Like Sam, I was a latecomer to the contact lenses club. I thought about this a lot recently after I saw a girl in glasses after I’d been dating her for a while. Of all people, I should not look at someone differently for wearing glasses. But she did seem different.
I wore glasses every day for most of my life. I even slept with them sometimes. Also for most of my life, I didn’t care about my appearance one way or another except to make sure I was decent to go outside the house (inside the house was a different story). But the glasses always bothered me. I could never find a pair that fit right. Even the better-fitting pairs kept slipping down the bridge of my nose. I think I just have an oddly shaped face and glasses aren’t designed to fit it.
That being said, I initially got contact lenses not because I thought they’d make me look better or even fit better – on the contrary, I was so used to my appearance with glasses that I couldn’t imagine my face without them – but because the optometrist asked me if I’d be interested in trying them and assured me (several times, actually) that they’re just as good at vision correction as glasses.
It seems that I was terrified to be thought of as someone who takes a proactive step to modify his appearance in some positive way. That kind of behavior is effeminate – it’s bad enough that I’m not good at sports; what I really don’t need, besides a hole in the head, is to be something like a “metrosexual.” I guess I didn’t realize that contact lenses are so widely used that nobody thinks any differently about people who use them. I’m sure the optometrist just figured that every other patient in my age range asks about contacts, so there’d be a good chance that I would be interested in them too (and that he’d be able to sell them to me).
The contacts are a pain in the ass to clean and not to lose, but I have learned something important from having them. Glasses probably do make my face look better. But they also sit between my face and whatever person who’s talking to me. If my connection with that person is not already strong, I do notice that it’s less easy to form one with glasses between us than when I’m wearing contacts instead. I don’t think it has anything at all to do with glasses themselves – it applies even when the other person is wearing glasses – it has to do with there being a barrier of any kind between our two faces when we’re facing each other. Looking at someone directly, looking to his or her eyes, is supposed to establish honesty and trust. But when there’s something else there, I believe the human brain sends up a red flag, and I don’t feel that trust can be established smoothly.
It’s the same observation I make about facial hair: I love being bearded, but I’ve now been mostly smooth-faced for years because people who look at me – even if they profess to like the beard and even if they do like it – can’t see my facial expressions as well when my face is covered in hair. And someone whose facial expressions are hidden is understood subconsciously to be something of an unknown quantity (or perhaps he has something to hide).
With the girl I mentioned above, seeing her in glasses sent little signals to my brain that made me feel distant from her. I happen to think she’s even more hot in the glasses than without them… but I don’t like when she wears them (fortunately she doesn’t have facial hair).
It was a big step for me to realize that it is totally legitimate to remove barriers to human connection by replacing glasses with contact lenses or going cleanshaven for most of the year, and that doing so has nothing to do with vanity. In fact, making it easier for other people to look at me does nothing at all except making it easier for them to look at me… and approach me… and trust me. It doesn’t make them like me better, but it does mean that I can look someone in the eye, smile and make a connection better. For someone like me who doesn’t do these things naturally and needed to learn them, the willingness to make small changes in my appearance makes all the difference in my life.
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Are those photos of you?
I went straight from glasses to LASIK. No more bullshit. The operation wasn’t perfect and I think my eyesight is actually slightly less good than it was with the glasses – but it’s good enough.
Are those photos of you?
Haha, no. My hair is not that weird.
I went straight from glasses to LASIK. No more bullshit. The operation wasn’t perfect and I think my eyesight is actually slightly less good than it was with the glasses – but it’s good enough.
I think I definitely would already have done the LASIK if they could tell me that it will make my vision good enough so that I won’t have to wear glasses or contacts at all. But instead, all they can tell me is that it will make my vision better – and that a lot of people still have to wear glasses or contacts after the surgery. That is lame.
I see. Were you formally diagnosed as such?
No, I just asked around casually. By “they,” I mean other people who’ve had the surgery done. Do you think it’s worth seeing an optometrist?
I was diagnosed at the medical center that did the operation. I don’t remember if the diagnosis cost money.
http://www.enaim.co.il/
They’re located in the Azrieli Towers.
My eyesight was pretty messed up, but they did a fairly good job – for a rather high price (~13k). There’s not much more I can say – I only had one set of eyeballs to try it on.
There’s no chance in hell I’d have any elective medical treatment done in Israel.
Heh, why not? What better place to find Jewish doctors?
The life expectancy here is pretty high too. I know where you’re coming from, but the evidence doesn’t support the notion that the medical infrastructure in Israel is all that bad – at least, as long as you have the money to pay.
Israeli hospitals have pretty good emergency care. Doctors from lots of different countries come here to learn how our hospitals handle burn trauma and stuff like that. The next time I’m rushed to an emergency room after a terrorist attack, I’ll be confident that I’m in good hands.
But the system here breaks down when it comes to regular things that American doctors, nurses and even HMOs do well. I find that even simple things like paying attention to what the patient is saying are more difficult for Israeli doctors. Maybe it’s because they keep staring at their damn computer screens, banging away at the keyboards. But at least we have a great infrastructure that provided all this computerized shit, right?
I also find that the nurses here are unusually aggressive and even brutal with their patients. Needless to say, they think it’s a big privilege just to have their attention, since patients are often made to wait months for an appointment. I’ve never heard of waiting three months for an appointment with any doctor in America. Maybe the top oncologist at the Mayo Clinic or something would have that kind of wait list. But call up Maccabi and ask to see an endocrinologist in Tel Aviv… if you get to one in less than 90 days, you must know somebody.
I’m sure you don’t think that general life expectancy is more than loosely correlated to how good a medical system actually is. Nor do I think it’s a good deal that our standard of living is diminished through high confiscatory taxation in order to add a couple years at the end of our lives. I won’t reach the life expectancy anyway – I have a lot of medical problems – and I’d rather be taken care of while I’m still alive and paying into the fucking system.
By the way, both Israelis and Americans who have money to pay for better medical care are able to buy it. The difference is that Israelis have to pay for the state-run system whether they use it or not. I’m paying for a system that provides subsidized medications, even though the medications I need are not included and I then have to pay retail for them in America. I can’t say enough bad things about the system here or about the people who support it.
Fair enough. I’ve been blessed with good enough health that any negative encounters with the system are more of an interesting experience than a constant nuisance.
But – private LASIK clinics like the one I went to aren’t really part of the system in that sense, or at least it didn’t feel like it. It was a very quick, efficient and non-bureaucratic experience. Though perhaps things could get annoying if there were complications.
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