Why do cats rub against me?

This is not actually affection, when a cat rubs against you, you are basically a big tree or scratching post that occasionally drops food into a bowl and the reality is that in the wild a cat would rub against a tree or post or other similar inanimate object in order to lay claim to a territory. A dog does similar when cocking its leg and so do men in a bar when laying claim to their favourite stool with their pint of beer. A cat has scent patches on the side of its head and near the mouth, down its body and on its tail and also on its footpads; what this means is that as it rubs against you it releases scent on to you and makes you familiar to it. Even though cats are highly independant they are still drawn back to hometerritory and by making you smell like home job done. By rubbing against you they are making you one of the social group.

When checking a territory that a cat has laid claim to previously he will first sniff for a long while at a seemingly innocuous blade of grass to see if any other cats have passed that way and then starting with his mouth he will rub his head, body and tail against it and leave scent to tell other cats and creatures in the area he is there and this is his territory.

Cats have a limited ability to display postures and sound compared to human so have adapted smell to compensate, size for size a cats nose is at least 10 times more powerful than a humans and the part of the brain that translates all the information is also much larger.