Viet Ham

Some women need horses the way they need air, food, or water. If you’re like me and new to equine mania in women, it’s an eye-opening realization when you discover there is nothing figurative about this comparison.

And that’s the secret. Once men realize the intensity and breadth of the relationship between horse and woman, they can better plan for life with a permanent third wheel. Why fight something that won’t go away, right? Instead, men should view this as an opportunity to:

a) Close the deal if she’s trying to figure out your ECI (Equine Compassion Index) score before giving you final approval

b) Learn the lingo, understand the valuation of things in the horse industry, and mitigate the cost of having horses (when was the last time you told a mechanic to “just fix whatever was wrong”?)

c) Comprehend the feminine-equine mind and appreciate its beautiful paradoxes with respect to money, philosophy, and personal hygiene

Horses fill a unique place in a woman’s heart. They straddle the boundaries of best friend, lover, child, and alter ego. Have you ever noticed the sunshine cheer and coquettish delight in a woman’s voice when she speaks to her horse? Go to any horse barn and listen as she lustily calls out:

“Mommy’s here!”
“You’re such a good boy!”
“Who’s been waiting for me all day?”
“Honey, you’re in quite the needy mood today!”
“Does someone need attention?”
“Guess what I’ve got for you…”

How less deadening daily life would be if only men were greeted that way after a day at work? But men can learn to do what horses do effortlessly: help her to associate you with an escapist, therapeutic nirvana, free of complicated people emotions and demands. How to do this? Think of all the things you muse about regarding others and stop those thoughts. While you won’t be able to realistically lower the volume of your human and male needs long term, she’ll appreciate these brief lapses of your male programming. I’m not promising triumphant trumpets the next time you see her, but a little goes a long way in this area.

Of course there’s more to horse appeal than the rejuvenating experience of animal comunication and empathy. There’s the accessories! Horse women love to accessorize their fine steeds. Herein lies the appeal: picture a man completely dependent on a woman for what he wears and have the only sign of his fashion feedback be soft wet kisses. Yes, you’ve just described her ultimate dress up fantasy, and it doesn’t even involve a fashionable gay man.

Did you know there are hundreds of types of bits that go into a horse’s mouth? There’s jointed, hollow mouth, slotted, snaffled, pinchless, to name a few–all crossed with riding style, mouth type, and compatibility with other riding aids. And that’s just the bit for the mouth. There are dozens of other accessories that would put the cosmetics industry to shame with its diverse selection and over-promising of results. In terms of actually riding a horse, all these accessories purport to give the illusion that little to no effort was involved in the display of horse and rider oneness.

What of the costs you might be asking. To put a scale to this, an entry-level “hide it from your trainer and barn buddies” bit is around $50, and fancy custom saddle could cost as much as a cheap horse, around $4000. All brands will obviously rationalize their worth, and horse women would mortgage their homes for the right equipment, so it’s up to you to know the feature set and sound competent while you dissuade her from commiting to eating ramen for a month to afford horse accessories.

One often overlooked cost of loving a horse woman has got to be what I call the “barn look.” To be fair, the outside weather and daily contact with horse manure and mud do contribute to the barn look. While glamorous women in real life, these horse women bundle themselves up until they resemble the Wampa snow beast that wanted to feast on Luke Skywalker in Empire Strikes Back. But even weather aside, horse women regularly demote clothing unfit for public consumption to “barn” status. Barn status also means very irregular wash cycles, because we men innately understand how silly it’d be to wash something only to have it get dirty again. Horse women are the dorm slobs of their sex.

But wait, there’s more. So what happens when you combine layers of tight clothing and hours of strenuous exercise, ankle deep in mud and manure? The barn aroma. This one is good if you have a penchant for really pungent Indian food AND and mulchy armpits. I should probably toss in the words aged and marinated into the mental mixture.

If you still want a horse woman after reading this far, then here is the basic advice.

1) Win over her horse as you would her father
2) Praise her horse and marvel outloud at his eating, whinnying, and pooping abilities
3) Get to know everything horse-related, and prepare to defend why a $500 saddle can be just as good as a $3000 one

Perhaps all this sounds a bit dreadful, but the truth is that women who love horses are loyal, sensitive, passionate, and they are always performing some kind of kegel exercise to improve their riding seat. This can have many benefits if you can get a horse woman away from the barn. Finally, if you love a horse woman, make the best of it. Let’s face it, you are infact the third wheel.

Asian families have very clear, set expectations.

1. Get a prestigious job that makes money and demands respect
2. If you’re male, choose a wife carefully, based on attitude, height, looks, and prospects (in that order) to further and improve the family lineage
3. If you’re female, either shoot for #1 to improve your hand on all the wife criteria before ‘prospects’, or focus on the first three wife requirements if you don’t exhibit the aptitude for #1 by your 5th grade report card or first music recital.
4. If you fail to meet the bar on items 1-3, then “cause no harm” with your life, and lather, rinse, repeat the above expectations with your children.

Notice a trend here? It’s all about children, genetics, and advancement through children. This is where I could have personally run afoul of items 1-3 and still gotten by with some level of familial acceptance were it not for my failure to breed so far.

For my parents, to turn 30 this year and have no breeding plan in sight is unthinkable. It’s further compounded by the fact that I’m the only male heir to my surname in the United States, and that I’ve married a white single mom who, rightly so, may or may not want to have more kids.

I’ve committed genealogical suicide, and have been banished to wander aimlessly in purgatory, otherwise known as the sunshine capital of the world, Seattle. Yet all the pressure to not fail #1-4 has had a rather interesting impact on my psyche.

To wit:

A Dream Last Night

A congregation of white terry cloth robed women moved with a swaying and forthing. Their collective bodies arc’d and yearned towards some figure at the head of a damp community room. I was herded forward by the desperate grappling and shoving of elbows and hips. I was drowning.

Scene changes to a dark room, possibly a cave, where I lay on a sleeping bag covering a bumpy clay-like earth. Laying next to me was Paris Hilton. Strange, since there’s little attraction for me, but she’s the only source of radiance in the dusky squalor of the room. There was nothing of note about what she was wearing, but I couldn’t exactly make out whether she had any clothes on. We started to kiss violently, but darkness drew before the good part was revealed.

Oh no, back at the first room, but the women are all seated, cross-legged. I was seated naked in an office chair, with an erection of a size and girth not seen since the Cretaceous period. I felt like I was crawling up a very tall Greek column–knowing definitely that I would regret letting go. The women didn’t notice me or my ode to a Greek column, and continued to listen attentively to an indistinct, breezy voice. A ratcheting of increasing tension told me that something wanted to be let loose.

It all ended with relief.

But to my dismay, my golden shower had doused nearly every white terry cloth robe in my vicinity with intense yellow streaks. The women turned around and glowered at me in my office chair. I gripped my seat and wished myself out of the dream.