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.

My husband (who is young-ish btw) just had glasses for reading this week funnily enough and I can honestly say he looks even sexier.

Your friends are dramatic and need to grow up

Glasses are fabulous!!! I love mine 😍 I have about 10 pairs - diamanté, animal print, floral, silver, green, gold, cats eye.....I always get comments on my vast array of eye fashion!

It all sounds very "oooh pay attention to me" and they sound a bit thick if they cant work out how to carry them and think its a massive inconvenience wearing a very light bit of metal on your face. Makes you wonder how they cope with genuine problems 🤣🤣

Glasses aren't lesser or an old person thing. About half of my 20s colleagues wear them. Readers however.... well, they're one of the stereotype things that signal you're getting on a bit, given most of us need them some time after 50 and few before, and they're joking about that, not glasses in general. My friend has worn glasses all her life but still jokes about needing her readers.

Readers are a pain (I was going to say a pain in the ass, but some wag would point out I'm wearing them wrong). I don't mind my readers while I'm working as they stay on my face for hours at a time, but I have take them off or peer over them like a grumpy librarian so I can move around the house safely. As you're taking them off and on a lot, they feel very 'there' as well, and you do initially have to worry about boring shit like how you carry them on a night out so you can read a menu.

I’ve needed glasses all my life. Spent a period wearing contacts but they were so much faff I went back to glasses. I do think there is a perception that glasses are frumpy if not actually old lady ish. In films if they want to portray a woman as intellectual or stuffy they put glasses on her. If they want to portray a girl as unattractive ugly duckling they put glasses on her. Then when she takes the glasses off it’s “why you’re beautiful!”. And in makeover articles in magazines, if the subject is wearing glasses in the before picture she willnotbewezri g them in the after picture.

Non of that is offensive. They are literally talking about practicalities related to their new aid which is new to them and they are allowed to discuss and figure out. You aren't the gatekeeper of glasses just because you had them longer.

I'm mid 30s and have known I need glasses since 8. I only ever wear them to drive (legally have too) because they are a MASSIVE pain in the ass and I would rather see a blurry world than deal with them. I also can't wear contacts.

They fall off when I'm working/moving, they get lost because I put them down when they fall off and forget where, they break because my toddler grabs at them constantly... they are just frankly a nightmare and that is my experience of my life with my disability which is NOT an attack on you are even anything to do with you.

I have adapted over the years too function perfectly fine with my vision and no glasses. I honestly don't give two fucks if anyone else choose to wear them (through need, fashion or any other reason) because its not a 'hatred' for people in glasses its just a personal inconvenience to wear them myself.

Its the same way I had a family member who was an amputee and REFUSED to wear prosthetics, instead just choose to use a wheelchair because she said it was uncomfortable and hard work... its her choice to not use a prosthetic and its my choice to not wear glasses.

I love my glasses. I've worn them since primary school and my eyesight is so bad I would have had a very limited life without them. I donate to Sightsavers every month as I can't imagine how awful it must be to have sight problems in poorer countries and no hope of correcting bad vision. We're lucky to have them and I've worn them so long they're a part of me and my style.

The only downside for me of wearing glasses is that my friends and I are now at an age where everyone needs glasses and, because they're too vain or forgetful, sometimes I'm the only one who can see and I have to read the menu aloud in restaurants.

How petty.

I have worn glasses for decades as well and I wear them for every waking minute (unless I’m wearing contact lenses for swimming).
I recently went for consultations for laser eye surgery and was told it won’t be long until I need glasses for reading.
I went through all the questions your friends are asking because in my opinion it’s much more difficult wearing glasses only some of the time and I know I’d put them down and lose them, or forget the case for them etc.
So I think YABU

@Cyantist Given your name I might be telling you something you already know, but I think swimming in contacts is a good thing.https://www.visiondirect.co.uk/wearing-lenses/contact-lenses-for-swimming

@Cyantist ARGGGH! I meant NOT a good thing. I'd like to say I need glasses but I'm wearing mine as I type.

