6 Common Misconceptions About Wearing Glasses

Think you know about glasses? You have no idea.

As many a glasses wearer knows, there are a lot of crazy ideas floating around about wearing glasses. Unless you wear them, it’s hard to understand that a lot of these crazy myths are mostly untrue and some of them are pretty funny.

Let’s clear some things up.

1. Your eyesight must be terrible!

This is true for some, but as a blanket statement it’s pretty misleading.  Yes, some of us are a stone’s throw from being blind and without our glasses we’d be fumbling around like Velma. There are also those of us whose vision is only slightly bad (myself included, more on that in a bit) or only need reading or driving glasses. The spectrum of prescriptions is all over the place! My prescription is so slight that I often get accused of wearing fake glasses by people that try on my glasses. Your prescription is like a unique butterfly, no two are the same!

2. All People That Wear Glasses Are Smart/All Smart People Wear Glasses.

As flattering as this is, come on, there’s no way this could be true! Glasses are worn by about 75% of Americans, so saying that a lot of smart people wear glasses CAN be true, but saying that a lot of people IN GENERAL wear them is also true. As far as we know there is no genetic correlation between wearing glasses and intelligence, so where did this come from? Simply put, pop culture.

In pop culture scientists, librarians and the class smarty pants have been portrayed wearing glasses for so long that it’s become widely accepted that smart people wear glasses. There can be some real world reasons for this though. People from the above list tend to have jobs and hobbies that keep them inside and require a lot of reading (on and off the computer). Eye strain due to reading is a real thing and can require glasses to correct it, but that doesn’t mean that everyone with specs is a genius.

3. You can’t play sports.

This one can split into two; either you can’t play sports because your glasses will get broken or because nerds are bad at sports.  To address the first one, there are all types of glasses made just for sports safety, so suit up and get out there, no excuses. In regards to the second one, once again there is no evidence that smart people or nerds are bad at sports just because they are smart.  From my research I found reasoning such as: evolution gives you wither strength or intelligence, students who do poorly in school resort to sports, and the reverse, students who do poorly in sports hit the books. These are just silly.

Side note: The Gentleman on the left is James Worthy. He is such a big Trekker (Star Trek fan) that Gene Roddenberry let him be a Klingon in an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. He was also a seven-time NBA All-Star, a three-time NBA champion, the 1988 NBA Finals MVP, was inducted into the basketball Hall of Fame and named one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History. So that stereotype can kiss my geeky behind!

4. You’ve always had them.

Just because you have them now, doesn’t mean it was always so. You can start to need glasses at any point in your life. Some have them when they are young and some don’t get them until they are fully grown. As a case study, I will submit my family. My father has had glasses since he was two and is almost legally blind (not figuratively, it’s really that bad), my mother started needing reading glasses in her 40’s, my sister didn’t need glasses until her teens and they started out only as reading glasses and progressively got worse and I have had glasses since I was eight. Case closed.

5. Wouldn’t it be easier to get Lasik?

Probably, but not all of us can get Lasik. Some people who have extremely high prescriptions, heavy astigmatism or people that heal slowly or have other health ailments are not good candidates for Lasik. Also, it’s freaking expensive.

I hope that clears some things up.