A word of warning

The bug of mechanical watches has likely bitten everyone reading this, but I’ll say what I have to say anyways.

I am a hopeless romantic. I have tried doing many things the old-fashioned way, which is nine times out of ten harder, more expensive, requires more effort, or a combination of these. I have largely abandoned ballpoint pens in favour of fountain pens, which, from my experience, is not only more fiddly but also more expensive. Sure, using one fountain pen for a few years will likely pay itself off and eventually become cheaper than using cheap, disposable ballpoints. That will take a while, because my Pilot Metropolitan is ninety-six times the cost of those orange plastic Bics that everyone around me uses.

It took me a while to truly appreciate a good pen. No, it doesn’t make me score higher marks or spill Shakespearen sonnets onto my page. Do I believe that it makes what I write correct? Yes. It’s my default response for when people ask me why I spent so much on a pen. Now it’s not like the Pilot Metropolitan is something one goes into debt for, but then again, it is ninety-six times what a regular pen costs. Is it ninety-six times better? No. It doesn’t write as smooth on low-quality paper, it splatters ink around if you drop it, the nib will definitely bend if you drop it on a hard floor tip-down and the ink, in cartridge form at least, doesn’t last too long.

Alfa Romeo is the same in this regard. They’re gorgeous cars, especially in red, and the three-litre Busso V6 makes a sound better than the majority of symphonic orchestras out there.

I can’t even look at the front of one of these cars, because I get sexually excited.

Jeremy Clarkson, Top Gear season 11 episode 3

And is he wrong? Sure, the GTV pictured above is an acquired taste, but if this Alfa doesn’t get you going, they have one that will. I mean, come on, some of these might even make you forget that this blog is actually about watches.

This is why we like mechanical watches. I think it’s the reason deep down in our hearts, even if our lips deny it. Mechanical watches are pain. Willingly buying a used Alfa Romeo is like playing Russian Roulette with a semi-automatic pistol. Owning a fountain pen is great fun until the moment you watch your precious writing instrument slip from your hands and onto a tiled floor. Owning a mechanical watch is soulful and lovely until it starts running terribly or needs work. My vintage Oris used to run ten minutes ahead a day. Would you like to hazard a guess as to whether it stopped me from wearing it?

We love imperfect things, whether we admit it or not. People are imperfect. Imperfection is the only thing that has the potential to give character. Character can be annoying sometimes, especially if a watch decides to stop in the middle of the day for no discernible reason whatsoever.

So, here’s to imperfection. We all have skeletons in our closets. We all have some cringy memories locked away. Let’s all embrace the inaccuracy of our watches and the daftness of our other hobbies, because the layman won’t understand. Let’s take a metaphorical drive into the sunset in an Alfa Romeo, with the oil pressure gauge suddenly dropping to zero, pen ink on our shirts and watches that guarantee that we will be late to wherever we are going.

Here’s something funny that happened after I wrote this: I dropped my Pilot Metropolitan onto a tiled floor and bent the nib. I bent it back and it writes perfectly fine. What are the odds…