That should be the “scenting ability”.
Hmm, I don’t think the sex of the cats matters too much. It seems to be the individual cat’s personalities blend is most important.
Our oldest cat is a male. Whether he gets along with the other male cats depends on how he feels about the cat. We adopted a ginger kitten that he was pretty affectionate towards. They’ll clean each other and generally get along.
Later we adopted an older stray adult fixed female. Neither of the males got along with her. They didn’t fight, but they never became friends before she passed away.
Later we adopted a teenage kitten who got fixed shortly afterward. The oldest DID NOT get along with him. If they saw each other, it was eventually going to be on. Sometimes the oldest started it, sometimes the teenage kitten started it. We eventually found a new home for the teenage kitten, where he got along wonderfully with the existing female teenage kitten in the house. That cat didn’t seem to have any problems with the other two cats in our house, it was just the oldest he didn’t get along with.
Even later we adopted two feral kittens, a male and a female. Now they’re both about a year and half old. The oldest would usually rather not deal with them, but he’s fine with them for the most part. He’ll play with them and sometimes groom them a little, but he normally avoids them. The ginger cat has been great with them, acting like he’s their parent. He seems to like the female more than he likes the male, but he grooms and sleeps with them both.
I would add a warm dry place to sleep.
Yeah, some of my cats are very affectionate.
People eat the dead corpses of dogs they loved when they have no other food. At least, that’s what i gather from stories of arctic expeditions. I imagine if i dropped dead and my cats were locked in the house with nothing to eat but my corpse they would eat it. That doesn’t mean they don’t feel affection for living me.
I have four cats. Three of them are affectionate and like my company. One always greets me when i come home, and really enjoys a nice cuddle session. One tries to sit in my lap all day long. Another wants to be held and cuddled and carried on my shoulder. We only feed them twice a day, they aren’t expecting me to feed them when they come up and ask for attention.
Except the old lady. She only purrs at me when she wants to be fed. But even she used to like having someone near her when she ate, until she went senile and deaf.
Sounds just perfect.
Our 16 year old lady cats mostly stay out of each other’s way, but will fight once in a while. Their dog does not like it when they fight. One sometimes doesn’t want to eat in the same room as the other due to a history of attempted food stealing, but will happily eat a couple feet from where the dog is napping. We’ve had a couple of cats who have gotten a long better with whatever dog we had at the time.
Yeah, my first cat resented his litter mates getting anywhere close to me.
My second kitty almost died of happiness when I brought home my third. From the instant he saw her he was all “my friend! I have a friend! Let’s play!!” until she adjusted and decided he was, in fact, her friend. They were inseparable until his death about 7 years later.
Just to summarize this thread so far
With a total of 27 posts,
–5 have suggested getting a female companion
–Zero have suggested getting a male
–5 have suggested “either”, because sex doesnt matter, it’s the personality of the cat.
–And 17 have told miscellaneous stories about pets, shelter regulations, sex, prosthetic testicles, and starving deer.
I’ll add another miscellaneous story. We had two cats, and lost one of them. The other seemed lonely, and we adopted a new cat. The old cat never did warm to that cat, and while they grew to tolerate each other, it didn’t really feel like it had been a win.
We currently have four cats. It happened accidentally. (The last two were supposed to be temporary fosters, until their owners were able to take them back. Both owners tragically failed to do so.) Four is too many, imho. I think three is a much better number. I think 2-3 is ideal.
Rather than adopting one more cat, consider getting a pair of kittens. Kittens who already like each other.
It probably won’t be any harder then integrating one new cat, and might be easier. The kittens, at least, will have social companions, and your old lady might (or might not) also enjoy having company. When one eventually dies, you’ll still have two.
I believe you have flipped the genders here 
.
All things being equal I’d personally default to a neutered male kitten, but in truth it’s still a coin flip. Cats can often be very social with other cats, probably more often than not. But that’s can. Some just aren’t. Some only are with certain individuals. It’s a hard thing to predict.
Oops! My mistake.
