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Rings and things

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21:19 / 02.09.06

I suppose this thread could've gone in the Art/Fashion forum. It's a bit vaguer than that, though, and I wanted a more general response.

Jewellery. Possibly more of an issue for men than women, but that's largely speculation and may be bollocks. I'm sitting here twirling the civil partnership (okay, wedding) ring on the fourth finger of my left hand. It's a simple band of white gold, slightly convex. Most of the time, I'm acutely aware of its presence: I feel like my finger sweats more underneath it and, in the shower, I worry that the little band of skin underneath won't get properly soaped/cleaned.

Being a shrinky-dink, I'd love to put a psychological spin on this - ambivalence about partnership, fear of committment, etc. - but I think it's largely about feeling uncomfortable with stuff on my body. When I sleep, I have to take everything off - clothes, watch, any jewellery - and the wear-it-alwaysness of my civ... wedding ring is still impinging upon my consciousness. I was hoping that, as with our cats and their collars, I wouldn't notice it after a while. It's been a week, and I'm still acutely aware of it. It cost so much, though, that I daren't take it off; I know I'd lose it.

So. Jewellery. What's your attitude to it? Does it bother you, or are you quite happy with it? Anything particularly significant?

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

21:25 / 02.09.06

I worry about jewellery. Unless it's actually ATTACHED, like a piercing or something, I find myself either losing it, looking for it, or worrying about losing it. It's a hassle.

I can quite easily sleep in my clothes, if the booze says so, so it's not a problem with having things on my body- it's the extra responsibility that bugs me. I can wear necklaces and pendants, cos they're not likely- or don't seem as likely- just to fall off and go missing. And if I take jewellery off to go to sleep, the chances of me remembering to put it back on in the morning- as different from, say, trousers- are high enough that it seems to defeat the point.

To cut all this down, basically I can't be arsed with it. I don't think those who can are wrong- I just think they're clearly not me.

21:33 / 02.09.06

I hear you, Stoatie. I've never actually slept in jewellery before. I suppose this ring works okay because it needs a bit of warcelling to get it over the knuckle, so I know it's not going to fall off.

21:57 / 02.09.06

After never having worn a ring in my life, I started wearing one a year ago when i got engaged. For a good few months I had similar issues to you - I like to take everything off for bed and showers - so it felt a bit weird.

For the first few months I usually ended up taking the ring off at night, but after a while I just got lazy/forgetful/accustomed to it being there.

It took longer for the shower thing. I still take it off if I want a really good soak in the shower or bath, but for your average morning splash, I leave it on. Leaving it on in the shower has been a pretty recent development, though.

So I guess it was the cat collar thing for me. Nowadays i hardly notice it's there, though it does make for a nice subconscious fiddly thing to play around with it - like chewing a pen or twiddling earrings or whatever.

Cleanliness wise; I assume that enough water can get between the ring and the skin when you're in the shower or bath. If it can't, then you're probably going to lose your finger due to lack of bloodflow pretty soon anyway. Then you have a good reason to wear it on a necklace instead!

So yeah, I understand your position, and I reckon it'll probably take more than a week to become habituated to it, especially if you've never really worn jewellery before. So don't worry.

Oh and:

[Insert 'Ganesh is worried about the discomfort and potential uncleanliness caused by having his finger in Xoc's ring' joke here]

Sorry.

22:00 / 02.09.06

I had a signet ring that I wore from age fourteen onwards and so I don't have a problem wearing my "wedding" ring on the third finger, left hand (thank you Martha Reeves and the Vandellas...) The civil partnership ring I bought in two minutes in a souk in Marrakech from Mustafa for a tenner. I love it. Silver, nine balls of silver (for the planets as was) shining out from a jet background. I have no problem leaving it on my finger 24/7.

22:07 / 02.09.06

I've gone through phases of wearing jewelry every day but mostly I wear none. I know exactly what you're talking about with the weird feeling of having it on your body all the time. Even when I went through my five rings & a necklace phase I had to take them all off every night before bed. I also used to have this constant paranoia that my fingers were going to become deformed by the ring, like in foot bindings or something. My ears are pierced but having things hanging in my earlobes drives me right up a wall.

22:09 / 02.09.06

I wore a plain flat ring 24/7 for five years at one stage. I add my voice to .trampetunia's, it's weird at first if you're not really a jewellery person, but you soon stop noticing it. It felt very weird to take it off though! Same sort of thing as taking off a plaster. Kind of sensitized.

I used to fret more about getting my hands properly dry, than soap access.

For what it's worth, several of my male colleagues got married during the course of the summer, and without exception they fiddled obsessively with their wedding rings for a month or so (none of these folk habitually wear jewellery). I think it was more the novel feeling than anything sinister

22:17 / 02.09.06

I remember going to float in the Dead Sea when first met Ganesh and we went on our first holiday together. Everything yellowed. I had seven rings in one ear and three in the other. Two in nipples, one in nose, several on fingers. So much simpler and more elegant now...

