26 Struggles All People Who Wear Glasses Will Relate To

Short-sighted. Long-sighted. Astigmatism. Whatever the reason for needing to wear them, glasses are a right royal pain in the ass (or temples, if you’d prefer to be more accurate). There are certain day-to-day struggles that those amongst us who are less optically challenged may fail to appreciate. Things such as…

1. Opening the oven, or drinking coffee, and immediately getting fogged up like the car in Titanic. Seriously.

2. Rain. Enough said.

3. Putting down your glasses, then needing your glasses to find where you put them. I CAN’T SEE OMGTHISISTHEWORST!

4. Your eyelashes brushing up against the lenses. GOD DAMN YOU, EYE CAGES.

5. Smearing. How do they get so dirty just from being on your face?

6. Having people try your glasses on, then follow with, “Wow, you’re really blind”. Well, I am now, because you’ve got my effing glasses.

7. Having people ask, “How many fingers am I holding up?” when you take them off. Hah. Hah. This isn’t Scooby Doo.

8. When people wear frames without lenses. You don’t see me bowling about in a wheelchair I don’t need, do you?

9. The eternal battle between sunglasses or glasses on a sunny day. Or those horrific transition lenses that sounds like a menopause treatment and look like something from The Matrix.

10. Wanting to not wear glasses for a special occasion. But knowing that, without them, you’ll squint like an angry mole.

11. Being referred to as, ‘The one with glasses’. No sh*t.

12. Having an entire extra accessory to think about.

13. Sweating underneath the plastic bits on your nose on a hot day. Mmm.

14. Trying on every single pair in the optician’s and hating them all, but knowing you have to pick one.

15. Being intimately familiar with the hairs inside your optometrist’s nostrils.Number 1? Or number 2?

16. The constant fear of not picking the right colour when he asks the red or green question. And consequently having the wrong prescription FOREVER.

17. Wanting to read the smallest letters on the board so that it seems like your eyes have got better. But in actual fact just guessing at them by which letters you haven’t already said.

18. Spending a sh*tload on a decent pair of frames, only to accidentally crush them beyond repair.

19. Falling asleep with your glasses on, and waking up with a line gouged in the side of your face.

20. Trying to wear contacts for the first time. Then being so scared that you’ll squeeze your eyeball out that it takes an hour to get them out again.

21. When you think you look better without your glasses on. Then you realise it’s because you can’t see yourself. Sob.

22. Having to explain to your friend again the difference between being short or longsighted.

23. Summer tan lines. Your temples look like a mint humbug.

24. Being unable to see things in the shower. Then realising you’ve missed a big patch of your legs when shaving.

25. Having to slot the 3D glasses over the top of your actual glasses at the cinema, so you look like a batty professor.

26. Being locked in some weird contest with other bespectacled friends to see who has worse eyesight. If it’s going to be bad, it may as well be the worst – that way, you’re kind of winning?

(Written for Pretty 52)