@cyantist - you can get goggles now with basic prescription lenses relatively cheaply these days - might be better than contact lenses. Probably won't get you to full 20/20 vision, but it's not like you're reading a book in the pool.

It's a perspective thing. I have students from about 8 to 14 wearing glasses with clear lenses cos they think they're cool 🤷🏻
I wouldn't even give a passing thought to seeing anyone at any age in glasses (unless they were particularly fabulous and supposed to be eye catching!)

Haven't read the whole thread but people putting down others becuase they wear glasses is ridiculous. Nothing to do with age. I've worn glasses since I was 9, now 76. My 11 year old grandson wears them. It's a stupid prejudice. And of course we all get older. That's life.
I now wear hearing aids - have for some years. Who cares? I don't. I'm not bothered if people can see them or not. And if they want to make nasty comments, well I can just turn the hearing aids off and not listen to them.
They have their uses. Our surgery has 'music' playing in the waiting room. I can turn it right down.
But then wonder why I can't hear my GP properly till I remember and turn the volume up again.

I like to tell people there's a statistical link between shortsightedness and intelligence! (There is, though I don't think anyone knows why.)

However, I can see why people who need glasses as part of aging feel sad about it. I'd feel the same way if I needed a hearing aid. That doesn't mean I think hearing impaired people are lesser.

And obviously if I could snap my fingers and have perfect vision, yes I would.

I may be repeating as I haven’t read the whole thread. I have been a glasses wearer since early teens but I still remember the horror I felt at having to move to varifocals. I really felt like old age was impending. I imagine the thought process of this friend as being much the same.

And obviously if I could snap my fingers and have perfect vision, yes I would.

I often think an advantage of not having perfect vision is that I can’t see how old I really look!

Those saying it's easier if you wear glasses all the time compared with reading glasses going on and off- do you realise that as we all age, even us permanent glasses wearers develop long-sightedness, even if we are also short-sighted! That means we either have to have different glasses or varifocals which require you looking up and down a lot. Or, having contacts and then having to have reading glasses.

Getting older is a pain in terms of deteriorating eyesight, but I still feel lucky to have completely correctable problems on that front.

Exactly this. I am 51 and still just about resisting reading glasses. It's fine this time of year with light evenings. It's winter evenings with artificial light which make it difficult to see things.

I am also sure that print on things eg cosmetics has got smaller, it's not just my eyes

51 and in your 40s! From the start of your post I though you were going to say you were teenagers! Just immature all round!

They need to grow up. Personally like the look of my glasses, they are a pain though!

Ooh, I’m envious! I hoped that getting longer-sighted with age might improve my short-sightedness, but nope, now they’re both crap, and I have astigmatism as well. 😆

You're being super over sensitive.

I've worn glasses and latterly contact lenses for the last 42 years. I am very short sighted, but I also felt really decrepit and annoyed when I realised that I needed to switch to varifocals and also get a pair of reading glasses to use with my contact lenses a few years ago.

It's a very unwelcome and inconvenient sign of ageing, even if you're a regular specs wearer, so I'm not surprised your friends are moaning. Doesn't mean they see you as defective.

Personally I'm hoping to develop cataracts & need surgery and end up with near perfect vision, as my mum did after 75 odd years of glasses wearing.

I wear glasses and I've had them since I was 14, and I do understand what you mean and why you were irked, but honestly I think it's quite different wearing glasses for many years, and suddenly having to wear them because your eyes have deteriorated with age. Your friend feels old because her changes in vision are age-related, and suddenly having to wear glasses after 50 years of not wearing them is a big change that she's apprehensive about.

Look at this is in a positive way: your friends are so used to seeing you in glasses that they just see your glasses as part of you, and therefore didn't even think about them when they started having their glasses horror chat! Take that as a compliment :)

@AntiStuff yes, same here, my dad did and has perfect vision at 84! Well, apart from the squint he has developed since the surgery…