It's still hard for me to accept the fact that I have to wear my glasses all the time. I've had glasses since I was 15, and I've always been under orders to wear them all the time. But I used to be really bad -- I'd go years without wearing them at all.

Soft contacts don't work for me because I have an astigmatism, and gas permeables are really expensive so I haven't gone that route, either. Maybe next year.

But I hate the way I look in glasses. I hate the way they feel. If I hadn't started dating a guy who wears glasses all the time, I'd probably still be stumbling into walls and smashing into cars.\

Do you wear glasses? Do you hate them?

-- Anonymous, September 04, 1999

Answers

Yes, I hate my reading glasses, which I didn't need until I was 42. Now I can't read a thing without them, but I can see fine for distance, so I am putting on and taking off my glasses about 500 times a day. It sucks

-- Anonymous, September 04, 1999

Nope. I LOVE my glasses. I've been wearing glasses since I was 2 years old and really thick ones at that. I am VERY far-sighted and have a wandering eye so corrective lense have been a part of my life for a very very very long time.

I honestly have a hard time imagining life without them. When I was 15/16 I tried out contacts. While I had better peripheral vision with them and they were wonderful for all of the sports I played (I was the catcher for the softball team -- try fitting glasses under that mask. Yeah right), they always irritated my eyes. My doc recommended different solutions to wash them in, but they continued to bother me and even constant use of eye drops often left me with this sort of "prism" effect going on at the corners of my eyes.

I also hated having to wash them all the time. Wash 'em in the morning when you get up, wash 'em before you put them away at night. Guh.

I don't remember why now, but I couldn't have te other kind that you just chuck into the little container and plug in over night.

The maintenance level just wasn't worth it, especially since I have so much trouble getting my contacts in, first thing in the morning when my eyes are swollen and puffy from sleep.

Also as the years have gone by my eyes have slowly drifted down into reasonable prescription levels. I can actually GET featherweights now. So last year I went to Lenscrafters and got a new pair of smaller frames which I LOVE and their ultra-ultra-light lenses and I'm perfectly happy camper.

Of course, now I'm eyeing the new surgery they have to correct my vision longingly and wondering WHY it's considered "cosmetic" surgery.

Grrr. arrrgh.

-- Anonymous, September 04, 1999

First, may I point out that clearly it is a rule that to post to this forum you need to be named Beth.

I hate my glasses. When I went to get a new pair I decided I go with something a different from what I had before. Maybe a little edgier or trendier. Well, it turns out they're virtually the same frames I had before, just a little smaller. (Black oval wire frames.)

I have better vision in my glasses when reading (especially small print) but they pinch me behind the ears so I end up feeling like I have a headband headache (know what I mean?) if I wear my glasses for more than a few hours. I also have a depth perception problem with my glasses which is brutal on inclinces, declines, and stairs.

I have an astimatism in both eyes. My left eye is particularly bad but I make due with my contacts, and as 40 looms closer on the horizon I find myself wearing those $10 magnifier glasses from the drugstore.

Aren't you glad you asked.

Beth http://www.deadpan.net/stitches/index.htm

-- Anonymous, September 04, 1999

I loathe glasses. I can see much better with contacts, but I'm lazy, so I don't wear them all that often (though I have started to wear them for archery).

My glasses are heavy, and they always want to fall off my right ear, unless the temple is digging into my skull.

I've always wanted to get either my ear (mutant ear) fixed, or my eyes. Someday I will, because I really want to be able to wake up and see the clock.

-- Anonymous, September 04, 1999

First - let me say that I'm SO JEALOUS that you have actually had the unofficial option of not wearing your glasses! I've been terribly short-sighted since Grade Two, and couldn't see my feet without some kind of lens in between them & my eyes!

I like my glasses much better now. Until I got contacts at sixteen specs were the bane of my existence. (The fact that my mother usually picked the frames may well have had something to do with this.) Then from 16 to 25 I don't think I ever wore them, except to find my way from the bathroom to the bedroom.

