-a-damn-opium-den in six china towns, and try every pill on the market before we even discussed a pet I'd made a commitment to living with someone not me.

---

before he was around long enough for me to fall in that deep of love with him to give up an established pet.

I don't understand putting conditions on a relationship like that. If a guy is all allergic, then stay at his house, you know? I stayed at the BF's place 99% of the time up until we moved in together because of his allergy to my down comforter. It would have been the same if he had been allergic to my cats. We would have worked around it until I discovered how important he was going to be to me. if you really like the person, lots of circumstantial things can be worked out over time. I'm all for making the possibilty of love as easy as possible, because it's hard to find and SO worth it when you have it. My best friend broke up with the guy she was happiest with to because she lived in NYC and he lived in Boston and neither were going to move. He was willing to have a long distance relationship and see what developed but she refused. 18 months later she got a job in...Boston, but he had started seeing someone else by that time. That was 10 years ago and she hasn't met anyone since who she thought she could marry.

---