It will get worse. My first pair were 3 years ago, and I need to upgrade rather urgently. My GLW, who is now officially partially sighted, tells me to stop being a big girl's blouse about it though.

I hardly notice I've got them on.
The worst thing is when for instance I've been having a wash, maybe been distracted by a cat, and then I start searching for them. Where the f*** did I put them?
Only to find I'd already put them on.

Welcome to the wonderful world of face furniture. The best people wear them. And those that don't, scrabble around on the floor looking for their contacts like Velma out of Scooby Doo. If she wore contacts and not glasses.

I've had them since Primary 5, back when Joe 90 was the role model.

One tip, Captain - if you are someone who takes them off and puts them down, be careful : it can be tense treading softly around a room, patting down surfaces hoping to touch the glasses rather than hear them crunch under your feet. One of my colleagues, a burly civil engineer, looks hilarious with his glasses perched on top of his head, in the same way that Victoria Beckham often wears sunglasses, but he puts them there so he doesn't lose them when he isn't using them.

They are handy, but there are days when seeing things so clearly is not actually a benefit. And the last hilarity from the optician was that now my myopia is wearing off, I should get varifocals. First price quoted around £900. I'm wondering about laser eye surgery as I don't think I can deal with two pairs of glasses.

and still occasionally accidentally wash my face with them on!

Not the same pair, obviously.

Refused at first to wear them in school. My Mum sent a note in and the teacher just stood up and asked me to put them on in the middle of a lesson. My body temperature double in less than a second.

I'm short sighted so I don't suffer from the things coming in from the mist. I just can't see without them. My last eye test bought the remark that I had the near vision of a teenager so I hope to get another 10 years before the bifocals hit.

And if you like nice, cool glasses at reasonable prices, try Iris Optical online (and they have shops in the metropolis & Richmond). Have fun with them and think of picking glasses as just like buying a suit.

I only need them for reading and not always then if the light's bright and the font is a reasonable size. So I quite often forget them when out socially only to find I can't read the menu in dimly-lit restaurants or the Manager's Notes in a football programme (which may be a blessing).

And, being an amateur thesp, when I'm still at the reading from the script or singing from the score stage in rehearsals, it's a question of glasses on to read the words/notes and off again to do the moves.

I guess as I get even older, my eyesight will eventually deteriorate enough to need glasses full time. Then, of course, I'll need my glasses to find my glasses.

(...although, thinking about it, I normally wear my contact lenses if I'm going out for the night, meaning that I probably haven't worn them to any of the Word dos.)

Anyway. Being able to see is ace. My glasses don't bother me at all, I never notice I'm wearing them (I have jumped into swimming pools wearing them, having forgotten that I was wearing them).

My husband on the other hand, has been a glasses wearer for 30 years and still can't get used to them...

actually, that reminds me, if we're talking eyes, then permit me to share this with you. It's the story of my eyes and how I see the world (or used to see the world). Click on each picture to see the story.

I'm 49, pushing 50 and find that small print, low light, cooking instructions on tins - all have me reaching for my new Tesco readers (£6 including protective 'cigar' case). Actually, these are my 4th pair in as many months - I have trodden on or lost the others.

After all these years of 20/20 vision I really can't get the hang of them, but BOY! with them on I can read the date on my watch in forensic detail.

Serious question though - Should I get proper prescription lenses ?? Or am I just paying for the teeny tiny logo on the frame??

since the age of 6 or so. Wore glasses from that age until my late 20's when I switched to contacts.

Without any visual aid my world is an entirely fuzzy mass of colour. Nothing becomes pin sharp until its about 15cm from my face.

My prescription for each eye is ~8. Not the worst there is. Its been constant now for about 10 years. My optician seems convinced that as I get older long sight will manifest. I've taken this to mean I'll become less and less short sighted over time and am looking forward to about 10 days worth of pure unaided 20-20 vision at the age of 86 before I have to wear glasses for long sight.

I wear my glasses at night at home. When a single man and sharing a house with like-minded bell ends some time ago, a good game for them was to try my admittedly jam jar bottomed lensed glasses on whilst drunk. I think the record was 40 seconds before they were flung off - their wussily perfect retinas seared by the magnification.

Edit: Inspired by Hannah - here's me in spectacle wearing action

Went in for an exam today... eyesight improving over the last exam! Apparently this is quite normal.

