Four-Eyed and Forty


Someone somewhere, worried that I might actually survive my 40th birthday with my sunny disposition and positive attitude intact, saw to it that my eyesight underwent a rapid decline in the weeks leading up to the big day. So my birthday present to myself was a trip to the optomitrist and my first pair of glasses.

It's odd how any slight alteration in our daily existence brings with it a sense of both excitement and anxiety. Whether you grow a beard, dye your hair blonde, or strap on rollerblades, you take on, by the very act, a new constituency. So suddenly, by slipping on these specs, I was not the man I'd been five minutes before; I was now someone who wore glasses, the newest member of a vast club.

As I wandered the streets of Manhattan, I found myself suddenly aware of every person I passed and whether or not he or she was wearing glasses. Two hours previous, I'd have not taken note of such a seemingly insignificant detail. I almost expected some passing myopic to reveal some special mode of communication existing among my optically-challenged brothers and sisters, some secret sign, some acknowledgement that yes, we were different but we were as one. However, if there exists such a sign, I've yet to suss it out. It seems that membership in this four-eyed fraternity offers few, if any, benefits. Not even a secret handshake. Of course, I couldn't help feeling a little twinge of resentment towards those two-eyed individuals I passed on the street. Never before did I realize just how blind those who see clearly without the aid of an oculuar apparatus can be. They are clueless, as once was I, as to how good they have it.

I had actually been briefly excited about the prospect of needing glasses but only for the attention they'd bring. I've long coveted the fuss that temporary health care aides and accessories foster. There was a time in my youth when I longed for nothing so dearly as I did a cast. What could be better? After the initial pain of fracturing one's limb, one could settle back and bask in the attention that these plaster sheathes invariably elicit. And everyone likes to sign a cast, don't they? So even someone with a relatively small circle of friends can suddenly appear to be a Big Man -- or Woman -- on Campus.

I wonder, though, if deeply imbedded societal attitudes about glasses might now affect the way others percieve me. Never an imposing physical speciman, will street toughs now peg me as an especially easy mark? Will I appear somehow bookish? Will strangers think me perhaps smarter than I am when first we meet? Do women make passes at guys who wear glasses? It's too soon to tell but early returns are not promising. Still, I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Perhaps it will prove to be the secret membership benefit I've been seeking.



Read next article.
Return to the Table of Contents.
Return to BRETTnews.