22:18 / 02.09.06

I´ve got a ring, and I wear it mostly when I´m outside, and I definitly take it off before going to sleep.

Once, on vacation, I wore it for about a week. When I came home and took it off, the skin was a shade of green and very smooth.

*

03:23 / 03.09.06

I've been wearing a pretty solid chain around my neck for a good year and a half at least. It looks a little something like this, only without a clasp. It fits closely enough that I can just slide my hand between it and my neck. I made it so that I wouldn't be able to remove it without pliers. I hardly notice it now except to play with it. (And for some reason it has never set off an airport metal detector, despite being made of sixteen gauge stainless steel.)

Would it help, Ganesh, to wear the ring on a chain or a cord around your neck? Or would that be just as irritating? (Just don't start talking to it and referring to it as your preciousssss, as that would be irritating to all of us.)

03:35 / 03.09.06

Mr Entity: lovely chain, but I don't think that would work for me. I think I just need to accustom myself to the weirdo ringy-on-fingeriness of the whole thing. Presumably the self-consciousness will eventually dissipate. Much as I'd like a reason to avoid having it on my finger, I think wearing my wedding ring around my neck would simply delay the process.

paranoidwriter waves hello

04:01 / 03.09.06

Oddly enough, I had a ring, but I lost it quite recently. It had been a gift from an old lover and dear friend a short while before we broke up. It was silver and I wore it on the forefinger of my left hand for nearly ten years because I grew to like it so much; until about month and half ago, when I took it off to play guitar (bar-chords) and haven't found it since.

Wearing it was very much like .trampetunia's experience (I don't wear any other jewellry for the same reasons as Ganesh), but after a while I almost forgot that I was wearing it and hardly ever took it off. Although, almost unbelievably, after I lost the ring most of my friends who I mentioned it to said, "What silver ring? I never saw you wearing a silver ring"; so much had it become an invisible part of my overall appearance. But it did exist, (he says breathing a sigh of relief) and a couple of my more observant friends thankfully noticed its sad absence.

Indeed, I'd always liked that my finger seemed to be changing shape through erosion from the ring, and even now there's still a slight dented band of skin and flesh where it once sat. Over the years the morbid part of me had even considered it as a kind of practice ring, for my old man's slightly life-beaten, yet beautifully simple gold wedding ring, an inheritance he once promised to me when I was a child.

Hope I find my silver ring soon. I'm not qualified to handle all this symbolism.

13:46 / 03.09.06

My wedding ring is very plain and silver. Because I don't wear much other jewellery, when I first wore it, I was very pysically aware that it was there. It never occurred to me to be concerned about the cleanliness of the bit of skin beneath the ring - but then, while perfectly unsmelly, I'm certainly not known for my cleany-uppy-ness.

Don't know about others, but to begin with I was also self-conscious about cultural 'stuff' (I'm a het woman). I don't use the title 'Mrs' or 'Miss', for example, to avoid marking myself as either married or unmarried. Wearing a ring that connotes marriedness felt awkward for a while therefore - but now I just enjoy owning it and accept that it's one among a few signs that people will pick up about who and what I am (they probably notice my big thick glasses first).

All Acting Regiment

17:56 / 03.09.06

[wotan]Rings, you say? What we must do is get a posse together, big guys, proper Aesir types. Then we'll find that nasty Alberich, give him a talking to, see if we can't trick something out of him. We'd better do it sharpish so we can pay off Fafnir and Fasolt and get back Freia. Never let it be said that I'm a bad father...[/wotan]

18:51 / 03.09.06

It never occurred to me to be concerned about the cleanliness of the bit of skin beneath the ring

Oh, I know that's not in any way a rational concern. I suppose it just feels like the bit of skin underneath is sweating more than the rest of my hand - a bit like one perspires more heavily beneath a ruksack strap.

20:35 / 03.09.06

My mother has been married for 37 years, and I've never seen her without her rings on. In fact, she hasn't been able to take them off as long as I've been alive, I think.

However, a couple of years ago she got a couple of mosquito bites on her wedding finger, to which she reacts really badly. She had to get her rings cut off (but later put back together), because the bites were all nasty and infected. So perhaps you have a point about cleanliness. But other than when the skin was open, she's never had any problems with them. She has one callous on her hands, and it's on the top of her palm where the rings rub when she closes her hand.

