My cat likes to sit on the back of the TV stand in the bedroom and stare at me while I’m on the computer. She’ll sit there for 20-30 minutes at a time and just stare at me (rarely blinking even!).
What’s the deal?
He’s trying to tell you he needs new contacts. But seriously, what are you doing staring at him? You wouldn’t know if he was staring at you if you weren’t staring at him . 
Felix and I have staring contests all the time. It seems like cats hold stares longer than dogs do from my experience. They are reading your personality so that they may take advantage of your weaknesses. One day they will rule the world.
He’s waiting to see if you’re going to die before you go to bed. He doesn’t want to fill his tummy with the usual evening snack of dry Meow Mix if there’s going to be a major new source of gooshymoist yummies soon…
He is trying to hypnotize you, so you will spend every moment, every last penny, on His Majesty the Cat. As you should, lowly human.
Dogs won’t hold a stare with you if they believe you’re above them in their pack hierarchy. In the wild, dogs and wolves use staring as a test of social status – if two dogs meet and stare at each other, the first to break the stare is the lower in the social order. Most pet dogs consider all the human members of their pack to be above them (since they are larger and provide the dog with food, as dominant dogs do in the wild), although sometimes they might consider themselves equal to or above small children. A few dogs feel that they are dominant over their owners, which causes trouble with disobedience, although most of these dogs can be trained to accept a new social position.
You shouldn’t stare at an unfamiliar dog, because they may feel that you are trying to intimidate them, and they may feel that they are above you (or at least become aggressive since you aren’t a member of their pack). If you have a dog, you shouldn’t stare at them for no reason, as they may feel intimidated or think they’ve done something wrong. Even as part of obedience training, there are better ways to enforce a dog’s social position.
Cats do not have a pack social behavior in nature; they generally hunt alone. They don’t consider a stare to be a test of their status, and they’ll stare at you if they feel like staring at you, or at a wall if they feel like staring at a wall.
My cats deny that they are staring at me. They say that they are looking at something interesting on the other side of the room, and I just happened to be in the way. They are staring through me.
Or so they say.
Roches: Thanks, I didn’t know that. It explains why after a long stare the dog will either snarl at me or slink away with his or her head down.
Kitties stare at me because I’m a cat magnet.
Why did all the ladies love Frank Perdue?
Because he was a chick magnate!
Sorry… 
Boo hiss, Dude.
oftentimes they’re communicating stunned disbelief at my own idiocy, other times they just want me to feed them
my problem is I have a hard time tlling the difference
My kitties say that even if you feed yours when they’re really communicating stunned disbelief, they’ll be just fine. 
Umm… I have heard otherwise. Cats can find a stare very intimidating. Maybe this is just from strangers, as I have found my own cats will stare and can be stared at without bother. However, a cat will often do that slow half-close and re-open of the eyes during the stare. This apparently means “chill out, O two-legged one. I come in peace”. This has been explained as the reason why , if two strangers are sitting on their host’s sofa and a cat enters the room, it will jump onto the lap of the person who hates cats: the cat lover will be cooing “here kitty kitty” noises and making direct eye contact ( an unintentional threat), and the cat hater will have turned his head away (an unintentional gesture of non-aggression).
"Hmmm…he is bigger than me, there’s no question about it. But he’s got no claws whatsoever, just those wussy little ‘fingernail’ things. And I’ve seen his teeth–they aren’t anything much. He’s also slow, and kind of clumsy; I can quite literally run rings around him.
Yeah…I could take him if I wanted to."
A cat may look at a king.
Pretty much. Or, “I just know she’s going to drop that Dorito any time now. Oh, man, I can hardly wait. Maybe if I get up in her lap and purr, she’ll just give me one. The monkeys* love that purring stuff.”
*=us, of course
Whin bing starred at by kat, its best to opin kan of sammon and place at the katz fete…
VIRA! What are you doing on my keyboard!?
I usually just stare right back. Most of the time, they’ll just close their eyes slowly-almost as if they’re rolling their eyes in disgust.
Buffy, however, will start to cry if I stare at her, as if to say, “What do you want?”
They’re trying to figure out how to steal your soul and swap it for tuna. When this breakthrough occurs, humanity beware!