# What is your relationship with Time? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [December 18, 2025, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-relationship-with-time/1025838 "2025-12-18T20:20:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![JackieLikesVariety](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackielikesvariety/32/296_2.png) [@JackieLikesVariety](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JackieLikesVariety)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2025, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-relationship-with-time/1025838/41 "2025-12-19T23:23:50Z")
I have never liked digital clocks, because when I look at one I have to translate it into a clock face in my head. it’s been decades now (and she is dead) but I remember being shocked when a friend of my Mom’s told me it was the opposite way for her. She said “I never really understood time until digital clocks were invented” which blew my mind. > [@solost](#): > > I hate being in a quiet room with a ticking clock a ticking clock is my favorite white noise because I find it incredibly relaxing > [@Cardigan](#): > > I tend to regard habitual tardiness/unpunctuality and general disregard for other people’s time as being a sort of _moral failing_. I can’t disagree. I no longer make plans with people who can’t be bothered to be on time for me. ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2025, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-relationship-with-time/1025838/42 "2025-12-20T00:37:43Z")
> [@JackieLikesVariety](#): > > > [@solost](#): > > > > I hate being in a quiet room with a ticking clock > > a ticking clock is my favorite white noise because I find it incredibly relaxing As I also said… > [@solost](#): > > To some, the constant ‘tick-tick-tick’ sound might be relaxing or meditative I’m happy to hear you have at least one less neurosis than I have! À chacun son goût 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2025, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-relationship-with-time/1025838/43 "2025-12-20T03:32:49Z")
I fritter and waste the hours in an off-hand way. ---
**Author:** ![Pork\_Rind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pork_rind/32/111_2.png) [@Pork\_Rind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pork_Rind)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2025, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-relationship-with-time/1025838/44 "2025-12-20T04:41:46Z")
I am relentlessly punctual as a byproduct of a paranoia about being late. Dunno where that comes from. I’m early to everything, primarily because I allow all the worst-case estimates to tolerance stack me to death. My wife does not play that game, yet through some all-different process I’ve never gotten my head around, she’s as bad at being early as I am. Together, we are the couple that sits in the car outside a friend’s house for 20 minutes waiting for a reasonable time to ring the doorbell. I understand that one of the reasons the military loves to do flyovers of sporting events is because it gives the pilots a chance to practice their time-on-target runs. I do about the same thing in real life, using my perpetual earliness to give me time to prep for my entrance. I have the skills to walk into a restaurant plus or minus about 5 seconds of my reservation time. Same with the doctor’s office and etc. it’s weird. You’d think with that, I’d be glued to my Apple Watch and my iPhone. Nope. I’m all analog and am a giant mechanical watch nerd. The fact that you can get anything approaching precision for a device powered solely by gravity (winding as I swing my arms around through the day), driven by tiny springs and hand-cut gears, and regulated by the painstaking manipulation of tiny weighted screws, is mind-blowing to me. The watch I’m wearing right now was just affordable and approachable enough that I have done my own regulating. I bought all the tools and got after it. Its long-term average, which of course I track daily, is about +1.9 seconds per day. My nicest watch, a chronograph, is complicated (and expensive) to the degree that I’d be terrified to open it. So it’s regulated to the standards of the shop where it was made and is running +.8 seconds a day over the last year. I have a bunch of other watches at various points on the spectrum, and a list as long as your arm of what I’d go get at different amounts on the windfall scale, but the one compromise I make towards quartz precision is my ‘swimming at the beach with my dog’ watch, one that I don’t mind if saltwater ever wins the battle. [It was designed with the beach in mind, anyway.](https://www.casio.com/us/watches/gshock/product.GA-2100TL-7A/) ---
**Author:** ![Al128](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/al128/32/16541_2.png) [@Al128](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Al128)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2025, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-relationship-with-time/1025838/45 "2025-12-20T14:23:27Z")
> [@markn\_1](#): > > I fritter and waste the hours in an off-hand way. … and I thought you’d something more to say … ---
**Author:** ![Al128](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/al128/32/16541_2.png) [@Al128](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Al128)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2025, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-relationship-with-time/1025838/46 "2025-12-20T14:33:45Z")
> [@Pork\_Rind](#): > > The watch I’m wearing right now was just affordable and approachable enough that I have done my own regulating. I bought all the tools and got after it. Its long-term average, which of course I track daily, is about +1.9 seconds per day. yep - the trick with mechanical watches is knowing in what position they gain/lose time and then “overnight” it in a way that it all averages out to the best … just like you I am a huge mech watch fan - to a degree that I do no longer care how precise they are (as I have too many 😉 to use them for prolonged times) ---
**Author:** ![Pork\_Rind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pork_rind/32/111_2.png) [@Pork\_Rind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pork_Rind)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2025, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-relationship-with-time/1025838/47 "2025-12-20T17:04:32Z")
> [@Al128](#): > > yep - the trick with mechanical watches is knowing in what position they gain/lose time and then “overnight” it in a way that it all averages out to the best … Oh yeah. In fact, one of the tools I bought is a timegrapher, so I know how to use the effects of isochronism error to my benefit. Although I don’t worry about it much with my COSC certified watches, they’re all right down the pipe (at least to my satisfaction) no matter what. ---
**Author:** ![TRC4941](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trc4941/32/6792_2.png) [@TRC4941](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TRC4941)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2025, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-relationship-with-time/1025838/48 "2025-12-22T15:57:45Z")
I used to always wear a watch. If I forgot to put it on, I’d feel lost for the entire day. Since cell phones came into being, I don’t wear a watch anymore. But I do like to have clocks wherever I am. I want to know the time at a glance. The clock on the microwave that’s above the oven must match the time on the oven clock. I bought an alarm clock for my bedroom that projects the time on the ceiling, so if I wake up in the middle of the night, I can quickly see the time. I haven’t had to use an alarm for 5 years or so. I automatically wake up a few minutes before I have to. When I have to change the clocks for DST, I carry my phone with me, so they’re as precise as I can be. I have no idea what drives this need to have the time around me at all times. It’s just me. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2025, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-relationship-with-time/1025838/49 "2025-12-22T16:26:57Z")
In general, same as the OP; I’m punctual for events that need it (I haven’t always been…I’ve improved over the years). But if no-one is depending on me being at a particular time then I’m much more loose about it and wouldn’t have the hang up the OP describes some people having. In terms of watches, I have lots of watches, both mechanical and digital, but none are valuable or vintage. They’re pretty much just fashion accessories for me; even though saying that will get me run out of some towns 🙂 I’ve assembled a couple of watches myself – well, bought a movement and added dial, hands, case – but I still haven’t got the horology bug. ---
**Author:** ![Cartooniverse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cartooniverse/32/3084_2.png) [@Cartooniverse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartooniverse)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2025, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-relationship-with-time/1025838/50 "2025-12-22T22:06:15Z")
> [@Al128](#): > > > [@markn\_1](#): > > > > I fritter and waste the hours in an off-hand way. > > … and I thought you’d something more to say … Man, it’s as though I started this thread JUST for these two posts. 🙂 And very very weirdly, less than 10 minutes ago, I sent a heartfelt email to a dear friend whose title line read: “ BREATHE” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-relationship-with-time/1025838.md?page=2)