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.

It’s been said that with one sniff, dogs can tell where you’ve been, what you’ve been doing, and your emotional state. While we humans may not have such keen olfactory senses, we do rely on scent to tell us a variety of things, namely whether we should put it in our mouths or flee.

Smells also trigger memories and associations. I never thought it was strange that my mom used to press her nose and lips up against my cheek and inhale forcefully. She once explained that doing so meant she loved me so much that she wanted to rip off a piece of my cheek with her forceful kiss, like a scavenger, gleefully making off with a morsel. It was an acceptable explanation to a six year old. To reciprocate, I’d kiss her back, taking in the smell of her skin, the food that she was cooking, and the particular scent of the laundromat downstairs from our apartment.

The next time I thought about the sniffy kiss happened as my nose was buried in the cheek of a girl I affectionately called “my little bit of Danang.” Danang is a big city in central Vietnam, think Dallas except take 2 feet off everyone’s height. I called her this, because my best friend was also from Danang and always pushing his own hobbit-sized brand. Where was I? Oh yes, still kissing and until this moment, still unconsciously sniffing. The realization of what I was doing struck me as so bizarre that I immediately stopped, and asked her, “Is that strange? The way I kiss you?”

“It’s a little strange, but I don’t mind,” she replied.

Skipping now to present day, my wife tells me that the first time I sniff-kissed her–she wondered, “why is this man snorting on me?” She has since gotten used to my squashing of my nose against her skin and scurrying off with a tasty morsel.

There are too many obstacles in life to blindly gallop at breakneck speed. My wife never learned that lesson.

Her body resembles an anthropological survey of scrapes and scars. I sometimes abruptly recall certain furniture we’ve owned and their precise arrangement with the lucid aid of her bruise cartography. While these haphazard autographs of misery each have their own unique tale of woe, there are a few easily identified elements:

a) the verbal taunt
b) the rapacious lunge
c) the frenetic evasion of furniture and sharp objects
d) the blood-curdling screaming and screeching at the eventual failure of (c)

I suppose my ululating crescendo as I try to grope her ass doesn’t ease the trauma of the situation. In her mind, she must think she’s dodging objects with a spritely dexterity. In reality, I observe a harried conglomeration of arms and legs flailing about as she continuously looks back in my direction while adventurously dashing forward. I call this her “sideways running”. And sure enough, in the next moment, there is a scuffling noise, followed by a forceful thud. Then silence. A bit more silence. Then an unearthly screech fills the air, suffixed by bawling moans of primal tragedy. I rush over to console her, filled with an awkward mixture of concern and stifled laughter. She’s my one and only, and I can’t help but dread the day she proves it.