Watches

Thank you everyone. I appreciate all the comments. I will learn to love all of my watch’s perfect imperfections…and will maybe seek help.

I have to make it vintage somehow.

I have been wearing mechanical watches daily for over ten years, and I am at the point where I am only buying watches I am likely to keep in the long term. Part of that is acknowledging that eventually, they are all going to look quite scratched up. I try to take reasonable care of them, and I keep a Seiko SKX as my "beater" watch for rougher use, but I just don't worry about the daily bumps and bruises because I'm in it for the long haul and they're all gonna get knicked and scratched.

Attempting to keep things 'perfect' was a huge contributor to my anxiety. Granted, I'm already prone to it, but at one point it got so bad, I would avoid driving my truck, for I was anxious about replacing heim joints every 10k miles (dusty off-roading in CO). As someone who loves to wheel and camp, this was really detrimental to me both mentally and physically.

It's a lot easier to live my life when I'm less attached to material things, for it's not them that bring happiness and contentment to me.

I still struggle with perfection, resisting change, and worrying about status quo, but a lot less these days, and I've been much happier for it. I even dinged the crystal pretty good on my daily Orient, and it didn't bother me like it used to.

Mental illness.

It's inevitable unless you spend your life in a padded room. I wear my watches knowing it is going to eventually get a scratch here or there, I still try to be reasonable and wear a g-shock when I am working on my jeep or other things where dings are almost guaranteed.

I used to more self conscious about it, but over time it just became a second nature, when I'm wearing a watch I'll just be naturally more careful without even thinking about it. Thinner watches help, too

I see every mark ont he watch as me making the watch mine. Nobody else's watch has gone through what I have with it. It's mine and mine only. When I build memories while wearing g the watch or have an experience with it on like a holiday or whatnot, it takes on a deeper role as part of what makes me "me". I'm not perfect, I've hurt myself, I've done some fun stuff and some pretty damn amazing stuff. I now see watches on my wrist for those moments just a part of the whole experience. It no longer matters if it gets marked or scratched. That's all just part of the ownership and like a rite of passage to make it mine.

Hardly anyone actually prefers a scratched up watch to a pristine one, so it’s definitely not like you’re wrong to feel that way. But of course, the only way to avoid scratching a watch is to never wear it. The trick is just to accept that it’s gonna happen (and happen again, and again, and…) and try to look at it as getting your money’s worth out of the watch: it’s not a delicate, expensive bauble that you bought to admire—if that’s what you want, you might as well just save your money and drop by the watch dealer and stare at it once in a while—it’s a thing you own and wear and use. Anytime you use anything, it’s gonna leave a mark, both metaphorically and literally.

It is worth keeping in mind when buying a watch, though. Whenever I see a beautiful, gleaming watch with all polished surfaces and wide steel bezels, I remind myself, “this watch will look like that for a month, tops.” Before you buy a watch, maybe check out used watch listings and see if you still like it when it’s been banged up a bit. Because yours will look like that eventually. Does it still look good? Do the scratches and dings give it “character,” or does it just look like a beat-up watch?

Nicks and dings gives character.

It’s just a part of owning you have to live with. Because to keep it perfect you can’t wear it and and you have to because that’s the purpose of a watch. The bright side is that now that you have already scratched it you can get over the unbearable pain of dinging your watch! 😭

This is also a big problem for me. I hardly ever damage a watch, this happened probably 3-4 times in over 20 years of accumulating expensive watches.

Two times I sold the watch (Rolex GMT Master 2 in steel) and bought the same watch again, one time I got the case laser repaired (Rolex Daytona in steel) and one time I got the whole case replaced (Blancpain Fifty Fathoms in titanium, which is more or less not repairable, it was sent to Switzerland to try to repair it).

Over the years I have changed when I wear what kind of watch. When I wear short sleelves I only wear ceramic, Carbotech (Panerais) and gold (precious metal is easy to repair) watches so mostly throughout the summer. In winter I switch to my steel watches.