Can’t find a husband? Start clipping Friskies cat food coupons, because according to society you are headed down the road of the ‘cat lady.’

First, single women were called old maids or spinsters. Now, they’re cat ladies.

Single by choice? You’ve just added the word ‘crazy’ to the front of the phrase- Crazy Cat Lady.

If you try googling “cat lady,” sites come up with “How can I be single and own a cat, but not be a cat lady.”

This is what the world has come to. There is an actual fear among younger women of becoming cat ladies.

“’Cat Lady’ is a term thrown around in our culture and people associate it with things that aren’t (as of yet) socially acceptable. People assume that if you’re not coupled up that you’re not happy. Which shouldn’t be the case but it tends to be,” said Sarah Cucullu, a sophomore secondary english education major.

Single women are the most likely individuals to own only cats as pets. Also, cat owners are one-third more likely to live alone than dog owners according to the study, “The Human-Animal Bond,” by Dr. Stanley Coren, from psychologytoday.com.

Even scientific research couldn’t help break the stereotype.

On a more positive note, the study also shows that cat owners are more open than dog people, including “openness about art, emotion, adventure, unusual ideas, imagination, curiosity and variety of experience.”

The dreaded “single-status” is what most people focus on. Not so much the ‘single’ part of it, but the ‘alone’ part.

No one wants to think that they will live alone until their dying day with only a cat as a companion.  Women aren’t in fear of owning cats; they have a fear of what has become associated with it.

“I think girls do actually fear that. We are full of insecurities and the fear of being alone forever and not finding a potential husband is a scary thing,” said Kelsey McClung, a junior kinesiology major.

So where do men draw the line at dating someone who owns cats? How many cats are too many?

“Eight,” said Mark Kerry, a senior biology major. “Eight is just crazy because then there are more animals than I can watch, and she probably smells like a giant cat.”

When cats became associated with women’s love lives is somewhat of a mystery, but it doesn’t look like ‘cat ladies’ are going anywhere.