GearBits

My Love-Hate Relationship with Watches

I love watches and I hate watches. They can be so beautiful and so useful, yet I detest the discomfort and inconvenience I experience when wearing a watch.

I really like the look of a fine watch. The combination of form and function is alluring -- aesthetic and pragmatic appeal in a single package. Brilliant. However, I found out long ago that wearing a watch bothers me when I type, which I seem to do at an increasing frequency with each passing year. Also, while I generally am able to keep watches in good working order, I'm constantly afraid that a stray smack on a desk corner or an accidental dousing in water will turn my timepiece into so much chronojunk.

I know I'm not alone in this love-hate relationship. I know many other computer users have no similar problem with watch discomfort, but running into someone with the same complaint is fairly frequent as well.

So, for the time being, I will continue to hold out for those retinal projections I keep reading about in William Gibson novels -- you know, the ones where you can pop up the time or temperature or some other bits of information directly on your optical nerve. Definitely better than a watch...definitely...