2023-01-11 On wearing 2 watches at the same time

The comments so far

"Wait bro are you actually wearing two watches? Oh my god pick one."

"This guy wearing two watches!"

"How do you wear two watches? Just read the time on the Apple Watch."

"Ah, well you are the real master of redundancy."

I'll add that none of those comments were said in a mean or judgmental way. Indeed, the commenters seemed more surprised that I was somehow wearing and using two watches.

So I thought I would write a post to explain the rationale.

When COVID hit, what to do when it comes to watches...

I recall a time when I was around 30 something days into lockdown in Melbourne. Certainly wasn't anywhere close to the 200 something day lockdown that it turned into - at one point this was even a world record. I remember I was putting out an expression of interest for the Rolex 114060 Submariner in black, without the date window. I recall e-mailing the salesperson, that yes, watches are meant to be worn. I remember I then came in person and thought, "well yeah, even though I am at home most of the time, I still intend on wearing my watches, even if it means at my own desk." He shook his head in agreement.

As one can probably tell, I am someone that is somewhat old-fashioned when it comes to the old tried-and-true methods. There is truly nothing that can replace the simplicity, beauty, and function of the analog watch. Thus, I make it a goal to wear an analog watch daily, no matter where I am. Barring of course the strange circumstance such as, "Oh yeah I just feel like wearing the steel G-Shock today."

Update as of 2023-01-11. The watch store unfortunately never got back to me on that expression of interest. Of course, the store was more incentivized to sell to their much more VIP clientele.

But why 2 watches you say?

I recall one of the days, it was around the start of COVID. 2020-03. I decided, "Hey why not just wear 2 of my nicest watches to this super high-end Japanese restaurant in Melbourne." So I ended up doing exactly that. It was truly such a power outfit. Nice blazer, a nice shirt, and a Panerai PAM351, and the Rolex 6694. These were gifted to me under special occasions. It was certainly the first time I decided to wear 2 watches "for the lols." Of course, there are many things in life I decide to do "for the lols." Such as medical school. Just kidding.

Well, eventually there came a time when I truly had to end up wearing 2 watches to live up to my promise of at least wearing one nice watch daily. I bought an Apple Watch. This is detailed in another post.

When one wears an Apple Watch, one actually more or less has a small computer on one's wrist. There is so much information that can be obtained from this watch, and a relatively high amount of function. Is it even really a watch then? I'm not sure. Because I sure as hell was not using it for the time, even though there are many different watch faces. I set my watch face into a modular display with information, and found that I wasn't using it as much. So I then matched the watch face with the color scheme and timezone of the Rolex 126710BLNR that I normally wear. And I ended up not reading the Melbourne timezone from the Apple Watch, but instead from the Rolex. So I then switched to the Rolex 126610LN Submariner date, black. The diver stopwatch function was quite useful actually.

Point being, I really don't use the Apple Watch for timekeeping. Instead, the timekeeping function is left to my actual non-Apple Watch.

The wearability of 2 watches

Interestingly, one gets used to this very quickly. Sure, it's 2 extra shirt cuffs to wear. And perhaps 1 more extra wrist to strap on a watch to. But this just becomes part of the morning and getting home routine of putting on the watch and taking off the watch, respectively. I see absolutely no problems with this. Unless one suddenly argues that a watch tan on both wrists is indicative of a weird person. But I think the world already knew I was weird when I decided to wear 2 watches.

All in all, it has been very enjoyable to wear 2 watches for the past 2-3 months. I certainly will not be looking back at that decision in a bad or strange light. Well, maybe strange, but certainly very me, and how it is reflective of how I choose to operate.