Years ago I had a female kitten, and a friend asked if I could take in an older male cat they had rescued from the street. Of course I said yes, if they could have it neutered first. So they brought the newly fixed cat over. My kitten was overjoyed to have a playmate, but the male cat’s reaction was “leave me alone” and kept pushing her away. Then I realized that the kitten had possibly gone into heat, possibly triggered by the presence of a male cat, even though neutered. So she went to the vet, and eventually they became friends.
In my experience, cats all have very different personalities, and whether a new cat will get along with an existing cat is a complete crap shoot. Getting a new “friend” might result in best buddies, or might result in complete enemies who can’t even be together in the same room.
Whether the new cat is male or female doesn’t seem to matter too much in my experience. Just make sure that if it’s male that it gets neutered as soon as possible, otherwise he may pee everywhere to mark his territory.
Out of all of the cats we had over the years, only two brothers out of the same litter were really friends. The others tolerated each other and we didn’t have any issues at feeding time, or at any other time, but the brothers were the only “friends”.
I know two other households where the new cats never got along with the existing cats. In one, the cats have to be fed in separate rooms and pretty much completely avoid each other. In the other, the cats can at least be fed in the same room, but there is a lot of peeing and marking of territory, to the point where the cats have be locked in a cage at night to minimize their damage to the house. The female cats are also involved in the peeing and marking of territory. When not feeding, the cats tend to stay on separate floors of the house, so none of them are “friends”.
YCMV (your cats may vary).
I once had two cats i adopted as kittens, thinking kittens would need company and make friends. Those two cats never liked each other. They could be fed in the same room, but i had to keep the food dishes farther apart than either could reach.
One of them grew up in a colony that never had enough food, and he would guard both food dishes and prevent the other from eating if he could.
The four cats i currently have get along well, and honestly, despite feeling bad about the situations of the cats, we wouldn’t have kept either foster if they hadn’t integrated well into the family.
It’s always a crapshoot. My current cat is about 19 1/2 (and probably down to his last week or two, poor guy) and when I got him he was a very friendly whirling dervish of a stray about 12 weeks old and I quickly realized he could use a playmate to burn off the energy. So I went to the local Humane Society and specifically asked for the most blasé, easy-going kitten they thought they had. They gave me an older kitten they used to “cat test” new dogs to the shelter, supremely unconcerned about anything. It worked - they were a good pair for about 14 years until that one passed away from complications from a congenital heart defect.
I think two is almost always better than one, especially with kittens and if everybody works outside the home. But it doesn’t always work out. The previous two I had in my twenties/thirties were acquired separately years apart when a full-grown stray assertively moved herself into my apartment and they never more than barely tolerated each other.
Does the new friend have to be another cat? Last year we adopted a male kitten who was (and still is) extremely playful, but our existing female cat did not receive him enthusiastically and still doesn’t interact with him much. A few months ago we took on a rescue ferret with whom the male cat immediately bonded. They’re now inseparable and play together constantly. (The female cat also likes the new ferret, having grown up with two of them, but doesn’t play with him quite as much.)
I’ll say it too “it’s always a crapshoot”.
You takes your chances.
I have a bro-sis pair Siamese. They love love love each other. Til they don’t. It happens occasionally.
They cost so much money I will put up with, tolerate, buy expensive food and China dishes, anything they choose to do. You would not belive what we do to be able to live here with those two. They won’t do! At. All.
My ‘universal cat delivery cats’, the two garage cats, one barn cat are not fighters. I believe Cat (barn cat) would fight a tiger if it became necessary. But she’s mostly the “leave me be, no don’t pet me” type.
Sometimes cats acquired at separate times can indeed be best buddies, though it’s always easier to introduce new ones as kittens. Below are five of mine, all neutered boy cats, gone now, only two of whom were related: Teddy (of the trio Eddy, Teddy, and Freddy), Schooner, then brothers Squash and Pumpkin, and finally Peanut. Late in his life Peanut developed thyroid disease and turned surly toward the other cats.
I love a Pile o’ Orange cats! ( one oddball, I see)
Thank you, you’ve cheered me up with your photo. 
There is no need to change the traditional acronym. You can still use:
YMMV.
Because in kitty threads, it stands for :
Your Meowing May Vary.
