Opinion: If you wear contacts, the world may not know you have bad eyesight, but I sure do
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If you are a twenty-something and blind as a bat, chances are you own a pair of glasses — whether you wear them or not. If you are a twenty-something but you have perfect vision, it isn’t too late to be a pilot.
This opinion, however, will open every eye in more than just a punny way. But it may be different for those who can’t see clearly.
Last week, I was at the optometrist for my annual eye exam. An eye exam is when you visit a doctor and sit in a dark room. You are then prompted to look through an owl-eyed looking lens contraption called a phoropter.
Soon after, a soft-spoken optometrist whispers the question, “Is one…or two better?” in your ear as they flip through the phoropter, and follow with, “How about three… or four?”
I, for one, think this is just a little game.
Think about it. The optometrist tries to fool you into thinking your vision is bad and getting worse. You, on the other hand, try to defy all odds by proving that your vision hasn’t gotten worse and, if anything, has only gotten better.
I mean one is the same lens as three and two is always the same as four every time, isn’t it?
But that rationale is probably too hostile. Maybe optometrists truly have the best interest of our eyes at heart.
After the eyesight charades, my optometrist turned the lights back on and asked me an interesting question.
“Do you wear contacts?” he asked, to which I replied, “Yes.” Then he asked me, “Why?”
I flashed back to the third grade.
When I was 8 years old, I had my eye exam and, like many, was told I needed glasses. At first, it makes you feel all grown up. My thought was that glasses would help in making me look older and more mature.
I didn’t think about how nightmarish my future in sports and physical activity was about to be.
Back then, wearing glasses was met with stereotypical lines like “four-eyes” or “geek” all the time, and it sometimes got even meaner on the basketball court. Most of the time, I’d be the only player with frames on, but it was also just so impractical to wear glasses and play basketball. For some odd reason, wearing glasses made me try and catch a ball with my face more often. I learned that this was, in fact, impossible, and instead just painful.
It wasn’t until middle school that I got to wear contacts and, for the most part, I never went back to glasses.
I looked back up at my optometrist who was waiting for me to reply to his question.
“I don’t know,” I said.
But of course, I did. I couldn’t tell this random man that the reason I wore contacts was because I got roasted in third grade on a basketball court. But, after I left, it made me think. Why do I still wear contacts so often? Are my glasses really that awful? After all, wearing glasses promotes eye health, as contacts increase the risk of an eye infection and dryness.
Also, the stigma around glasses is not the same as it was back then. Today, wearing glasses can be fashionable and cool. It’s even associated with being sophisticated, I’m told.
Still, around 45 million Americans opt for the alternative. Though a more expensive option, contact lenses are the only way we vision-impaired people can avoid wearing glasses without missing out on clear eyesight.
At the same time, there are anomalies like me that juggle to find a balance between wearing glasses or contacts.
Most people, however, are quick to choose a side. Either you buckled down with the glasses gang for life and that has become your look, or you choose the path of duplicity, as contact lenses give you the ultimate ability to hide the truth about your eyes from the world.
Let’s face it. If you are an avid contact lens wearer, chances are you have those big, bulky, horrid-looking frames for emergencies sitting somewhere deep in your possession. Every once in a while you have to bust them out, put a hoodie on, check your peripherals and hope to God nobody you know sees you in public.
I conducted a recent survey and found that the majority of contact wearers only wear them because it makes them feel more attractive and ends up boosting their confidence. Others who took the survey also added that contact lenses were simply more convenient to wear, and activities, like exercising, were impractical without them.
Despite our vision-corrective preferences, we don’t have perfect eyesight, and that’s completely OK.
For the longest time, I exclusively wore contacts myself. Many of us do. Avid contact wearers do this, not to look down upon our glasses-wearing companions, but to highlight that many of us just don’t like how we look and feel in glasses.
But just know that wearing glasses is still cool. If you are looking for a new identity, glasses could be your ticket. Next time you find yourself at the optometrist, don’t be shady. Try on some shades.