Personally, I hate wearing jewellery, and am overly aware of it when I do. But hope one day I'll become accustomed to having a wedding ring. Can't see it happening in the near future though.

paranoidwriter waves hello

20:44 / 03.09.06

In respect of ring wearing cleanliness, a little while into my ten year ring wearing stint, I smelt a cheesy odour coming from my hand once after a small, low-key festival I'd been working at; and yup, it was coming from the skin under my silver ring. But it was just like unclean feet really, nothing a good wash couldn't sort out. So after that, especially before cooking, I used to get in the practice of washing my ring finger more thoroughly whenever I bathed. After all, soap just makes the ring more slippy-slidery, and you shouldn't even have to take it off, really.

(This might sound a bit 'Vix', but I swear I'm not writing double entendres on purpose; just in case.)

paranoidwriter waves hello

20:46 / 03.09.06

I meant 'Viz'. Doh.

Oh, and gingerbop: you never know, you never know...

wembley can change in 28 days

07:03 / 05.09.06

I go through phases where I wear jewellery quite comfortably and feel naked without rings, but for the past couple of years it's been naked skin for me.

And yet, I just took up a new hobby: making jewellery. I've started with aluminum just to get things going, but I'm about to order some silver and gold and get started on a whole lot of christmas presents! (First piece here. I also do a heck lot of other weaves. Anyone wanna place an order?)

Does anyone else make jewellery here?

pointless & uncalled for

07:33 / 05.09.06

I cannot abide wearing jewellery of any kind. I find it incredibly distracting and can never seem to get it comfortable. I'll endlessly fiddle with is and take it off and on repetitively.

I've tried with gifts and the like because I feel that I should but ultimately they end up in a drawer or box with all of my other keepsakes. I kind of feel deflated on occasions that I receive them because it's something else that I have to go through the routine of "giving it a go".

This actually extends to watches, ties and so on as well. I now welcome not trawling around with a device for counting away time attached to my wrist and it strikes me as odd that anyone would want to do so. With so many things like tills, mobiles, computers, clocks on walls, my cycle-computer endlessly demanding that you pay attention to what time it is, I keep my body a haven from "knowing what time it is".

The closest thing I have to jewellery is my bicycles. A little too far removed I suppose.

07:38 / 05.09.06

Apart from a brief flirtation with a gold ring inlaid with a black onyx stone when I was about sixteen, I've never had much truck with jewellery. I have, on occasion, worn some ethnic-style neck-gear, usually bought for tuppence-ha'penny off a man on the beach in places like Goa, but nothing metal. Until The Wedding Ring four years ago. Like Nesh's it is a simple white gold band. At first I found it quite irritating and strange, was forever twirling it, and always taking it off and putting my lips around it to simulate a sex doll look for my own limited amusement. Now I barely notice it. And it's scratched to buggery as well. Nothing else though - can't even abide a watch, as I have thin, feminine wrists like what a girly-girl has.

08:57 / 05.09.06

I also make jewellery, but mine's the flamboyant, costumey kind - certainly not designed to become invisible over time. It's the same with the jewellery I wear - I tend to favour enormous cocktail rings, rattling bracelets, elaborate hair ornaments, and so on. It goes without saying that I don't sleep in them.

I've always been fond of the idea of simple, deeply personal pieces that are to be worn always, but I've just never got it to work for me. I have one really beautiful piece of silver jewellery that was given to me by an ex, but I tend to keep that rather than wear it. If I'm going to get all Ganesh about it, I suppose that it feels strange to me to wear something associated with that relationship while I still feel so guilty about the way things ended. Hmm.

17:34 / 05.09.06

I have a wedding ring, white gold, with square edges. I remember being sort of half-pleased, half-something (resigned? wry?) when I noticed that I'd developed a tan line under it, just like the one beneath my watch (which I also nearly always wear). The feeling grew more pronounced when I realized that I was also developing a callus on my palm right where the finger joint rubs the ring into it. Now, when I take the ring off, I can still feel where it belongs.

Where it belongs.

Kali, Queen of Kitteh

18:12 / 05.09.06

For twelve years now I have worn the same ring on the middle finger of my left hand. It's a beautiful piece of work: a silver band with three oval amber stones set into it. Since I only ever to take it off to shower and to sleep, as a result I have a thin white band around that finger and the skin underneath is smooth. I can't ever imagine wearing any other ring.

I always wear a silver choker with a Saint Expedite medal on it as well.

I like to think of these two pieces of jewelry as armor of a sort.

18:13 / 05.09.06

You will get used to it Ganesh, I did. I wore a wedding ring for seven years and when I took it off I had a groove in my finger and my hand felt very weird for a very long time. It was almost like the ring had become a part of me, which I suppose in a way it had because it shaped me around itself.

I wear a lot of jewellery because TBM and I are jewellers and so I end up wearing all our practice stuff. I also find it's useful for showing people. I wear a bracelet on each arm all the time, three tiny rings in my ears and two more main large hoops, one ring in my nose and some other piercings which I never take off. I also wear a toe ring all the time. I change my necklaces but I generally wear one and I sometimes change my main earrings. I am so bling!

