Just realising my friends think wearing glasses is 'lesser' and now I feel like shit

[Speczy]

As the title suggests, I wear glasses. Can't go about my daily life without them. I do have contact lenses but I rarely wear them now.

A friend, older than me by 6 years, needs readers. For small print, nothing major. She is 51 for context. Put it in our chat group (with one other v close friend who is only 40).

The whole narrative was that glasses are an old person thing, how would I wear them? Do I need a lanyard to carry them? Goodness, what kind of bag can I fit them in? Where will I put them? I'll need to wear them at work!! Shocked, glasses, what an inconvenience and a nightmare! Etc.

This was a back and forth between my friends on the group chat. I've been wearing glasses for decades...aibu to be hurt by this? I'm a big, tough grown up, but feel like shit after reading that.

Agree - kindly - you are being way over-sensitive!

This is 100% about the adjustment for them, nothing whatsoever to do with you.

Besides, all ages where glasses.

Want to feel old? I’m 49 and a couple of months ago got a hearing aid…. 👵🏻😏

I also wear glasses (albeit not all the time).

I'm mainly a contact lens wearer and wear glasses when I'm resting my eyes. I was HORRIFIED to find I needed reading glasses and varifocals. Just horrified. Took a while to get used to it on stairs too.
YABVU.

People are entitled to their own opinions and are even allowed to voice them without this endless need to turn into 'how can i find a way to make this about me'

I wear glasses nothing anyone, other that my eye doctors l, can say about them changes the I wear them, so whatever they say does not have to be about me

Same for anything else or subject

Yup.

Sadly, then you get a bit older and need them for driving too, but distance ones.

I now have readers and varifocals which I swap several times a day. Varifocals are fine for the dashboard and reading a label in the supermarket but not for a book or cooking.

not to mention you need sunglasses in each of the above.

last week on holiday I was swapping between four pairs! It’s a bloody PIA when I didn’t need anything until 45.

@TerfIngOnTheBeach not to mention you need sunglasses in each of the above.

No you don't. Fitovers/overglasses/clipons/etc go over your prescription glasses and you buy them big enough to go over your largest pair. It's how I deal with needing different colours of sunglasses for different situations.

I don't think you're being oversensitive, OP, I think they're being thoughtless, rude and need to grow up. Ftr I'm 60, have worn distance and multifocal glasses since I was 15, had all the shit from scumbag school students when I started wearing them, and have recently got reading glasses as well as multifocals because single-vision glasses are better for reading, knitting etc. Only thing I dislike about my glasses is that the anti-glare coating means every tiny smudge shows up much, and wearing a mask during Covid meant they always fogged up.

Her reading glasses are due to aging sight, hence the elderly jokes. Your sight is not age related. Personally I wouldn’t take offence. Glasses are quite sexy.

Your friends are bonkers. I got my first glasses when I was ten. I had contacts as a teenager till my eyes rejected them. Glasses are useful. Carefully chosen, they are attractive.

Now, hearing aids (I have those, too)...

I don't think we always actually "see" old friends. Thinking about them evokes emotion, with "looks" being more the look of their smile and the sound of their laugh. We had something similar a few months ago where one friend moaned about grey hairs, others empathised, then another said "oh come off it, I've been grey for ten years". All of us were shocked, and suddenly looked - she was indeed quite grey. She shouldn't be, even if I think of her now her hair is still deep chocolate brown and long, not the bob she actually has. So I agree that I don't think they thought for a second that you have glasses, because they probably haven't noticed them in many years.

The group chat convo you describe is the equivalent to people talking about you, but want you to over hear their conversation.
They are not friends. Sorry. 🤷‍♀️

I think you're being over sensitive. Reading glasses are incredibly annoying for a lot of people, in a way that regular glasses aren't. Both a friend and MIL recently got them, and they are both being driven batty by the constant on-off, on-off, and misplacing them all the time. They are also a sign of aging in a way that regular glasses aren't. I doubt your friend equates you wearing glasses with her situation at all! (Fellow glasses wearer here)

I wear glasses for every day short-sightedness and have done since I was about 10. I'm completely used to them and I think my face would look weird without them lol. Totally happy with my glasses and dont see it as a "thing" at all. Yet I still gently tease my mum for needing reading glasses - asking if she needs her arms lengthening, commenting on the fact that she has about 10 pairs of reading specs so there's one in each drawer/bag/pocket. Having to read the menu out to her if she's forgotten them etc. I'm sure I'll get it all back in spades when I need varifocals!

Been wearing glasses since I was 12, now 42, recently noticed my vision was just ‘off’ somehow, despite only being tested 6 months previously.
The utter HORROR of being told by my kindly optician I needed variofocals!
She murmurs ‘oh I was wondering why you wanted tested again so soon but then I noticed your date of birth…’ she tried to take the sting out of it all by saying I definitely didn’t look 42 bless her dear heart.
it’s the fact you now need glasses cos you’re aging that hits different.

