Happens to me, too. I prefer having the watch face out, but the watch has other intentions. Drives me crazy sometimes.
RR
I’m in there with RiverRunner and CrazyCatLady. I can’t stand having the watch on the bottom, but something about the shape of my wrist makes a lot of watches roll to that position. I often by 2 or 3 watches before I get one that doesn’t. Fortunately I usually wear cheap digital watches.
But my best dress watch, which my wife gave me (read: can’t get rid of it), rotates away from me until it’s on the bone, so that I can’t read the thing at all until I move it back. Very irritating.
I wear my watch really lose so it slides all over the place. I like it this way as it allows me to shove it all the way up my arm to a snug position if I temporarily need it out of the way. I can also move it around as necessary to get at itches or whatever.
I wear mine on the inside for a few reasons.
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It takes less effort to read it,
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My wrists are very thin so that stickie-outie bone gets in the way of the face.
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So I can see the time while donating platelets. If I had to roll my wrist over, I’d risk banging the needle.
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I also wear my watch loose so the weight of the face makes it fall that way. It’s easier to leave it.
Someone once told me I was weird because I’m a righty but I wear my watch on the left. I don’t understand why this would be weird. Is there a proper wrist to wear the watch on?
My mom does it because it makes it easier for her to take pulse rates while working as a nurse. I do it because I like the wrist band loose and that’s where it ends up and now I’m used to it being there.
I have small wrists. If I wear my watch with the face up and tighten up the band, the face of the watch usually ends up way over on the on the outside of my arm, beside the sticking-out bone on the outside of the wrist. So most of the time, watches just fit better if I wore it with the face on the inside of my wrist.
My current watch is the first one in ages I’ve worn on the outside of my wrist. It has buttons on the face (digital watch) that get bumped too easily if I wear it on the inside of my wrist.
I’m just back from the beach, and right now you can see where the wide part of my watch sits, just underneath the sticking-out wrist bone.
Yes. The left wrist for right handed watches. The right wrist for left handed watches. How do you tell whether a watch is left or right handed? Well. You know the little knob you pull out to wind/set the watch? If that’s on the right side, it’s a right handed watch (thus when you wear it on your left wrist, it’s easy to get at with the right hand); same idea for left-handed.
Probably a meaningless convention for many modern watches, but it will probably still be easier to manipulate the bottons of a digital watch with your dominant hand, so the same reasoning applies, even if the watch is ambidextrous, as to which wrist on which to wear it.
I wear the watch on the inside because it’s easier to show other people the time. I’m dubious about the “protect the crystal” excuse, because I’ve replaced my watch twice because scratches on the (cheap plastic) face made it difficult to read.
For myself, it’s a lot easier to read if I have it on the inside, but, I now where it on the outside because I don’t want people to think I’m trying to make some kind of fashion statement.
Interesting answers, folks. Thanks!
The need to protect the face from damage due to some manual activity had occurred to me, but most of the people I’ve seen wear their watches facing in wouldn’t need to worry about such things. One is forced to speculate that it is then either a simple habit without rationale, or some kind of fashion statement.
The idea that the “statement” might be an attempt to emulate soldiers in the field had not occurred to me at all, and that’s an interestin idea.
Just out of curiousity: I’ve seen wristwatches that had clamshell-like lids, similar to a pocket watch. I guess the idea is to protect the crystal. I wonder why the military never made watches like that for soldiers, as a fatigue-style pain-job on such a lid would make it unreflective, and the lid itself would protect the watch.
Those in this thread who wear watches one way or another to avoid scratching the crystal should look at watches with sapphire crystals. They are WAY more resistant to scratching. I’ve worn my Omega during many situations where a normal watch would get scratched, but I’ve never gotten one. Smashed it into things, gouged it with steel, etc. They are definitely worth the investment. They tend to be features on more expensive watches, but Tissot watches come with them, and can be pretty reasonable.
The folks I’ve known who wear their watches that way are all pilots, and claim to do so as the face can be read while hands are on the controls.
I’ve done this for about ten years, first as a way to avoid the crystal getting scratched, then when I was working in a lumberyard to avoid the crystal getting crushed, now out of habit and to keep the sun ticking off the lens and exposing my position. I am in a country that has snipers, and as an officer see no further need to expose myself to getting singled out. Hell, I have to stop the security guards from saluting me here.