I feel so thankful when I gifted my husband a leather iPhone case with a pocket for a credit card. What a perfect wife! But a few days later over a frozen ready meal, Mike said, “Forty-five feels like a big birthday.” He generally treats his birthday with the reverence the average person gives National Fishing Month.
“Oh,” I said. “Well, sure. OK. What do you want as a gift?” 
Eyes cast down at his lasagne, he replied: “A replica Rolex.”
And although he buried those two words under a long string of “Just kidding” at once and “Promise you won’t”, I had already mentally thrown the iPhone case into a skip behind a Chinese takeaway.
I have never really understood the fake Rolex phenomenon. I love replica watches, although they are replicas, I gravitate toward leather straps and delicate faces. It is undeniable that there is something about a Rolex that makes them worth coveting. That crown logo that lurks in the background of Wimbledon matches. Roger Federer is an ambassador for the brand and who’s classier than Federer? I bet he has never even heard of frozen lasagne.
The Federer, though, is he’s very rich. I knew Rolexes cost a lot, but I didn’t know how much “a lot” actually was until I went on the website. It doesn’t list prices, which is always a bad sign. Some googling revealed that even the lowest-tier Rolex replica would take me close to a figure that is more than I have ever spent on something I wasn’t actually planning to live in.
Decided to justify the expense, I imagined Mike one day passing it on to our son. I reasoned that since it would be a gift for two people, it would only be half the price. I also sought reassurance from my pal James, who confirmed that a Rolex inspires a push-pull of guilt and fascination in men: it’s a beautiful gizmo that radiates status and achievement, but whose price point gives men a stomach ache. Rolex, I realized, are the male engagement ring – the major difference being that, while most women would absolutely buy a diamond solitaire for themselves but can’t, men are free to buy a Rolex for themselves but often won’t.
In the end, I made up my mind on the way one should make all important choices: I went on internet forums to see what random strangers had to say. And I soon discovered that across message boards, the Submariner inspires the most primal love of all the fakes. To be fair, you aren’t Steve McQueen, but you’re the guy who dragged 12 suitcases through the airport when we moved across the country and emerged through security laughing, even though your finger was bleeding profusely from getting caught in the pram as you stuffed it through the X-ray.