12 Easy Things You Can Do Today to Become Your Cat’s Favorite Person

Unlike dogs, it can feel like a bit of a challenge to get cats to like you. After all, they have a reputation for being less cuddly, less playful, and just more independent all around. But if you are a cat person, you know that while cats do more things on their own (IE: they don’t need to be walked outside to go to the bathroom of course) and might prefer a bit more napping and “me” time, for the most part we find our cats Thelma and Louis to be just as cuddly and (for the most part) just as playful as any ol’ canine. But in our house (and probably yours) this took a bit of work.

First, let’s take Louis. Louis is what I would safely call a “velcro” cat, especially around me. He loves to follow me around, he meows and jumps down from any perch he’s currently on to come down and say hi to me, and loves to suckle and bake biscuits next to me on the bed.

Then there’s Thelma. For a while I thought she was more of a daddy’s girl, and I think she is. But she’s very much come around to me. She was sleeping on my husband Cory’s legs most nights, and then for the past year, on and off, she’s been sleeping at my feet instead. I’m not sure what changed. It could be my morning routine with her. Usually if I’m the first one up and she’s already up, I walk out to her favorite spot in the living room and we lock eyes, and I pet her head and chin and sing her a good morning song. This is honestly one of my favorite times of day! I think those moments are what made her come and sleep on me at night. (But if I’m really being honest, it could be because I give her the most treats.)

To be clear, I haven’t won everything. Both cats will not jump up on my lap, they exclusively go to Cory for that. They’ll jump up on him during the day while he’s sitting at his desk and stay for a good 30 minutes, relaxing and sometimes sleeping. Maybe my legs are too scrawny or not hairy enough for them lol. But I’m so glad they spend quality time with Cory like that.

I mean, it’s not a competition. LOL. But we definitely joke about who is which cat’s favorite. But the thing is the standings can move. And a lot of what’s on the list below can help influence how your cats react to you. So if you want to take the lead in your household as “Favorite Human of the Week” take a few of the cues below!

1. Slow blink at them like you mean it

You can do this one from across the room, which is why it’s first. Researchers at the Universities of Sussex and Portsmouth tested it in a 2020 study in Scientific Reports: owners got their cat’s attention, made eye contact, then closed their eyes in exaggerated slow blinks for about a minute, roughly fifteen blinks in all. The cats narrowed their eyes and half-blinked back at their owners far more often than when the owner was just sitting there being a regular person. And in a second experiment, cats were more likely to approach a total STRANGER’S outstretched hand if the stranger had slow-blinked at them first. So it even works on cats who don’t know you yet.

Whenever the slow blink comes up on Reddit, somebody always turns up to point out that not every squint is the good kind:

Cats can scrunch their eyes when scared/anxious Slow blinking looks more like they are falling asleep – are they fully opening their eyes again after closing them? I think the term “slow blinking” is actually the term for what humans can do to show they’re family too Squinty/sleepy cat eyes are the happy place

— via Reddit.com

2. Talk to them in your cat voice

You know the voice. The one a register higher than your normal one, the one you’d be mortified for a coworker to overhear. Keep doing it. Researchers at Université Paris Nanterre tested this with 16 cats and found the cats reacted when their own owner switched into that higher, sing-songy cat-directed voice, but didn’t react when a stranger made the exact same switch. To be clear, nobody is claiming cats understand the words (thank goodness, considering some of the things I say). In our apartment it’s mostly singing. I sing to Thelma and Louis when they’re anxious, I sing Thelma a good morning song in the living room, and then there are the “squeamie” songs, which we ridiculously base on the time of the day (IE: morning, afternoon, evening, or even late-night squeamies) and the songs just go along with whatever time of day it is. It’s the afternoon squeamies, the afternoon squeamies, everyone loves the afternoon squeamies, they run from 12 to 6! LOL! (If you don’t know what a squeamie is, we talk about it in number 6.)

