In which I am a bad lesbian...

Until four years ago, I had never thought about having cats. I never had pets when I was growing up. Besides, I lived in a studio apartment that was too small for cats. Then, Kelly and I decided to live together. She had two cats and explained that if I wanted to live with her they were coming along too. It was a bit of an adjustment, but after a while I got used to having them around and even became somewhat fond of them. However, we had an agreement that someday, after the cats died, I would have the opportunity to live in a cat-free household again if I wanted to.

This past February, we lost Morgan LeChat (the big orange guy in my userpic). So now we just have Maura, who is 12 or 13 and has never been an only cat. Kelly and I are both pretty sure that she would be happier with another cat around. Kelly is almost ready to adopt one, so long as he's not orange. I'm having a hard time. I basically like cats, but not necessarily enough that I need to have them at home. When I go away for a few days to someplace without cats, I enjoy the absence of cats and cat hair and cat smells and cat food batted around the kitchen floor. It makes me unhappy that our friends who have allergies can't enjoy visiting our home. So if it were just about me and Kelly, we wouldn't get another cat. On the other hand, I'm a basically compassionate person and letting Maura be lonely and unhappy doesn't seem very good either. The problem is that if we adopt a cat now, we could be responsible for it for another 5-10 years and that's a big commitment to make reluctantly. I have no idea what to do.

[Edit: If we got a cat, it would be an older cat, probably 7-10 years old.]