You may still get beaten up on the playground, but not for wearing glasses... ;)

they're great. Most people who say they have good eye sight don't they just don't know how bad it's got.

and always have been. I've worn glasses since the age of 5 or 6, but I've always been very short-sighted, it just took my parents a few years to notice.

It's a pain, I wish I wasn't, but 95% of the time, I don't notice. To be honest, the expense of buying glasses is more irritating than wearing them. I've bought new ones fairly recently, and quite worryingly, I've learnt from Word meet-ups that they're very similar to idiotbear's, I look a bit like I'm a fanboy of his.

If it bothers you, though, I'd recommend contacts. I've been wearing them now and then since I was 15 and they're fine. You also somehow gain the ability to take them out whilst completely inebriated, which is always a good thing.

Boy has time flown...

Apparently I now look weird without them. It takes all sorts I suppose.

All the best to you, Captain, no doubt you will get used to them, but it will take time. :)

Much as I hate to upset the Good Captain, I do wear glasses, but normally only when my eyes are tired, generally after a day at work.

My time at work is spent with a pair of these beauties straped to my face. You want glasses? THESE are glasses.

And, on a serious note..

My mate Sat is shockingly short-sighted. The degree of distortion of his eyeball which causes such extreme myopia triggers spontaneous retinal detachment which can be repaired initially but, thereafter, can't. He has lost the sight in one eye already and the other is heading the same way. He will, one day soon, become suddenly blind. Every time he looks at his wife and kids, he knows that it might be the last time he sees them.

It started off as just for driving, about 12 years at ago at age 40. No big deal. I kept them in the car and as soon as the weather turned hot, I found out that this is an extremely dumb thing to do. The optician was very nice and put the lenses back in for me, though. A few years later, either cars were being made with a focus distortion field or my eyes had deteriorated so a new pair were purchased. Then I noticed that I needed them to watch the TV, to watch a film. Hmmm... I'm on my third prescription now.

I used to think that wearing them would make my eyes lazy so I should make an effort NOT to wear them and "exercise" my eyes. Doesn't work. I find the world is getting more blurred without my specs and snaps back into focus when I put them on. And when I take them off after a 2 hour drive, everything looks a bit blurred until my eyes get used to working solo.

C'est la vie.

next to me, purchased from Boots just a couple of weeks ago. I can see the lap top and my work PC but reading books, newspapers, or mobile phones is impossible without them. My wife who is always a great support can't look at me while I have them on as apparently I turn into my sister. I have to wear them, I know I do because pulling THAT face while holding things at arms length just doesn't work any more. I will take them to work tomorrow as a sign of solidarity to The Captain and all other spectacle wearers.

for years, when in reality I couldn't see them properly and would easily pass them in the street without knowing it.
I don't know why I waited so long to get my eyes checked out. Part of it perhaps was due to being shy. It always felt as if I was invisible ( "if I can't see them, they can't see me" ) and that I was inside my own cosy bubble where noone could bother me.
Now I can't understand how I could survive for that many years walking around half blind!
I use lenses ( daily ) when I leave my home, and change into glasses when I come back. But I have to wear these ultra-light glasses that a mild gust of wind would send sailing two blocks in half a second ( and I would never ever find them again ). "Have to" as in anything more substantial sends me into a fit of rage ( "my ears hurt! both sides of my nose hurts! everything I look at has a bloody frame around it! get me out of this torture device - aaaargh!" )
Also you never realise that one of your ears is placed much lower than the other until you get your first pair of glasses.

Has everything to do with wearing specs (and a bit to do with having fair hair).

I've worn them since I was 10 - if you start as a kid they become part of you really, and I often feel like something's missing when I don't have them on. Contacts are great, but it's amazing how much more comfortable it is having the lenses floating round on the outside of your face rather than sticking to your eyes. At least you know they're still there, and they don't roll up to to the top of your eyeballs.

Apparently I'm long-sighted in one eye and short-sighted in the other.

For years, they worked shifts - my optician said when I was reading or sewing, the long-sighted eye just downed tools and said "Yeah, whateva..." and let the short-sighted one get on with it, and vice versa.

As I've got older though, the brain and eye muscles now struggle to compensate, so I opted for varifocals last year (v. lightweight, no frames). Had the usual "they've got the prescription wrong, I'm taking them back" reaction at first, but got used to them and they're fine.