3. Be the one who hands out the treats

In our house I’m the treat mom, and I’ll admit I sneak them one or two extra and I’m not sorry, because it gives me an unfair advantage and I intend to keep it. (Cory gets the lap they both want, so we’ve each got our own kingdom.) But the treats are really just the opener. When researchers at Oregon State offered cats a choice between human social interaction, food, toys, and scent, most cats picked the human, ahead of the food. So hand the treat over yourself, take the credit, and then stay a minute after the treat is gone, because the staying is the part they actually wanted.

4. Get down on the floor with them

Two feline-medicine groups, the AAFP and the ISFM, put out guidelines on what cats need from their environment, and one whole section is about us: lower yourself to the cat’s level, skip the fixed eye contact, and give them time to come over. Which is probably why cats head straight for the person ignoring them. That person is sitting still and looking at their phone, not hovering over anybody and not making eye contact, and they’re accidentally becoming the cat’s favorite without even realizing it!

In our house, getting down on the floor doesn’t always work in the sense that they come running over. Usually I’m the one going over to them. I’ll stick my finger out and let them decide if they want to lean in for more pets. And sometimes if Louis is already showing his belly, I’ll go give him some belly rubs, because who can resist! So the point isn’t that the floor summons them. It’s that you’re down at their height when you get there, which is a completely different approach than a hand coming down from above.

5. Offer a finger and let them make the call

When Thelma comes over (cautiously, always cautiously, she enters every room like she’s casing it) I hold out one finger and let her smell it. If she leans in, she wants pets. If she doesn’t, I go back to whatever I was doing, and that’s the whole gist of it. Louis requires no such ceremony, he greets us by plopping down with his belly out, or by rubbing his whiskers on our hands, which we’ve decided counts as a hug. The finger offer isn’t just a Thelma thing, though. Researchers at Nottingham Trent University, working with the UK rescue Battersea, trained people on a set of guidelines called CAT, where the C stands for choice and control: offer your hand gently, let the cat decide, and when they walk away, don’t follow. Letting them leave is somehow the move that makes them stay.

6. Find out where YOUR cat likes to be pet (Tip: start with the cheeks and ears)

The T in those guidelines is touch, and the finding is that most friendly cats prefer the cheeks and the base of the ears, while the stomach and the base of the tail are where you’re most likely to get in trouble. That’s a good place to start, and then your own cat gets to overrule it, because ours overrule it constantly.

Thelma really likes getting pet on the head and chin. Louis loves the chin, and his head when he’s in bed, but if he’s up and about he loves the belly and will roll over to show you his and ask for pets. So one of my two cats is the exact animal the research says to be careful with, and he’s out here requesting it daily. Then there are the squeamies, which are light butt taps near the base of the tail, and both of ours love them. That’s the other zone the average cat would rather you skip. Treat the averages as your opening offer and let your cat negotiate, and if yours backs their rear end into your hand, congratulations, you have squeamie cats too, and apparently the condition comes with theme songs at all hours.

7. Pause every few seconds and check in

This one is from the same guidelines and it changed how I pet my own cats: while you’re stroking, stop every three to five seconds and see what happens. If they rub against your hand, lean in, or headbutt you, keep going. If they just sit there, or shift away, you’re done, and being done on their schedule counts for a lot. Louis makes this easy at my desk, since he jumps up and headbutts my hand when he wants pets, which is about as unambiguous as a cat ever gets.

8. Learn their “I’m done” signal before they have to escalate

Cats rarely go from happy to swatting with no warning, the warnings are just small and we tend to talk over them. Ears flattening, a head shake, the tail starting to twitch, a quick lick of the nose, the purring trailing off, or moving away…those are all versions of “that’s enough.” If you’re not sure what your cat’s tells look like, we wrote a whole guide to reading your cat’s body language.

9. Stop picking them up so much (unless they love it)

I know. They’re right there, they’re soft, the urge is real. But picking a cat up takes away the thing every study on this list keeps circling back to, the cat’s control over the interaction, and some cats will tolerate it while quietly filing it away.

We actually don’t pick up Thelma and Louis often, because I don’t think they love it. Sometimes Cory will pick Thelma up and they’ll go on a “papa walk,” but often they get squirmy and want to jump down. Especially Louis, who despite all my attempts does not love being held. And I’d note that Louis is also the one who flops down in front of us belly-up almost every day, so it isn’t that he’s not affectionate. He just wants it happening at floor level, on four feet, where he can leave. Plenty of owners on Reddit describe the same split.

