According to an article at WaPo, your cat really is indifferent to you. Genetic studies show that all “domestic” cats are descended from a single subspecies of wildcat indigenous to the Middle East. It is surmised that cats began hanging around with humans when humans started storing grain and attracting rodents. Cats followed agricultural practices into other parts of the Old World. Apparently the New World lacked wildcats, and the closest thing would have been a Catamount, something a little too scary to have around as a mouser.
Without the rodents, the cats would have no incentive to hang out with humans and to let humans be their servants. Cats have domesticated humans, in my opinion, and every housecat would gladly rip out its human servants’ throats if it could figure out how to operate a can opener.
An implication of the findings not explored in the article is that agriculture spread by diffusion from the Middle East to the rest of the Old World and that it did not develop independently in South Asia or the Far East. Otherwise, local farm cats would be descended from local subspecies of wildcat.
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