I put them on when I leave the house, and take them off as soon as I get home (until I need to read or sew...) - going sans-specs is now a treat, like relaxing into a comfy fuzzy pair of slippers.

a curious flirtation with a pair of Ready-Spex now ten years on from that fateful day I'm hooked on the hard stuff,Varifocals.I like wearing glasses which may seem odd but I've never been a vain person about my looks,in fact anything which helps too conceal my utter blandness is more than welcome.

...so the episode of Peppa Pig when Pedro tells Peppa she needs glasses, but the optician says she doesn't, is particularly moving for me.

Fortunately, last year I started suffering with crippling headaches (yay!) and went to the optician for the first time since the heartbreaking glasses rejection episode of 1992. When it became apparent that the combination of short sight in my right eye and astigmatism in the left was causing me to strain my eyes when reading and using the computer - thus causing the headaches - I thought to myself, "What glasses might Joe R, who I've not met yet, be buying in the not too distant future?" It seemed obvious: slightly nerdy black-rimmed ones, of course!

Sadly, I came up short and bought the "cool" nerd kind, the ones affected by twats who have pined to be glasses-wearers their whole lives and are trying just a bit too hard.

However, I am now happy and fulfilled. I knew I was a glasses-wearer, deep down, and now my dream is realised.

When I got my varifocals, if I lay down on the sofa to watch the telly I couldn't see anything. And I could only read if I sat bolt upright.

So I went back and told them I couldn't get on with these varifocals as they didn't suit my lifestyle. When they asked me what my lifestyle was I began with the lying on the sofa bit and they looked at me like I was Jim Royle.

Still can't do varifocals though, and have two different pairs. One makes me look like Michael Douglas in Wonder Boys, the other a Nazi guard at Belsen.

"I don't bloody know, I can't see a bloody thing"

Me to my dad about half way through an evening kick-off match at Reading FC about 10 years ago, that was the exact time we both realised we had to go and get our eyes checked.

Just need them for driving, watching the footie and TV, luckily don't need them for reading or writing on the Blog.

Have recently been told off by the FPO for developing a habit of moving glasses onto my forehead as if they are sunglasses if changing from watching TV to read something or talk to someone. Apparently this does not look cool.

I got my eyes tested yesterday and decided to stick with the old specs as my prescription was much the same and they're only a year old and were expesnive varifocals. I spent lunchtime today reading this thread and marvelling at so many speccy Word readers like myself. Just settling down to watch the telly now, I took them off to give them a polish and snapped the buggers in half. So now I can't see the tv, have to squint at the computer screen and will only be able to read if I hold a book within 10cm of my nose. Forget about driving or cycling anywhere too. I'm off to Brum for work on Monday by train and in importnat meetings on Tue and Wed and I'm going to be squinting, bewildered, clueless and permanently startled looking. Does any optician still do those lenses in an hour offers...??

Oh well, mddle age...

and take great enjoyment from their tendency to steam up when I'm drinking an espresso.

I got the 5:15 train back from Manchester to Euston today. "Hey, it's the 5:15, let's get out of our brains!" I said to my colleagues, who, from the looks they gave me, clearly aren't fans of Quadrophenia. So instead I decided to check on the progess of this thread on my fruit-based handheld irritant, and guess what? I couldn't read a bloody word of it.

There's probably a lesson in this somewhere, but I've no idea what it is.

in virtually no time at all. Need them for staring at a computer, which is my job, and my hobby, apparently. Sadly, a combination of kids and terminal forgetfulness necessitated a work pair and a home pair. One of these, mysteriously, is varifocals, despite my only wearing them for the aforementioned pc staring. The third pair arrived after a work-sponsored eye test this year. Effectively free, and handy to know I have backup. Ugly backup, like an extra in Taggart, but backup nonetheless.

Depends on what I'm watching or doing. I have very, very pale blue eyes so I need to wear sunglasses pretty much all the time when I'm outside. It seems bright to me even when it's overcast. If the sun's out, I have to have a brimmed hat on as well.

My relationship with glasses keeps me fit. My specs will either be on my face, my forehead, the chest of drawers by the front door or the bedside cabinet. I live in a three-storey house. Bedroom on th top floor. The chasing up and down stairs in search of glasses is a constant travail.