I think most cats will be affectionate if you let them do it on their own terms. I very rarely go up to my cat to pet him. I let him have his space and he jumps in my lap frequently to cuddle and get pets. My fiancé on the other hand constantly picks him up and pets him and he never sits in his lap.

— via Reddit.com

If your cat melts when you carry them, carry on. If they stiffen, squirm, or go flat-eared, put them down and let them come back to you on foot, which they will, faster than you’d think.

10. Get out the wand toy today, even for five minutes

The same guidelines say cats need chances to act out their predatory side, and the wand toy is the easiest way to hand them one. A 2024 survey in Applied Animal Behaviour Science dug into why owners skip daily play, and out of about 1,600 cat owners across 47 countries, only 47% said they play with their cat regularly. The reasons the rest gave were painfully relatable: too tired, forgot, couldn’t make it a habit, work and life got in the way. The same research links regular interactive play to a better quality of life for the cat, and when it’s missing, stress and problem behaviours show up more and the relationship suffers. The wand matters because it lets the cat run the whole hunting sequence, the stalk, the wiggle, the pounce.

Thelma is our window watcher and, I’m convinced, the better hunter of the two, tail twitching at a bird, a dog downstairs, a bug on the glass, so a few minutes of wand time is really just letting her finish the thing she rehearses all day. One warning from experience: our cats get bored with toys FAST, obsessed one week and cold the next, so rotate rather than expecting one toy to carry the whole year. And if you want more than the wand, we keep a whole list of fun ideas to bond with your cat.

11. Be boring and predictable, it’s their favorite personality

Those same feline-medicine groups say most cats prefer frequent, low-intensity contact, meaning lots of small calm hellos through the day instead of occasional big productions. When we moved apartments, Thelma took about a year to walk into the kitchen like she fully believed in it. A YEAR. Nothing in that kitchen ever hurt her, it was simply new, and new is something cats process on their own timeline, so the kindest thing you can do is stop being new.

Cory and I both work from home, so Thelma and Louis have our entire day memorized (we wrote up what your cat already knows about you if you want to be a little unnerved). Your consistency is what they build their confidence on, so be the person they never have to keep an eye on. Some cats get so attached to the schedule they’ll start enforcing it on you:

My cat is so attuned to my routine that she will actually try to keep me on it. If I’m up past 10pm she sits in the doorway of my bedroom and meows for me to come to bed. She loves our bedtime routine of snuggles and pets before sleep. Cats definitely prefer to be close to their humans for sleep time and if you get them on your same sleep schedule they usually don’t cause problems at night.

— via Reddit.com

12. When they fall asleep on you, do not move

Thelma sleeps on my feet now, which as I said up top used to be Cory’s legs most nights, and she still moves between us without explaining herself. Louis is the diplomat who sleeps in between, and if he spots Thelma sleeping on one of us, he’ll either bite her butt to get her to move off, or sit next to her calmly depending on his mood.

Here’s the part I didn’t expect, and it’s the reason this one is worth your patience. When Thelma first started sleeping by my feet, the slightest movement and she would get up and jump down off the bed. So Cory and I slept like mummies, and I have woken up with completely frozen ankles rather than risk her moving. Now both her and Louis will stay there for the most part, even if we have to get up and go to the bathroom in the middle of the night (thank god we’re not holding it lol). They stopped treating us as a surface that might betray them at any moment, and that took months of us holding still to earn. Whenever this comes up on Reddit, everybody agrees, with exactly one exception:

Yes. you’re a lucky human. My girl is close to being like that. She wakes me up every morning. She sleeps on me at night. She watches TV on my lap. I wouldn’t have it any other way except when I have to go to the bathroom.!

— via Reddit.com

A cat who chose to fall asleep on you picked you over every soft surface in the house, and that’s saying something. So stay put and let the ankle go numb. Then in the morning, if you’re up first and she’s already awake in her spot, go over and say good morning. Scratch her head and chin and if you’ve got a song, sing it or make one up in a sweet voice. Those are the secret ingredients for a “you + cat” love story.