Guys Do Make Passes at Girls who Wear Glasses

I have been a member of the world’s bespectacled population for about 15 years now. I still remember when I found out I was going to need glasses. I was in the 6th grade and my teachers started to notice that I was squinting at the chalk board, so my mother took me to the eye doctor. I discovered that in addition to my other shortcomings, I also had 20/90 vision, meaning what most people could see at 90 feet, I could only see at 20 feet. Glasses would be the tragic icing on my cake of social awkwardness. Since I reached my full adult height at the age of 11, I was an abnormally tall 6th grader, but even my impressive 62 inch stature couldn’t gracefully hide the 150 pounds I was carrying around at that time. I also suffered from full blown chronic acne, and my mom had to buy me the special deodorant that probably killed at least one lab rat in its earliest form. All of this angst-inducing, character-building mess was exacerbated by my stirrup pants and puffy-paint sweatshirts. Glasses would only solidify my status as a social misfit and allow me to see my sad reflection with more clarity. I threw myself a blurry, nearsighted pity party and then went with my mom to pick up my first pair of coke-bottle glasses. (Function over form for real).

After a year of misery my repressed sense of vanity screamed at me that it was time to get contact lenses. It was my first real experience with “the grass is always greener” syndrome and I convinced myself that contact lenses would change my life. I would be a happier, more productive member of society. I would experience my first kiss and lose 30 pounds. Everything would turn to gold and sunshine and unicorn dreams if only I could get rid of my blasted glasses. My dad took me to the eye doctor to get contact lenses. When I tried to take them out later that day, I accidentally pinched my eyeball. I didn’t even know that it was possible to pinch your eyeball, but I made it happen…and it was traumatic. I decided that day that I
was done with contact lenses forever.

The good news is that every time my eyes got worse, my glasses got better. Now, my eyes are 20/490 (yes that sadly means that what most people can see at 490 feet, I can only see at 20—it means I cannot see my feet from my face when I am standing up) but my glasses are snazzy. There are days when I am frustrated that I have a dependency on glasses and that I will probably have to use my bonus or my tax return every other year for the rest of my life to buy new eyewear. I hate those mornings when I’ve accidentally knocked my glasses off the bed in my sleep and I can’t see to see them. I do realize that if I ever found myself in an H.G. Wells post-apocalyptic novel, I’d be entirely screwed and one of the first ones to die. Driving at night sucks even worse than usual, and because of the gap between my glasses and my face, I’m really bad at things like sweeping, vacuuming, and going up and down stairs. But I’ve consoled myself with the fact that my glasses hide the little bump on the bridge of my nose and the crow’s feet and dark circles around my eyes. I think my glasses fit my personality and it keeps me from having to wear eye makeup. And plus, people like Tina Fey wear glasses. And who doesn’t like Tina Fey…except maybe Sarah Palin. But she doesn’t help my argument that glasses are awesome so I’m going to stop there. (Plus, Tina Fey’s glasses are cool…Sarah Palin’s are not).

But today, I realized the absolute best part about wearing glasses. Being atrociously nearsighted has increased my attention span by hours. I have the capability to grade hours and hours worth of dismal, incorrectly cited, under-researched, plagiarized papers without stopping. I didn’t even bat an eye in the coffee shop when the Dungeons and Dragons convention sat down at the table right next to mine and started discussing their anime collections way louder than necessary. The barista with the enraging giggle got tickled by something a regular said, and I didn’t even notice. It’s a beautiful combination of giant headphones, and bad genes. With my music on, I can block out all audio stimulus. Add that to my inability to see more than 2 feet in front of my face, and voila! You have the perfect environment for academic and task-oriented isolation. I hardly even noticed the entire roller-derby team that came in to get frappucinos, compare their bruises, and pick their scabs while yelling curse words. I plowed on through, blissfully ignorant of the world around me, completely lost in a mediocre paper about health care reform. Fully functional people with their contact lenses or their 20/20 vision could only get this kind of focus with adderall or methlyphenidate; all I have to do it pop my glasses off.

So take that you smug, hawk-eyed friends. You people with your restriction-free licenses. With your ability to walk into a warm room on a cold day and not have your glasses fog up. You’ll never know the fear after someone runs up to you and steals your glasses right off your face only to turn and run away so they can watch you thrash around (legally) blindly. And you can take your ability to buy ironic 10 dollar sunglasses at drug and convenience stores and get on out of here. And what’s so great about being able to read the alarm clock when you wake up in the morning? Huh? Huh? And, by the way...I don't even like 3D movies!

I’ll kick you and ADHD in the face.

And you better hope I’m not wearing my glasses when I do.