That's my contention, anyway, based on highly unscientific evidence, gathered over a lifetime of careful (are you kidding?) research.

I like to think the kind of wrist watch a man wears tells a lot about who he is, or, more likely, who he would like to be.

I am not so sure if this is true of women. Being a man, I tend to look at women for reasons other than their wrist watches. Besides, their watches are usually too small to see well, anyway.

But men's wrist watches do tell a lot about who's wearing what these days.

My research into this as yet mostly unexplored field of human endeavor got started when I graduated from college. Somehow my mother came to believe she had to give me a gold watch as a reward for my achievement. This was because that was what my grandparents gave my father when he graduated from college.

Except that my father, who had died sometime before this event in my life, had received a large gold pocket watch, a Waltham. A Waltham was considered the acme of gold watches by railroad men, of whom there were then a lot in the country. My grandfather was a railroad man and had great faith in Waltham watches and railroad timetables.

I can't remember if he had a gold watch or not, but no matter. He gave my dad a gold Waltham in a case that opened and closed and kept very accurate time, provided you wound it regularly.

Instead of a pocket watch, now out of style, my mother got me a gold wrist watch suitably engraved with my initials and the date of my graduation. Unlike my dad's watch, even though it was a Waltham, it lasted about a year and then the crystal fell off and it was never the same again. I still have the watch, mostly for sentiment's sake, but it no longer works.

But looking at it the other day made me think that my mother must have had some kind of a picture in mind of what I was going to be (probably wrong) when she gave me the watch. Gold meant success, wealth, a bright future? Or something. And I wondered if it really told people something about me.

With this in mind I began looking at the watches that other men wear.

Men's wrist watches come in all kinds of styles and configurations. Some are digital, some are analog. Some tell you almost everything except the current price of Intel stock. Some are gold, some are silver, some have metal bands, some have plastic. It's not so much these individual characteristics that a man seeks when he goes looking for a watch; it's the overall effect of the watch as seen on the wearer's wrist.

Take, for instance, the jock's watch. It is big and round and has the points of the compass around the edges. The hour and minute hands are large, as benefits a macho man; its second hand sweep is bright and red and there are usually lots of buttons to push. That's because the macho jock male wants a watch that times things. (Why he wants a watch that gives you compass bearings is beyond me, but compass bearings are traditionally a part of this watch for some reason.)

Maybe it's because the watch is supposed to be waterproof to 300 meters and is suitable for scuba diving, a thing jocks might do on occasion.

Most of all, however, a macho watch wearer wants a watch that's noticed. He wants that big round dial that stands out like an airline beacon. The macho wearer may even run off a few statistics for you, if you ask.

Not the time. That's too ordinary. Rather, his heart rate, blood pressure, the time it took him to run a marathon, swim a lap, climb to the top of Mt. Everest, who knows.

But the watch that impresses me the most is one advertised under various guises in airline in-flight magazines. It is supposed to be a replica of a famous watch of the past, is an analog, has four dials that tell you the second, minute, hour, day, date and the phases of the moon (something everyone needs to be aware of) and that are, I presume, now powered by batteries and not wound.

I don't have one, but I'd like one. Why?

To fit the personality I fancy I have, of course: that of a world traveler who needs to know the day, date and the phases of the moon, among other things.

Can't you see that by looking at me?

Probably not, but then I'm not wearing my new watch yet.