I wear my jewellery all the time except when I went and had a MRI scan and had to take everything off which amused the nurse because it took me about ten minutes.

I'm going to make a thread about designing jewellery and we can all talk about it there because there's quite a few of us I think. I spent last year at college, learning. I'm ace even if I do say so myself, but TBM is acer, he won the British Jewellery Association Award for best newcomer.

18:15 / 05.09.06

I really hope I get used to it, because I like it a lot and also like the idea of wearing more jewellery.

18:26 / 05.09.06

I have a watch and nothing else. I've tried but anything else just gets on my nerves really badly.
This had led on a couple of occasions to extremely awkward moments when presented with gifts from people. All of this stuff gets put in a box on my bedside table along with other assorted keepsakes.

18:33 / 05.09.06

What do you like about the idea of wearing more, Ganesh?

I think jewellery rocks, but then I would since it's my job. I love to see men in jewellery and I'm always trying to persuade TBM but he says it feels funny on, whichis basically the same as you. He does wear a bracelet made of tiny sandalwood beads on two threads twisted together, but that's mainly because he likes the smell. He's got a beautiful amber and silver ring he made too and he sometimes wears that but not everyday.

Men should all wear bracelets I think. Mens arms suit them.

18:36 / 05.09.06

I like to think of these two pieces of jewelry as armor of a sort.

Kali, I absolutely agree with you. on the rare occasions when I have taken my jewellery off and gone out, I've felt like I've gone out without my knickers on.

18:39 / 05.09.06

What do you like about the idea of wearing more, Ganesh?

All sorts of things. I like the way my ring catches the light sometimes when I'm moving my hands around in conversation. I like the way it clicks against the desk when I put my hand down. I think it looks good with the colour of my skin. I even like twirling it when I'm talking to someone.

So... I think I'm feeling the same sort of semi-addiction I've heard people talk about with tattoos or piercings. I'd like another white metal ring on my right hand, to balance it up, or maybe the right kind of bracelet.

18:42 / 05.09.06

I think I like cufflinks for the same reason: they add a bit of flash to one's hand gestures.

Kali, Queen of Kitteh

18:48 / 05.09.06

Kali, I absolutely agree with you. on the rare occasions when I have taken my jewellery off and gone out, I've felt like I've gone out without my knickers on.

I misplaced the ring for about eight hours and I was absolutely panicked. When I found it, I have never been so relieved.

18:59 / 05.09.06

I have two all-the-time rings. The left hand third finger one is symbolic of the spouse but not our wedding ring as it was designed to be worn on a chain. For our anniversary I'm hoping we can get our tattoo rings done as himself cannot wear rings (knuckle to joint size issue). The third finger right hand is a big fat (to me at any rate) family diamond ring which has a very melty story attached to it.

I keep 'em on and sleep in them though when I wash my hands I do often make sure to slide them about a bit. I do feel unbalanced with out them. I wore a thumb ring on my right hand during the non motorcycle season but lost it a few months ago. Took me forever to stop feeling like my thumb was nekked.

I've been replacing all of my pierced work with stone and glass trying to get the metal bits out (bone and horn captive rings are hard to find for some reason).

I love the the sparkle of bling in a watch the rainbows sort of way.

Mister Six, whom all the girls

19:53 / 05.09.06

I used to hate wearing rings but after getting married I wear one all the time and have grown found of it. But it's also very subliminal. The inscription is an infinity symbol and the phrase 'never alone.' My partner's pretty damned cool.

I also wear a norse rune on a ballbearing chain, which always pops out of my collar to my embarassment. People sometimes ask 'what's with the necklace?' But it's become very much a part of me.

22:47 / 05.09.06

All of this stuff gets put in a box on my bedside table along with other assorted keepsakes.

That's not a bad thing! keeping a well-stuffed jewellery box, full of glittery things, might perhaps be just as good a use for yr jewellery as the whole day-to-day-wearing thing is. It’s like having a treasure chest, a real treasure chest that's full of real glittery treasure, sat right there on the dressing table! Great for playing Pirates, or Princesses, or both, even if you don’t much want to be a pirate or a princess when you’re going to work. Brim-full jewellery boxes are ace.

Not that I own a jewellery box. I just like going through other people’s. All I’ve got is a single, plain silver ring that hasn’t been off my finger since the first time it went on, and that was - fuck - 11 years ago now. It’s totally out of date and non-current, and I like that about it - I think it’s perhaps more like one of those tattoos that’s supposed to be a permanent mark of a particular time and place. It's not remotely relevant, and it's not really very decorative, either. And yet I don't take it off.

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