My wife loves Daniel Wellington... AKA, how I added the GS SBGW289 to my personal collection

Back in April of 2022, GS announced the manual wind, 3-hand, no-date SBGW289.  

With a diameter of only 36.5mm, I thought it would make the perfect watch for my wife.  I thought, maybe, since I’d gotten bitten by the GS bug, I could get her somehow interested, and voila, we could share a fun hobby together…  because I sure as sh*t ain't gonna do gardening, or get into birding, or collect rare books or paintings, or any of the other things she does!

The only problem is that she’d stopped even wearing watches until very recently - she just used her phone to tell the time, like any sane human being would.  She said, “Oh, yeah, I did have a watch that I really liked a lot, but the battery died, and I never got around to getting the battery changed.”  She rummaged through her nightstand, and pulled this out…

My reaction…

I then proceeded to lecture her on high horology, and busted out the laptop to show her photos of “acceptable” watches.  Unfortunately, everything i brought to her attention, she immediately rejected outright, laughing at how such ugly watches could be so expensive.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gaiFsgeO1k

Clearly she was a benighted muggle.  Nothing I showed her appealed to her.  “Why are women’s watches so blingy?  I just want something minimalist,” she said.

I went off and applied my Google-fu for hours on end, coming up with 18 different “minimalist” options, every one of which would receive the watch nerd community’s Good Housekeeping Stamp of Approval.  One after the other, she rejected them out of hand.  All except for the Linjer…

“Yeah, that one’s okay,” she said.  “It’s the one that looks closest to the Daniel Wellington.”

So, I dutifully ordered it for her.  And, when it arrived, she gladly put it on her wrist and began wearing a watch again…  just to please me.

Nonetheless, I still couldn’t live with this outcome.  So, I ordered the SBGW289 for her.  And when it arrived, she said she loved it!

End of story.

...

No, not even close.  She kept rotating between the Linjer and the GS.  When I asked her which she really preferred, she demurred, but said, “Well, it’s incredible how much more accurate the GS is.  Every morning, I have to reset the Linjer.  It’s always running like a couple minutes fast.”

I just figured that was due to being Daniel Wellington-adjacent.  Suckitude causes a watch to suck at keeping time!

So, for nearly a year, my wife had been dutifully wearing the GS, until Valentine’s Day this year rolled around.  My 9 year-old and I were at the mall, and she said that she wanted to go to a jewelry store.  I said, “What?  You want to get some jewelry?”  She said, “No, I want to look at diamond rings, and use my allowance to get mom something for Mother’s Day.”  It was February, and she was already planning out the gift months in advance!  We went to Cartier, and the cheapest diamond ring they had in the entire store was something like $4,000.  When the sales associate told my daughter how much the ring cost, I could see her eyes almost bulge out of her head.  When we left the store, she said, “Dad, one day I’m going to become a billionaire, and buy whatever I want from that store.”  

We went to another jeweler’s and found an emerald ring for $300.  “Mom will love it,” my daughter said.  “It’s green, and that’s her favorite color.”  So we came up with a plan to go 50/50 on the ring for Mother’s Day.  But, my wife’s preferences can be truly inscrutable, so when we got home, I told her about our daughter’s wonderful gesture, and my wife said sheepishly, “That is so sweet of her.  But, I don’t like emeralds at all!”  I told her, “No problem, I’ll find a way to let her know that we’ll find you something else for Mother’s Day.”  At that point, my wife said, “Well, you know, it’s funny, but there was a ring I was looking at, but it’s ridiculous.”  I said, “Oh, really?”  She said, “Yeah, it has this flower design from Liberty.  But, I’d honestly rather save my money for rare books.”  

So, I went into the study and used my Google-fu, and discovered that it was this ring that she was looking at.  

My daughter and I ordered it for her.  3 days later, it arrived, we surprised her with it, and when she put it on, she was SOOOOOOO HAPPY.  I mean, this was something that she WOULD NEVER have gotten for herself, but that clearly she really, really, really liked.

And when I saw how much she really loved the ring, it made me realize that SHE’D LIED TO ME ABOUT LOVING THE SBGW289!!!  She didn’t love it.  She was totally lying through her teeth, just to please me!

When I confronted her about her perfidious dissembling, she broke down and admitted as much.  You know which watch she did really like?  Yup.  You guessed it.  The Daniel Wellington.  I was resigned to buying her another one.

“Well, the Linjer is great.  It’s the perfect watch.  But, it just runs too fast.  If it actually kept time, and I didn’t have to adjust it every morning, I would wear it.”

I had something to admit to her too.  “Baby, it’s magnetized is all.  I can order a $10 thing off Amazon and demagnetize it in like 30 seconds.  The only reason I hadn’t done so before was because I wanted the inaccuracy to force you to wear the GS instead.”

$10 and 2-day Amazon Prime free shipping later...

... my wife has the Daniel Wellington homage watch that she loves, and I now have added the GS SBGW289 to my personal watch rotation.

Is it okay that my wife loves Daniel Wellington?  Or is it finally time?

Is it okay for me to wear such a tiny watch?  Pink, no less?  What is the meaning of life?  And how many sentient AI can fit on the head of a needle?