I was getting older and my glasses obsession was becoming part of me. I was near the end of 6th grade when I believe I masturbated for the first time. The initial time was just caused by thinking about glasses, but shortly thereafter I began using pictures of girls wearing minus glasses to facilitate.
Right around this time I had a check up appointment at my doctor’s and during the eye exam, which I had always done well on in the past now looked farther away. The letters below the 20/20 line were a blur even though I used to be able to read some of the 20/15 and 20/10 letters. A little above the 20/20 line was illegible too. I was distraught because although I was beginning to grow accustomed to my glasses fetish and at this point wanted to wear glasses myself, I could not get over my fear over needing glasses and being singled out for them. I had a hard enough time fitting in as it was so I did not think glasses would help. The best I did was 20/50 or maybe 20/40 and I was very upset at the idea of probably needing glasses.
My doctor, however was not too worried. He merely commented that my vision had changed and I cannot see as far as I could before. “You will probably need glasses at some point,” he said, “but your vision is not bad enough at this time that you do not need to get them if you do not want to.” Relief flooded through my anxious demeanor and I opted to do nothing, my vision did not bother me at this age anyways.
Julia and I were no longer going to the same school since she went to a magnet school for 6th grade instead. Melissa, on the other hand, was going to the same school as me, but we did not have any classes together. This year I hardly saw her except for one portion of the year in which we had a class on the same floor. I would sometimes see her in the hallway or leaving a class as I was entering. Every time she was wearing glasses. She had thick black framed but small specs now. They were in sort of an emo style and rectangular in shape. A slightly thicker lens was contained in these new glasses, but she was still pretty mildly nearsighted.
By 7th grade Melissa’s glasses weee no more. She had definitely begun to wear contacts religiously instead. I hardly saw her at all that year anyways.
Many memories of trying on other people’s glasses stand out during this time. The first few instances unfolded at my cousin’s house. I went over there a few times a year to baby sit him and his two older siblings. My younger cousin had just been prescribed glasses for myopia, which was not surprising since he was always squinting to see anything relatively far. He used to play video games and watch TV right in front of the screen. What was surprising to me was that he almost never wore his new glasses. I never saw him wear them at first. He must have just used them in school but I don’t even know if he did that. He preferred sitting very close to the TV and other things to see them than to wearing glasses. He went on doing this until he had to full on squint at the TV while sitting directly in front of it. He even went on doing this for awhile before he finally started wearing them. They were quite strong by that point and he went full time almost immediately.
Before he started wearing his glasses I would ask if I could try them on when they were lying around and he never minded. The first pair were small metal-rimmed oval, turquoise glasses. The prescription was pretty light, -.75 to -1.00, but when i put them on I was taken aback. This was the most profound difference in vision I had yet from glasses. Trying on Melissa’s specs was a slight improvement sure, but barely noticeable. This time was a different story. Rooms in the distance became instantly less foggy and I could see the edges of everything in the kitchen. Even more pronounced was what I saw outside. I forgot what individual leaves looked like and the world outside the window suddenly came to life.
I got immeasurable enjoyment out of wearing his glasses. The feel of his lenses correcting my vision in front of my face was intoxicating. This was so cool, two little glass ovals through which I could watch a crystal clear world or move them off my face and soften everything. I wore them every opportunity I could, even publicly and in front of his parents. I did admit to my cousins that I saw better in them but would probably never get glasses. This is why I enjoyed wearing them so much.
Eventually my cousin got new glasses. These were considerably stronger, at least -1.25 maybe -1.50. They were a good deal stronger than the prescription I should have had at the time, but I could still see perfectly with them. I only had one or two occasions to use them though as this is around when he soon got an even stronger prescription and started to wear them all the time so I no longer bugged him to try them.
Later on I noticed that one of the girls on my bus, Emma occasionally wore some of the highest minus lenses I had ever seen on someone our age. She was in 8th grade at the time, but her diopeters were no less than -5.00. Her glasses rarely appeared with her so I just assumed she mostly wore contacts. I soon learned this was not the case.
On one of the occasions she was wearing her thick glasses, which where deep blue, small, rectangular, emo-like frames, I had a similar experience to trying on Melissa’s glasses. This time another friend of mine was also with me and I think he first asked to try Emma’s glasses. He did and instantly remarked “how blind she was.” Next she handed me the glasses but when I put them on I could see decently. This was more distortion than I was used to and my eyes had a hard time compensating, but I could see better than bare-eyed though not quite as well as with lower minus prescriptions.
My friend went on to question how she could see without those glasses. “You probably wear contacts when you don’t have them,” he insisted, but she replied that she usually did not. She explained that she did not like to wear her glasses so he asked why. I will remember her answer for the rest of my life.
“Everything is more beautiful that way,” she said. I could hardly believe this answer as I had never yet pondered the aesthetic quality of myopia. Suddenly impressionist paintings made more sense in my mind. Thinking about it, I agreed that the fuzzier world with its radiant lights did have a pretty quality to it.
Emma was not particularly attractive, but there was some implacable allure about her appearance. Her myopic eyes were large and looked permanently misty without her glasses. These were her best feature as her nose was small except for the bottom of it which somehow seemed too big. The rest of her facial features were meek and small and did not seem to support the prior ones. She was slender, frail and very pallid .
With her glasses on she looked suddenly focused and more in the room with people. The thick rectangular lenses greatly distorted her eyes and minimized them so much that you could see the background behind her through them as well as cascading power rings on either side that multiplied when she turned towards any direction.
Before these two instances I also tried my friend’s glasses for nearsightedness at a sleep over party and my mom had me try on her glasses around the same age at the pool. I was in 4th or 5th grade at the time. They were both low myopia glasses around -1.00, the sleepover ones maybe a little lower and my mom’s slightly stronger than that. In both cases I could see much better. I did not even know what to make of my improved vision at that time.
As 7th grade progressed, a wonderful thing happened, I saw Julia again in the hallway. We were reunited. I was a little distant at first, still instinctually reverting to a more self conscious younger me who was concerned with hanging out with her, but these feelings quickly vanished and before long we were dating and I was in not only my first relationship, but my first relationship with someone with glasses.
She had physically changed a lot by this time. Other girls began to catch up to her in height, but she was still much quicker to develop than almost all others with ample breasts even at this young age. Her hair was less blonde and seemingly naturally darkened to more brown than before. She wore it curled now and she looked very much like a vintage 90s emo relic. Her glasses were thick black, small plastic frames with a slight but not full-on cat-eye shape. I usually preferred metal-rimmed glasses but I loved these nonetheless.
By 8th grade however, Julia’s glasses had vanished. I was quite disappointed, but I did not let her know. However much I loved glasses, she was still more important to me at the time and I did not ask about them when they were suddenly gone. I let almost a year go by until I finally asked what happened to her glasses. The story was sadder than I expected as I learned she had not ditched them for contacts, but instead was forced to go bare-eyed now because she lost the first pair. Her parents, though very wealthy, were extremely cruel and would not replace the lost pair. I do not think they had any intention of getting her new glasses anytime in the near future. Time slowed to a halt while I waited patiently until eventually Julia one day had new glasses on her face again.
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