I still find it quite strange when people tell me that they don’t wear eyeglasses -even if they should- as they are afraid of the reaction that their “ornamented” face may cause. For many of them just the thought of becoming a “four-eyes” can be so overwhelming that they may never attempt to wear any kind of spectacles in public. However, for those of us who’ve worn them for quite a long time, they’ve become such an important aspect of our lives that we can't even conceive the idea of going out without them.
I was a fourteen-year-old teenager when I was diagnosed short-sightedness, changing both the way I saw the world, and the way the world saw me. They day I received my horn-rimmed glasses I was scared. “What would people think of me?” was a question that lingered on my mind relentlessly before putting them on for the first time: I was sure that the reaction was going to be mainly negative. But time proved me wrong. Nowadays everybody tells me that my glasses are a perfect match for my face.
Not only do spectacles have an instrumental value —if it were not for them my vision would only be reduced to a concoction of unclear images— but they also have an aesthetic value which can be equally important. The features of our face are changed by the type of glasses that we have on and for that reason the type and colour of the frame should be carefully decided upon. Otherwise, we may end up with a “face” that, in the long term, we might not like.
But even if we choose the most suitable eyeglasses for our face, after prolonged usage we may suffer a sort of “Clark Kent effect”. Whenever he intended to hide his identity, Superman got rid of his superman suit and became Clark Kent, an all-time-glasses-wearer working as a journalist in the “Daily Planet”. I have always thought that it was funny that nobody never ever found out his real identity just because he had his glasses on. However, to some extent the same sort of thing might even happen in real life: friends and relatives have gone as far as to say that whenever I take my glasses off, whenever I ditch them to try to live my life without them, they don’t recognize me!



And don’t forget the air of intellectuality that eyeglasses provide for their wearer. No matter how hard anyone tries to look intelligent, no matter how intelligent that person actually is, no matter how much effort you make to look more nerdy, if you’re one of those ordinary people who don’t wear them or are reluctanct to wear them, you’ll never get this image of intelligence that every single spectacle-user has. To provide an example, just think of your favourite T.V. program. Now think of the character that fulfills the nerd/geek/intelligent persona. You’re likely to be thinking of someone gripping the frame of her/his eyeglasses to put them on. If it is a sitcom, the camera pans over to the eyeglasses wearers and as soon as they deliver their witty one-liners their metal-framed spectacles resting on their noses shine to show the epic awesomeness of what’s just been said.


We should not forget that apart from the instrumental and aesthetic value that spectacles have, there is also some sort of sentimental value attached to them. After sharing almost all of my time with them, my eyeglasses have become almost an extension of my own body, producing, in many occassions, hilarious effects. For example we may forget that we are wearing them and we may start taking a shower only to realize seconds later that we haven’t taken taken them off, or we might ask someone near us if they’ve seen our glasses, only to be told that they are actually sitting on our noses!
Glasses, as I have already stated, can be of a vital importance for those who wear them. In my case, I’m no longer afraid of being called names. On the contrary, I proudly support the “four-eyes” badge. And now, as I touch the nose-bridge of my glasses with my forefinger and push it up for the the frames to sit comfortably on the top of my nose, I think that without my horn-rimmed glasses, I wouldn’t be the same person…now wait, what about using contact lenses? Should I “go back” to my real face? Well, I’m afraid this question will have to remain unanswered for the time being...To be continued.