Take the Watch Addiction Questionnaire to See If You Need to Go to Rehab

 

Watch guys, how is the hobby going? Has it taken a turn for the worse? Or is your watch hobby making you happy? Take the Watch-Addiction Questionnaire to see if you need watch rehab. If you answer yes to 10 or more of the following, you may need an intervention.

 

1. Do you find yourself thinking about watches first thing in the morning and last thing while in bed at night, and it’s reached the point that you resent the amount of time, energy, and money your watch addiction is taking from your life?
2. Do you keep a list of your watches and assign days for which watches you will wear during the week with the hope that adhering to this rotation will make your life feel more manageable but to the contrary your life constantly feels chaotic and out of control?
3. Do you agonize over which watch you wear during the day and regardless of your choice you feel the agony of having picked the wrong watch?
4. Do you find you’ve amassed more watches than you have the time or occasion to wear and fret that you’re constantly neglecting prized watches in your collection?
5. Do you find yourself falling in love with a watch, buying the said watch, falling out of love with it, selling it, falling in love with it again, rebuying it, falling out of love with it again, and repeating this cycle over and over so that you feel like you’re living out the movie Groundhog Day?
6. Do you find yourself possessed with the urge to shrink your collection to a small manageable collection, find yourself reaching your goal, but then you go on a buying spree so that your collection mushrooms to an unmanageable number again? And you go through this cycle of shrinking and expanding your collection over and over so that you feel like you’re living out the movie Groundhog Day?
7. Do you tell yourself just one more watch and then the madness will be over because I’ve finally found the Holy Grail that will cure me of my disease? Only to go back on the watch hunt soon after so that you’re constantly stuck in a cesspool of desire and discontent?
8. Do you go on the Internet and observe Youtubers engage in ceremonious unboxings of their Holy Grail timepieces and watching them enjoy their new watch overcomes you with envy and anxiety so that you feel you need to get on the watch-buying bandwagon?
9. Do you deep down have the conviction that if you sold all your watches and just kept just one watch, a cheap $80 Casio or Timex, you’d be happier and less tormented, but you refuse to act on your convictions because you choose to be a slave to your watch addiction?
10. Do you fear that if you were liberated from your watch addiction you’d have to face a new crisis: the abyss of an empty life and the loneliness that such an empty life entails?
11. Do you fear that your watch addiction is a distraction from personal problems that you find too overwhelming to address and that you’d rather slog through your watch addiction, with all its aforementioned repetitive cycles than confront deeper emotional problems?
12. Do you get defensive when people say you have a watch problem? And you find yourself rationalizing your addiction by saying that your watch hobby is harmless and fun and that you could be engaging in far more self-destructive pastimes? But deep down you know they have a good point?
13. Do you find that your watch hobby was supposed to make you happy but your obsession has taken you to a dark place that has nothing to do with happiness but has everything to do with torment and despair?
14. Do you find yourself asking advice from other watch addicts about which watches to buy and you experience the shame of having no deep personal convictions so that you’re dependent on others for your life choices and validation?
15. Do you find yourself trying to hide your watch obsession from your significant other, worried that she will become suspicious of all the FedEx packages that are arriving at your doorstep and perhaps engage in a forensics accounting investigation of your watch buying habits, which will reveal you to be recklessly wasteful with your finances and committing the sin of adulterous consumerism?

Comments

[Angelo]

I have in the neighborhood of 200 watches at this point---likely more----many of the quartz watches need batteries, so they aren't being worn enough. But I tend to wear the quartz watches that are working, afraid that I will be "wasting" remaining battery power by not wearing them----and because of that, I'm neglecting my automatics. I was so proud of myself for going several months without buying a watch----then put my toes back in the water for "just one more" and am now on a buying binge. Yes, this is crazy. It's unmanageable. It's wasteful. But I won't stop, so it must be filling a void.

[Jeffrey McMahon]

I had to quit. I'm at 7, and I don't want to get back into the addiction. I'm much happier now.

[Val]

I don't thing terminology watch addicting appropriate expression . People buy more because different and charm of product they are like it. Perfection, reason to find it, desire to see beauty in one thing or other. I saw old Timex digital and analog combination, digital display on the top of the watch. different, lock unusual and cool. Nobody make it anymore. Same story with digital Seiko, it is cool! Seiko doesn't make this watch anymore. It wasn't expensive and it is quartz, but try to find this product in good condition and cheap? You will surprise how much it is now! If you like it, buy it. In one way or other if you don't need you sell or maybe yours kids go in some day in college or university and wear your watch will appreciate your gift from time when you been looking for perfection.

[Angelo]

Val: It's an interesting point you make---sometimes I buy watches, radios, other things----because of some odd connection I make to the item. It doesn't have to be expensive----it could be very inexpensive but something about it appeals to me and I buy. I think usually, I am drawn to older items---things from when I was a child or maybe a student in high school or college. I recently got the bug to find an old Norelco shaver from the 1960s or 1970s. I found a model on E-Bay that was inexpensive and hopefully it will be as nice in person as it is in the photos. It takes me back to a different time in my life---I might have been 8 or 9 years old when that shaver was sold brand new to someone. When I buy these things---watches, radios, etc., I often think about who built the items---if people working at the factory or maybe who touched the item as it was being assembled or inspected----I wonder if they are still living. And the original owners----who were they? What did they do for a living? Was the shaver a gift from the guy's wife? I love vintage items for that reason.

[Gregory]

I thought radio addiction was bad - you guys need help :)

Yea I’m a watch guy too but luckily for me two Citizen’s have satiated that beast

[Stan]

What happened to the healthy radio addiction on this site? I used to come here all the time. Now nothing but watches. To each his own, I don't quite get the watch appeal, but the radios were much more interesting IMO.

[herculodge]

Sorry, Stan, after my twins were born and I saw them snapping antennas on my vintage radios, I backed off the hobby. Then I started filling my rooms with Amazon Echo products, and now the only radio I use everyday is my kettlebell workout garage: Sangean U1 Worksite radio, over 10 years old and going strong.

[Stan]

Wow, you had a Sangean radio last longer than two years? Lucky you :)