Is the emotional connection to watches real?

You are not wrong.

My only watch that I have an emotional attachment to is one I've had for 40 years. It was my 18th birthday present from my mum and dad, a birth year watch that I've warn to both their funerals and my weddings. I've worn it to the birth of 4 out of five of my children using it to time the contractions as well as time of birth. If you can have an attachment to a wedding ring you can certainly have an attachment to a watch.

Maybe I’m dead inside hahaha.

I think it’s the same as understanding how a car “feels” and drives.

I feel the same with watches. They’re some things attached to a watch that will never make me get rid of it.

I have this terrible diesel watch I will never wear again, but I keep it as it’s a reminder when I was younger trying to “prove” myself to the world. ( hence why I needed a monstrous watch lol)

I think this will be different for everyone. But when it comes to watches, I know most on here will agree with me and understand that they “feel” a certain way with a watch they love.

And that’s what makes it so special

Now that I can totally understand. If it is one watch you have been wearing most of your life.

But if you are buying a new watch and you intend to make memories with it, that's what i find weird ..

I also have a couple of those. They became important unintentionally. It's more like TGV once said in a video: he took a trip to Italy with his new Panerai and now he can never sell it because he has this memory attached to it. That I think is stupid and kinda forced.

You need a one watch collection 🤔

I do think about that more often lately... But it's hard. 😁

I think 95% of the "emotional connection" fluff is people rationalizing having spent thousands of dollars on trinkets.

I get it, we all want to pretend that we are rational beings who make rational decisions...

The only objects I have an emotional connection to are some bits of metal on the ends of ribbons. While I like my watches, none of them matter to me in any way.

I just like mine so much. Who needs a connection.

I think it's a fair statement to say that we have a connection with some watches and not with others. Same with cars, as fellow gearheads can attest.

The people who don't are heartless and dead inside like flesh robots, but that's okay.

Lol, just read @The_Xcalibur's post after posting mine. 😂

I think you can be attached to a watch…but the creepy Hodinkee cult wierd fetishization is a bit much….

I have my Grandads pocket watch, I'm emotionally attached to that. Grandad is a relative term ( pun intended😁)

Some of you will have living grandparents, mine however was even born in the last century. He scraped in with the previous one, 1899. He was a railway guard, apparently he used it at work. If I hold it, I see him.

Damn can't edit it.

Should have read. "Mine was NOT even born in the last century"

I don't get it either. I have a watch that I bought 46 years ago and actually had it restored a few years ago. Not for the memories, but because it's a cool old watch. The resoration was mostly cosmetic althought I had the movement serviced even though it was keeping time OK. I just thought that after 46 years it was due. But I won't shed a tear when it gives up the ghost completely. The memories will still be there and the watch had nothing to do with any of them. I just happened to be wearing it at the time. YouTube and forums in general tend to get a bit dramatic at times. Like watches having souls, being miniature works of art, or mirrors into the past and present, or quiet nights by the fireplace or walks on the beach.

Bro! I'm definitely DEAD inside LOL!!! I don't have any emotional attachments to almost anything 😂🤣😆

I have a watch with a emotional conection, and it's a negative one. I want to get rid of it.

Yes, to your last question. For me, it’s more about how i get the item or if a significant things happens to it, rather than what i am wearing when things happen, unless that is a relevant factor for whatever reason.

Yeesh. That really sucks, mate. Was it your Explorer?

Yeah it was ( is) and now that the subject has come up tonight on this thread it did make me realize that for a while that watch felt like a burden, but all that is long past and now I just enjoy it as the beautiful thing that I had wanted for a while and finally got. I do appreciate it much more now than ever

One thing is being connected to the watch and being reminded by certain occasions/memories but if essentials were jeopardized I would sell them all in a heartbeat.

I only wear one watch, at all times. It's the only object that's with me every day, all day, does not matter if it's winter, summer, if I'm working in the field or in the office or hiking.

So yeah, there is some connection to this object, but when it breaks I won't cry and my life won't change because of it, I'll replace it with another similar or same object.

What is observed lately is this culture of "forcing a memory on a watch". Like people go to vacation and they spend a significant amount of time taking photos of their wrists in order to "have a substantial story attached to the watch". Like dude, take a photo of your wife and have a substantial memory with her.

No people are always complicating their lives then trying to justify their actions . psyche 101 …

It simply depends upon the individual. What may be emotional connection to one might not be to another. To some it is real, to some not. I think that is the best way to put it.

Maybe it's more of a me too thing. Someone watches a YouTube video on the subject and thinks, you know, I have a watch I attached to and couldn't sell and then it grows. I have to agree with The_Xcalibur, maybe I'm dead inside too. I've replaced my wedding band twice (same wife-new rings). I think the originals are in her jewelry box. On the other hand, I have a couple of watches I can't sell, but not for a lack of trying. I'm beginning to develop emotions about them.

For me, some of my watches do have emotional connection. My wedding watch, my first luxury watch (want to pass to to my son), my Cartier tank that my wife gifted me for my 35th birthday and had it engraved.

I also have a bunch of Casios that have no meaning to me. I think it happens more with luxury watches because you worked so hard to be able to afford it.

Because it is a construct in their own head, different in others since we are not programme the same. World is a social construct, earth is not.

I was not specific enough, I think. I meant especially if you buy a watch and you want to attach a certain memory to it. Like you have to make an emotional connection to it in some way and then you can't sell it anymore.

I mean I have nothing against it, it just feels too constructed for me.

For example, I don't remember what watch I was wearing when our 3 kids where born, because in that moment it totally didn't matter to me. Opposed to specifically choose which watch to wear for this big event.

That I can totally understand, if it is a watch given to you by someone you love etc. But not if you buy yourself a watch and then trying to 'fill' it with memories. That's the difference I think I failed to describe originally.

Well, that took a while to read ... Thanks for all the opinions. (:

I agree. Buying a watch with the intent to fill it with memories is pointless.

Memories occur regardless of what we do and when. And you don't even have to be wearing a watch.

I guess if you were wearing a watch when a significant memory occurs then you could associate that watch with that memory. You may not have taken a photo or you may have been alone when that memory occurred.

From that moment on, when you look at that watch it may trigger that memory. In the same way that if you wore a particular shirt, every time you put that shirt on it reminds you of that event.

The term "creating memories" I think refers to just that.

I don't think it matters what watch your wearing.

Buying a watch will not create memories other than the purchase experience and first time wearing it.