Divorce rates among sports watchwearers rocket

Relationship troubles among sports watch wearers are soaring out of control, an alarming trend confirmed by data. With unreasonable sports watch behaviour initiating more breakups than ever, the problem is reaching breaking point. Now many are calling on immediate action from manufacturers.

bum.news speaks with three sets of couples whose lives sports watches have turned upside down.

One morning wife Y caught husband X looking at his watch

In an all-too familiar pattern repeated across many divorces, sports watch wearers husband X and wife Y (names withheld to protect their identities), initiated divorce proceedings after getting married. X and Y are not unusual but hope their story may serve as a dire warning to others.

One morning wife Y caught husband X looking at his sports watch. ‘I knew by the way he was looking at his watch he shouldn't have been looking at it like that’ says wife Y. She decided to investigate.

Wife Y soon discovered alarming heartrate data at odd times of husband X’s day. She cross-referenced his step count and his GPS location data. The data proved illuminating – and highly incriminating. Gradually she pieced together her husband's adulterous affair with mistress Z. Alarmingly, mistress Z was a trusted and previously liked member of Y’s yoga class.

Revealingly, however, yoga goer mistress Z was also a sports watch wearer. To make matters worse, further inspection exposed the full story – one revealing intimate details of the illicit couple’s explicit activities.

The data patterns, when analysed by wife Y, strongly indicated many liaisons culminated in sexual activity

X’s sports watch data showed telltale data traces, indicating countless romantic and energetic liaisons. The data patterns, when analysed by wife Y, strongly indicated many liaisons culminated in sexual activity. A building heartrate, a few brief dips representing periods of recuperation or comfort breaks. Then X’s watch would faithfully record a peak BPM before flatlining. X didn’t die after the final energetic throes of his marriage-busting act but instead would remove his water-resistant-to-fifty-meters timepiece and sensationally, Y believes, shower.

Not-so-innocent yoga class similar to yoga class where two sports watch wearers met to begin torrid affair

Move on a month or two and manufacturers are responding to X and Y’s and the numerous other couples like them in dire romantic straits. Perhaps not quite the solution many expected or wanted but a raft of manufacturers are rolling out anti-infidelity detection software patches. ‘Too late for us,’ says wife Y, her ex-husband now expecting his second child with yoga-lover Z, ‘but maybe future couples can avoid what we went through.’

Yet, sports-watch divorces needn’t have such dramatic causes as the case of X, Y and Z to still prove equally traumatic. The breakup story of Lilly and Bob strikes at the core of the tech invasion currently open on all fronts against human persons.

Husband Bob initiated divorce after wife Lilly refused (or forgot) to kill her smart sports watch wearable’s nighttime feature. That function – ‘flick your wrist up, look at me, and I will light brightly up’ – would wake Bob nearly every night. Lilly turned in her sleep, raised her left wrist, and her watch lit brightly up. The resulting glare in Bob’s face woke him instantly, destroying his fragile sleep patterns.

Eventually Bob had enough and wanted to get rid of his wife and her lighthouse-rivalling sports watch. Permanently. In hindsight Bob says swapping bed sides may have saved their marriage. Instead, notifying her, unironically, via a text message she received on her sports watch, he served his wife with divorce proceedings. In court, Bob exhibited his own sports watch sleep data in his case against his wife. Displaying to the jury graphs charting his sleep depravation, caused by Lily’s watch feature waking him, he knew he had a strong case.

Wife Lilly may have finally disabled the ‘look at me and I light up’ feature – at which point husband Bob’s sleep immediately returned to previously healthy levels – the court found against wife Lily’s behaviour, citing it as utterly unreasonable. Competitive athlete Bob chalked up a convincing win against loser wife Lilly, pictured, whom he’d beaten and fallen in love with during a collegial mixed relay race ten happier years earlier.

Sports watch wearers Lily and Bob, seen in happier times before watch-light nighttime hell shattered their marriage

But if you think you’ve heard all there is to hear about sports-watch-caused divorces, you may find you’ll need to think again. Not only are the two divorce sources we’ve already encountered highly common but in the highly destructive world of sports watch wearing a third cause regularly crops up. One to do with not sexual but brand promiscuity.

Wearers unfaithful to specific watch manufacturers – the ‘brand-promiscuous’ – are significantly more likely to pull the ripcord on their relationships than users faithful to one brand or even just one watch. So-called watch-hoppers – user-wearers regularly switching watch models and makes – are inextricably linked to higher love-split rates. The data doesn’t lie.

Couple Zanny and Bop represent what some are calling just the tip of the watchberg. Now separated, Zanny says Bop spent all their hard-earned money on the latest chart-topping brands’ sports watch models. Today, as Zanny picks up the couple’s sad tale, his face is cracked with fatigue and regret. ‘Bop was always disappearing into his watch, shopping on it every day. Splurging our money on the latest wrist wearable. I had a casual drug habit I had to knock on the head after Bop’s nightly spending sprees drained our accounts.’ Nearly five hundred sports watches later, Zanny walked out on Bop. Thanks to his own smart watch, a gift from Bop, Zanny must live with the daily reminder of their shattered relationship.

 

Ex couple Zanny and Bop (left), in happier times, before sports watch purchases destroyed their happy relationship

Divorce and relationship experts say modern tech presents the biggest threat yet to stable, love-based relationships since humans themselves. They recommend concerned watch wearers tread carefully after purchasing a new purchase. Wearers and wearers’ partners should pay particular attention to both their own and their partner’s romantic behaviour, remaining vigilant for any unexpected changes.

If you’ve been affected by this story but feel your own situation is often overlooked by those around you, you are not alone.