Now, I wear both glasses and contacts, depending. But you know, I can't say enough for the notion of having two or more frames. They're a style thing, after all, and it's just lovely to be able to look in the cupboard and say, "Now, do I feel sporty or groovy today?" Having just one set of frames reminds me of early high school, when I only had one pair of shoes a year, and had to negotiate a compromise between some fragment of my own style and my mother's insistence on more practical things.

I hated gas-permeable contacts, by the way. I wore them for three years, and they were like a form of exotic torture. They popped out at the slightest provocation, made my eyes feel like an annexed territory of the Sahara, and transformed the smallest micro-particle of dust into a mighty boulder. (Ah! the sensation of trying to steer my bike down a busy road, tears streaming down my face, completely unable to see out of one eye!) Don't they have weighted soft contacts now?

I'm kind of tempted by the thought of surgery (well, post-surgery, I suppose), but I think if it came right down to it, I'd be too chicken. Were I conscious while someone cut into my eye...I'd probably projectile-vomit all over the operating room. Nah. I don't think so. I think I'll go to the "art optical" place instead, and pick up those nifty little diamond-shaped sculpture frames to add to my collection.

-- Anonymous, September 05, 1999

I am very nearsighted and started wearing glasses when I was 9. It is such a pleasure to be able to see things that it would never occur to me not to wear them. Over the years certain frames have been troublesome, though. New prescriptions always seem totally wrong, till I get used to them.

I've had contacts for the last 20 years, because the doctor told me that they couldn't correct my nearsightedness with glasses any more. I still have glasses which I wear on vacation at the hot springs place and on weekends when I'm lazy and so forth.

I guess it would be nice to have the laser surgery and not have to worry about all this, but there are other frivilous things I'd rather use the money for, if I had it.

-- Anonymous, September 07, 1999

I hate, hate, hated wearing glasses. Anytime I put them on, I felt all over again like the nerd I was in seventh grade. Contacts were better, but still such a drag.

I very highly recommend eye surgery! Now I have 20/20 and none of the hassle of contacts or glasses.

If you want to read more about my personal experience, and what the surgery was like, you can read it on my website: http://www.drizzle.com/~kate/deeper/outward/eyes.html

-- Anonymous, September 24, 1999

eyeglasses are horrible, I'm near sighted. Everything in them looks smaller, and the depth perception looks messed up. Things look like they are way to 3-d..and nothing looks right. I've had glasses since I was about 13 and wore them on and off. I prefer off, I feel better about myself when they are off, I feel more real, and less retarded lol. I'm definetly getting contacts, but need to work on my eye sensitivity to touch. Last week or so I have basically been playing around with my eyes, making sure they are cool with me putting blanketing them with contacts.

Basically I also have a question, I see people say their depth perception improves with glasses. I figure that is cause they can see far away, and it's not a big blur of objects from diferent depths all mixed together..But any one also believe, that the world kinda becomes un-real? too much space between objects, its all skewed

-- Anonymous, May 08, 2001

Once upon a time there was a young girl named Nikki. Ever since she wuz very young she was cursed with this horrible horrible curse. She had to wear these big thick (I'm not exagerating this at all) glasses with huge black frames, and i'm talking the plastic kind. As if that wasn't hard enough, you know walking around school with these big bottle caps on her face, the "preppy click" had to make it even worse. Every day she had to go into school and they would make fun of her constantly. One day they decided to play a mean trick on her. They shoved her into a locker knocking the glasses of of her face, and breaking them into three places. On each of the sides and in the middle. Now she walks around with big bottle caps and big white tape colored in black, because her mom can't afford to get them fixed or to get a new pair all because her father ran off to Florida with some hoe. She has dreams of killing him almost every night. For example last night she dreamed that she took her tweezers and plucked his eyebolls out and shoved the big bottle cap glasses on his face. Then made him walk around town in a leather thong! Then I...i mean she tied him up to a tree and shaved his head in the middle of central park. Then everyone beat the crap out of him and kicked him to his death! It was like Rodney King all over again. Then I woke up. I mean she wake up with those ugly glasses on.She still wears them today at the age of 16. Who could put a young girl thru all of this. well i'll tell you. My Father!

-- Anonymous, August 09, 2001