Left-handed, left wrist.
I think I used to wear it on my right wrist, until I got a tattoo on my left wrist. My watch is just big enough to cover the tattoo in professional environments. But yeah, it is kind of a pain while writing.
The underlying principle here is that if something can be done either way 'round, the prevailing way is what works best for right-handers, and non-symmetrical devices are designed for right-handers. Lefties then either do it the right-handed way, which often feels unnatural and awkward, or if possible the left-handed way, which (with devices) usually is awkward or inconvenient. It’s seldom that a righty will do something left-handed, but lefties grow up being shown right-handed techniques and using right-handed devices, so they often do some – or a lot – of stuff right-handed.
always on the left. I have never thought of wearing it on my right. I am pretty seriously a lefty, the only thing I do right-handed is fly-fish. My dad taught me and after a few minutes, he announced he could not teach me to fish left-handed, it confused him too much. But except for that, everything I do is reversed compared to righties.
And now I hear that being left-handed doesn’t help us live longer… Darn
This is actually how I came to it as a kid (except it was a soda, not coffee). I went to look at the time on my new, super-cool mickey mouse watch and I spilled it.
So, I wear mine on the right when I wear it (which is very seldom these days, I have a computer and a cell phone with the time, who needs a watch).
I’m right-handed and wear my watch on the left because I whack it less on my non-dominant hand. I assumed this was the logic behind wearing watches on whatever hand does the less rough-and-tumble things, particularly in this age of digital watches that don’t need to be wound. The practice of keeping your watch on the non-dominant side is quite old; watch pockets on vests were usually on the left, on the theory that you’d be holding the watch in your non-dominant hand and winding it with your dominant one. Prior to wristwatches, women sometimes wore timepieces on brooches. I don’t know if there’s a rule for that, but I seem to recall seeing them mostly pinned to right shirtfronts, where the lady could lift it with her dominant hand to look at the face.
I actually use watches as a tell for right- vs left-handed; the false negative rate (lefties who wear watches on the left) is much higher than the false positive rate (I can count the number of righties I’ve met who wore their watches on the right on the fingers of one hand), but in practice it’s probably 90% accurate. Proportionately, I’ve met more ambidextrous-ish lefties than righties, probably because most chiral things are made for righties and it’s just easier to do it the way that doesn’t bark your knuckles constantly.
Interestingly, this works even for historical figures who lived during a time where they taught you to write with your right hand instead of your dominant hand. Charlie Chaplin, f’r instance, kept both pocket watches and wristwatches on the right, on the rare occasions when he wore one on film. He wrote with his right, but did most other fussy things like violin bowing and stage makeup with his left.
When I wore a watch, I always wore it on my right wrist. It bothered me to write with the hand/wrist wearing the watch, so right wrist it was.