The mask slips

I lurked for a few years before I ever made my first comment on a watch forum. I wasn’t sure that, even anonymously, I wanted to be outed as a watch nerd. Now I comment all of the time and even include enough biographical information that you could find me and punch me in the mouth if you so desired.

My comments tend to be of two types: informational “get it out of my head before it explodes” types of exposition, and quick jokes. Sometimes my jokes are good spirited, sometimes I just try to make them seem that way. You see, I am really not temperamentally meant for forums. I do not play well with others. It has always been this way.

For me, a truly great forum would not appeal to the lowest common denominator, the hoi poloi of the watch collecting world. We would have informed discussions and disagreements. We would occasionally throw an elbow. But I don’t make the rules and I must take them as I find them.

This little place was meant for the type of post or comment that I cannot make in other places without setting someone’s hair on fire or hurting feelings. I have been getting increasingly grumpy recently and decided to blow off some steam. I can’t say some of this, or at least in this way, elsewhere. So, I will say it here.

1. I don’t care what watch you should buy. Don’t ask me. I don’t know you. Do you wear suits to work, jeans, kilts? Do you hike or just sit in front of a computer? I would have to know the answer, and more importantly, I would have to care that it fit you. Sorry, I don’t have the bandwidth for all of that.
2. Don’t buy what you like. That is stupid unthinking advice. It is a cliché. It takes the place of where an actual thought should be. It sounds wise without being so. Find something that interests you and be able to articulate why it interests you. As you tell a toddler: “use your words.” There must be an actual thought behind a purchase, otherwise you just go from sugar high to sugar high.
3. Please never let the words “is this watch too small?” ever pass your lips or be typed by you. It is not too small. It is never too small. We are not giants. If you can read the time it is large enough. (Caveat: vintage women’s watches are often too small to be proper watches. They are really just bracelets anyway.)
4. Conversely, if the thought occurs to you: “Is this watch too large for me?” It is. To ask the question is to answer it. I can’t wear anything that approaches 50mm lug to lug. I know what my limits are. Yours may be different. But, you know. You know.
5. The world is not Instagram. I have Instagram. I don’t do Instagram. Watch forums are not Instagram. Just like I don’t care what you ate for breakfast, if you treat a watch forum like any other social media every post will be “Look, Shiny Thing.” That gets so boring. I like looking at watches. I want to know about them. I can just Google for images of any given watch if just want to look at it. I want to know what the experience of owning and wearing may be. Does the company have an interesting approach to watch making or history?
6. Don’t use the word “honeymoon” to describe a recent purchase. It makes you sound shallow and it devalues the relationship between you and the person with which you once may have had a honeymoon. Relatedly, if you say “I can’t take this off of my wrist” my impulse response is to say “Yes, you can. Just unfasten the clasp, you moron.”
7. Did you just buy a watch? Do you like it? Please don’t write anything that passes as a watch review without understanding the basic concept of “confirmation bias.” You may wind up giving a glowing review of a watch that you will sell in less than a year.
8. When I hear someone telling us that this or that Tudor is the perfect tool watch I hear a sound that is similar to that of a drunk convincing himself that he is good to drive.
9. There never is a sufficient reason to own multiple Casio. They are cheap and aggressively ugly.

Well, that’s enough ranting for now. See, those are judgments. They are opinions. I am often wrong.

Some people avoid conflict. I run to it. Convince me that I am wrong, and I will change my mind. In the meantime, get off of my lawn.