It was the only digital watch in my 10-watch collection – and my least favourite. I wanted to sell it, but I didn’t want anybody living in my small town to know I even had it.
My feeling towards it was something like I’m too old to be wearing this. I wanted to wear watches that reflected refined taste (on a budget), but this looked like a toy. I wanted to wear watches that made me feel good about myself, but this was purely utilitarian. I felt like it said, ‘I want a smart watch, but this is all I can afford.’
How did I even end up with this stupid-looking thing in my collection?
When I was a young man, I served in the Canadian Armed Forces as a reservist. I was in the infantry, and I needed a tough watch. It had to be digital with an alarm and a timer – both indispensable to me in the field and in garrison. The best I could afford was a Timex Ironman.
They’re renowned by watch enthusiasts for their durability, but I was never impressed. During my 10 years I probably went through 3 or 4 of them. I’d always replace the strap with a Velcro nato because the ones that came stock would rot away and break. I’d swap out the battery when it died. But sometimes, no matter what I did, the watch just… died. The display would go dead or get glitchy.
When I would go to buy a new one I’d always see the G-Shock not far away in the display. A Frogman or Square style. They were $80-$90.
Too much, I’d think to myself. And I’d buy another $40 Ironman.
I stuck with an Ironman into the next phase of my career in federal law enforcement. But when that one died, I gave up wearing watches. I had a phone now.
Fast forward to 2025. I was suddenly into watches. Not into wearing them, just into them. I was into the YouTube channels, the watch influencers, the watch blogs, reviews, specs, etc.
I was thinking I wanted a watch again, and I had two on my mind: 1) a hand-wound mechanical (because someone once gave me one as a kid and I hadn’t stopped thinking about it since), and 2) the one that got away, the one I could never afford. The G-Shock.
After deliberating until I’d fooled myself into thinking I was making a rational, evidence-based decision, I ordered the GWM5610-1.
I ignored that little voice that said, You aren’t 20 years-old anymore. You don’t even like how it looks. Move on. Influencers said G-Shocks were “God tier” after all, and if I was going to be a hip watch enthusiast, I had to have a G-Shock. I used to want it, and I’m supposed to want it. Therefore, I must want it.
I immediately hated it and was almost embarrassed to be wearing it.
I tried to warm up to it by wearing it for certain activities. The pool. The gym. Work.
It didn’t work. Eventually I gave up, and it spent months at a time in my watch box.
Then life started to get complicated. An impending move involving lots of travel, logistics, and administration. Flights to catch, dates to map out, forms to sign.
I reluctantly put it on.
Let me explain. I am not the new hip kind of neurodivergent. I am the kind where I’ve had too many brain injuries, and things get ugly when I don’t manage my cognitive load.
This is where the G-Shock shines when I’m on a mission:
1) Less stuff to remember.
It has the day, date, and month. I don’t need to reach for my phone when I need access to this info. No digging into a cargo pocket. No swiping down for the date. You may be wondering, do you really need the month on your watch? Truthfully, catch me at a bad time, and I could use the year.
2) Less stuff to worry about.
No worrying if my watch is a minute off after a few days — yes, that would bother me. It has pinpoint accurate time with Multiband 6 radio wave reception. It has a practically unkillable solar-powered battery, so no dead batteries. No hand-winding. It has an alarm clock as a backup to my phone alarm clock. I trust it in the pool, in the hot tub, in the shower, around magnetic fields (Lord knows what all those security devices at the airport will do to my precious mechanical watches), and in my toddler’s hands when I need to distract her. It’s life proof.
All of this means when I’m on a mission, I can focus on the mission.
When my trip was done, I stuck it back into my watch box, to be forgotten until my next mission. I hate that it made me feel like a man wearing a child’s toy. I hate imagining that somebody may have mistaken it for a budget smart watch. But I don’t think about selling it anymore.