No Trespassing!

Sometimes I get to believe that the great love and affinity that I have for cats comes from the many things I share with domestic felines in terms of habits and likes: I like to sleep in the sun, I don’t like to be told what to do, I love to stretch, I am curious and I am very protective of my territory.

Yes, I am territorial. I understand also that not every human shares this characteristic with me. I have friends that would happily lend their apartments or cars to a friend, of a friend, of a cousin. I wouldn’t.

You want to stay in my house? You got to be my family or my good friend… and you should not stay for too long.

This week while preparing to leave for vacation I made arrangements with our usual house sitter. It is a requirement of the company in which my husband works to have someone staying in the house while we are away. I have a friendly relationship with the house sitter and for us it is convenient that she stays because she takes care of the cats and of the house. For her staying is profitable because the company pays her an attractive fee for Cuban standards. Everything is well until she asks me if her boyfriend can stay with her.

I knew the question was coming, she is in love, it is a new boyfriend, and the thought of three weeks without spending the night together is almost unbearable. I knew it was coming and I was prepared to say yes. So… yes, he can stay.

I hope they have a good time and I hope they take good care of my house; but I have to acknowledge that the idea of a stranger staying in my place while I am not around, sleeping in my bed, bathing in my shower, using by kitchen, mingling with my cats, watching my TV, relaxing in my sofa and in close proximity with all my personal things, is not an idea that makes me feel totally comfortable.

There is an online community that some of my friends have used to travel while on a budget, it is called www.couchsurfing.org. The idea is that you can stay in strangers couches (or spare beds), and strangers can stay in your couch… a stranger in my couch?! No, thank you!

Still I admire people that are capable of this no-boundaries hospitality. I met three couch surfers that at some point or other stayed at my friend's Sandra’s couch. “You are going to be murdered one day,” I used to tell her. She hasn’t been murdered so far and she has had nice experiences opening her house to strangers.

But as much as I admire this hospitality I don’t want it, I don’t have it in me and I don’t need it; and while surfing the Internet I have found I am not the only one with territoriality issues. “Why anyone would voluntarily have a complete stranger stay in their house (…) is beyond me,” says a commentator on a forum about Couch Surfing. “I'm such a crab (Cancer, that is), I can't just invite anyone to my shell and I don't want to sleep in a stranger’s one. It's a cool idea for those who don't mind and sounds like an awesome way to meet people, it's just not for me,” said another commentator. I am a Cancer too.

But interestingly enough it seems that my territoriality has a scientific reason. Just as most vertebrate animals, humans are by nature territorial, scientists believe.

“Just as a dog cocks its leg to deposit its personal scent on the trees in its locality, so the human animal cocks its leg symbolically all over his home base,” says Desmond Morris, a British zoologist and researcher in animal behavior it a document titled Territorial Behavior.

There are many other references on the science forums on the Internet about human territorial behavior, most agree that humans tend to share this characteristic with other animals, peeing in the wall is not just for dogs (as said in one of these forums).

For now I am willing to look the other way and let a stranger walk in my territory, it is an exception. But other than that I am perfectly OK hissing at any stranger that steps on my lawn.