#so i switched to petting his sides bc i know he doesnt like his belly touched

[theygender]

I know it's been said before that a lot of the reasons people say they don't like cats just boil down to them not understanding cat body language, but that really is the case huh. "Cats are mean, they roll over for belly rubs and then attack you when you try to pet them!" Well okay, for dogs rolling over means they want belly rubs. But for cats, rolling over can mean one of three things:

I trust you to pet my belly

I trust you NOT to pet my belly

I want to play! Give me something to swat at!

If they mean the first one (it's rare but some cats do like belly rubs from trusted humans) then petting them will be fine

But if they mean the second one, if they're just rolling over to be more comfortable and trusting you to respect their personal space when they do so, then petting their belly is likely to make them feel offended or betrayed. And depending on their personality some cats might react to this invasion of personal space and betrayal of trust by scratching or biting the offending hand

If they mean the third one and the thing you offer them is your hand instead of a cat toy... They're going to try to play with your hand. And that unfortunately involves claws and teeth. You wouldn't offer your hand to a dog as a chew toy, would you?

And the thing is that there's really not a way to tell which of these three things a cat means unless you get to know them and understand their personality. Bc of this, the safest course of action when dealing with unfamiliar cats is to just avoid touching their bellies when they roll over. (And with familiar cats, avoid touching their bellies if you know they're likely to react with teeth and claws. This part should be common sense.) But some people would rather just assume that all animals operate like dogs and then get mad when cats operate like... Well. Cats