Unless the friends have a track record for being bitchy it’s surely much more likely to be discomfort about ageing. Tactless, yes, but they probably haven’t even thought about op. I couldn’t tell you which friends and acquaintances wear glasses

Personally I’m dreading having to get any sort of glasses. I hate having things touching my face, I really dislike people noticing I’ve changed my appearance and I have never found a pair of sunglasses that suit me. Most of all it would be the ageing thing though. I’ve got loads of grey hairs and definitely noticing other signs of getting older, but while I don’t need glasses I can pretend nothing has changed since I was 20. I may be dreading them for myself, but they certainly didn’t put me off my DH who was a glasses wearer when we met just after uni and looks great in them.

YABU
I've worn glasses for 30 years and I've now got to wear varifocals and I've been joking about how that makes me middle aged/old
it's The transition from what you were into something else that getting long sighted represents - it's a clear sign of ageing. Having to wear reading glasses is completely different to having to wear glasses just to see - the connotation IS of being old and so what? You're being way too sensitive.

I'm in my 40s and have had to just get reading glasses- this was after years of being able to read the tiniest print and having amazing eyesight.

Thats not a brag in any way, I'm well aware of how lucky I was to have such good eyesight, but it IS a shock to see the signs of ageing and the decline of otherwise perfect eyesight. I felt the same as your friend to be honest.

This is no different to being very fit and then finding out as you age you cant run as much, or that your joints ache when they never used to, or that your hair is thinner than it used to be when young, or that you are getting horrific peri symptoms when you never used to. It IS a physical manifestation of your body ageing which is upsetting for people. It may have been expressed a bit clumsily but I think you are being a little over sensitive about this when you consider it in the context as above.

I’ve worn glasses for 18 years, mainly for reading/computer/when my eyes get tired. Last year to my horror I had to get varifocals and now wear glasses all the time. It did make me feel shit getting the varifocals because the opticians made the delightful point of how I was too young for them 😂

I know you’ve taken it on the chin that maybe you’ve been a little over sensitive, but I suspect your friend was just reacting to the ageing aspect of needing reading glasses because of the change, in the same way I reacted to needing varifocals because my long distances vision had previously always been cracking.

I'm back to getting constant headaches so this thread has reminded me to book an eye test because it generally means my eyes have got worse, so thank you for the reminder! 😀

Well a quick Google reveals that 60-70% of people in the UK need corrective lenses or have had laser eye surgery.

That means it is in no way limited to over-50's.

Your friends are being really weird.

Degenerative long sightedness is absolutely associated with ageing. Not needing glasses all your life then needing them come middle age is a very common experience.

Except that isn't how reading glasses work. I wear them for reading and other close-up detailed vision things like sewing, but if I wear them for looking at anything further away than arms length then I can't see properly and get headaches and feel sick and can't do things like cross the road safely. At work, I switch between close-up and middle distance vision tasks all the time, so have to put my glasses on or take them off every couple of minutes, which really is a nuisance. I can't wear them on the walk to work, so it's easy to forget them. DH is short-sighted and just wears his glasses all the time. He has completely different glasses-related problems to me. He puts no thought whatever into having to remember his glasses, or switch them on and off, but rain and swimming are more of a problem.

I've worn glasses for short sightedness since I was 6 and I'm still moaning that I'm getting long sighted as I get older and will need varifocals soon. I really wouldn't be annoyed with my friends in your position. It's just adjusting to getting older, we're allowed to have a moan!

If people are so bothered by the taking on and off, rather than the fact of wearing glasses, why not get varifocals that they can leave on all the time (with a clear lens for distance vision if they don't require any other correction).

I've been wearing glasses full time since my mid teens. I'm long accustomed to it, but people who need reading glasses in middle age should be thankful that they have escaped the expense of glasses for 30 or so years, and the unavoidable inconveniences such as having to wear glasses while partaking in sports, and not being able to see things like the clock while in bed.

I've worn glasses for distance since I was 19 but have only recently, at 53, begun to need reading glasses (or varifocals).

My friends and I laugh about "where are my glasses", passing a pair round the table to read the menu, arms not long enough to read our watch. We all recognise it as an inconvenient sign of aging and needing reading glasses is inconvenient in a way that needing glasses all day isn't.

I understand where you are coming from. As someone that has always worn glasses and been through loads of being bullied as a child it can be very annoying.

But TBH I found the phase of glasses being trendy and a fashion item more annoying, especially those that just wore frames because it made them look more "intelligent".

I’ve worn distance glasses since my early teens, now in my 70s I have varifocals for convenience. However, I still prefer to read without them, as I’m doing now on my iPad.