I have both and love them equally. More to do with the personality of the cat than the gender. I have had about 14 or 15 cats in my life, and seven were male and seven were female.

Wonderful! I'd say you certainly qualify as an unbiased expert with your experience. The truth is, of course, however much I think I'm planning this adoption, it's the cat who grabs my heart first that I'll take.

I'm thinking of going to our local "shelter", which a volunteer with one of the cat rescue organizations asked me to consider seriously, because it's a "high-kill" shelter. It's going to be tough to choose one and leave others behind.

I've lived with dozens of cats throughout my lifetime, and you are both correct. It's not about gender. It's about the individual cat who grabs your heart and won't let go. You can always "try" to seek out a particular gender, age, and/or color, but when it comes right down to it, the feline is almost always the one who chooses his/her own family. All we lowly humans have to do is recognize when we've been chosen.

Best wishes being adopted by a wonderful feline. ;-)

Laurie

Good luck. I know a cat will pick you. You made me make a list of all my cats and didn't realize they were equally divided. My favorites , although I loved/love them all, were my first, a male Siamese and a present one, a female, Phoebe, so my answer was really unbiased. lol

I had always had female cats for years and years, until my DD gave me a male who needed a home. Having had both now, I can honestly say they're both wonderful and what sex they would be is low on my list of criteria now. I've had two male cats since the first one. I do notice differences between male and females in general but both have their own positive attributes and neither enough specific negatives to keep me from adopting, because as said in addition to their gender-specific actions they all are unique in personality and that's what is the most important criteria.

I never had a male cat who sprayed but all were neutered before they matured. I have had both male and female and the personality isn't dependent on the sex. Just pick one out who seems to be attracted to you and be sure and have it neutered/spayed immediately.

Thinking back over the years, I had two cats who peed in the house...one was a female, one a male.

Thank you for adopting a shelter cat. Hope its going well.

Hope you found your new friend...

As all others have said, go for the cat who captures your heart, regardless of gender.

Will tell you this--most evil cat we ever had was a female. And my parents had an absolutely horrible male cat (all the grandchildren were terrified of him). And one of my best cats was a male.

You may want to consider this, though. If you think you may want to add a second cat down the road? You'll want one of each (fixed of course). Two females or two males don't get along nearly as well as one of each do. We currently have 2 females and they can barely stand to be in the same room with each other. They don't fight ever, and they rarely hiss (usually only if one surprises the other), but they don't interact or cuddle. When we had a male and female, they were always together, napping with their heads on each other, playing together, roaming the house together. They'd both get into bed with us at night (we've never had 2 females who were willing to share the bed with us and each other).

I think sex matters not at all. It's the personality of the cat and it's previous experiences. My three females get along fine, lay together licking each other. Of course the closer bonded ones are mother and daughter who are always together but they both like the other female. It's the one male who doesn't like the "daughter" cat. Ironically they are two who both need to diet. The other two are perfect weight.

First, azzalea - you brought up a very interesting thing. The male/female bond. I have found that to be very true. I have not ever had two females or two males snuggle and sleep together. (Mine now and others that have come and gone have all been fixed so that has nothing to do with this.) As I watch, also the ones that play together are always mixed sexes. Hmmmm. Our "Ghost" who was found as a kitten in our compost heap by one of our dogs was pregnant and gave birth to 4 kits several years ago. She nursed and then weaned them and we had them all spayed/neutered.

Ghost immediately pushed all of her babies away (sometimes not at all gently) and to this day has nothing to do with any of them. I always felt this was normal - that pushing them away was a way to make them go elsewhere to mate and eliminate in-breeding. What do you think? She is still not friends with any of them. They, however like each other and just keep their distance from her (the witch!).

The cats I have here whether or not they are sibblings tend to snuggle with the opposite sex. This is all anecdotal of course but I have had experience with LOTS of cats in my very long life.