Who they are: single people who are preoccupied with their pet to the point of obsession, much to the annoyance of everyone around them who doesn’t share their four-legged (over)enthusiasm.

Identifying traits: cat/dog/horse fur on clothes and hair; talks about their pet constantly and gets noticeably jittery when conversation veers away from it; discusses their pet’s stools openly.

Why they’re single: like the baby ducks who will follow a human in lieu of a feathered mother, the Pet Proxy projects their innate need for human companionship onto their animal. This puts them in a weird spot. One the one hand they don’t really feel the “need” to be with someone; on the other, they can’t have sexual relations or any other kind of normal communication with their pet, which leaves them vaguely dissatisfied, but often not enough to make them do something about it.

Advantages: intimacy without the baggage (except for the the bags you pick up the dog shit with); gives you a living thing to care for and worry about, thereby allowing you to bury you problems like a bone in the backyard.

Disadvantages: begins to speak in cutesy ‘pet voice’ more often than normal human voice; smells weird; growing reliance on pet as a security blanket means they have to bring them everywhere they go (you’ve seen people with cats on leashes.)

What they can do about it: partner up with someone who is also a pet freak on your level, or is such a softie they will also obsess over your little munchkin; give the pet to your parents for awhile and see how you change or if you can stand yourself alone; come to terms with the fact that pets are purely entertainment, like a Walkman, and allowing them to take over your life is akin to, uh, turning into a giant Walkman.

But Wait! There’s More Like This: