My Optometrist and I

Not lying to your doctor is a basic rule of life. It’s a horrible thing to do, right? “Never, ever lie to your doctor, they are there to help,” I’ve always been told by people older than me. But it’s true, you don’t want to wake up one day and find out you have ringworm because you didn’t admit to your doctor you’ve taken up eating worms as a habit (I’m almost certain this is not how you get ringworm, alas the typing must continue).

I will be the first to admit I lied to my Optometrist. Some people may be thinking, “Oh but he’s not a real doctor anyway, he just looks at eyes all day.” You are incorrect and that is rude. On behalf of all optometrists, plastic surgeons and veterinarians, I’m here to tell you to shut up and always call them Doctor (Insert Name Here), because they deserve it. It’s patients like me that don’t deserve recognition.

I tried to trick my Optometrist into giving me glasses. I spent days, weeks, months convincing myself I needed glasses for medical reasons. I knew, from previous visits to the doctor, that I, unfortunately, have to live with 20/20 vision. But I thought if I truly make myself believe that I need glasses then maybe I really might. I might have read The Secret one too many times because I started to feel the symptoms that I thought people with eye problems have:

• Headaches from reading.
• Headaches from staring at anything.
• Headaches all the time!
• Inability to drive to ones full potential.
• Feeling like I might be going cross-eyed.
• The squinty eye face becomes the face friends’ make when trying to impersonate me.
• Eyes get watery all the time.
• Eye drops are my only addiction in life.
• I catch myself saying “ahhhh” after a drop perfectly falls to my eye.

And then I was ready… finally! I went into the all-white-stuffy-but-somehow-perfectly organized little room set aside for me. I was nervous he’d figure out what I was up to before being able to carry out my well thought out plan. He was the cool, calm and collected one, while I was sweating out my nerves. He placed the “eye machine” called the Phoropter in front of my face and asked me to read out the letters I saw. I could see them all clearly, almost no strain was necessary. I messed up multiple letters on purpose and by the last line I said the letters were so blurry I was too embarrassed to even guess. He did the test three times, each time with a different lens. I thought he was being thorough and he was, but he was also collecting evidence to prove I was a liar. That sneaky, sneaky man!

Looking back, I believe the crucial moment that lead to failure was acting excited about potentially having to run out of the office and order my prescribed glasses immediately.  Not to mention, I kept on blabbing about the make, color and brand of the glasses that would be mine. I might as well have brought in the magazine ad that sold me on them, just like I do with my hairstylist. I also might have said “Oh, that’s okay. I actually want to look like Tina Fey.” But that part is fuzzy and hopefully was all in my imagination.

I had done my research see, but the research came from watching movies, TV, friends and family. For this reason I ended up with symptoms of both near sighted and far sighted people. I was a Dead Giveaway.

And okay, It’s not that I actually wanted to look like Tina Fey, even though I’d be lying to you if I said I would not have enjoyed that. It was more about having a signature “thing”. I’ve always felt like I was pretty simple, a plain Jane type of girl. I felt like glasses would give me that extra boost of confidence that I needed. I was never that girl who wanted to stand out in a crowd, or have random people stare at me for absolutely no reason on the street, I just wanted to have something that would make it easier for people to remember me. So instead of being a girl with big, blonde hair that looks like all blonde girls. I’d be the girl with big blonde hair that looks like all blonde girls, but ‘oh, look she’s also got black rimmed glasses.’ See the difference?

I am ashamed now and admit it was a little bit silly. I mean people with bad eye site really have a hard time. I know it’s not a joke, and having good eye sight is something to be thankful for, but I have to admit my boyfriend still finds me reading in the dark sometimes.

You can read more from Bianca Cuffia on her blog.

(Image via Shutterstock)