Glass walls.

A few days ago, I fantastically developed a stye near my eye. Horrible and annoyingly irritating. Unfortunately, it was before my first day of work as an interaction designer. That night after I suddenly woke up at 3 am (after sleeping at 11 pm), I called my sister and asking what I should do. She had this issue many times. And after some steps of advice, she gave her final piece of advice: You probably should not wear contacts.

When I first got my glasses in the fourth grade, I hated them. I didn\’t want to be a nerd and approval of me by my classmates was very important then. I would take them off as much as I could. Yet as I grew older, I started liking them. This sort of describes the love of the festering wound. We start liking what used to irritate us. We adapt.

My sister got her glasses around the same time, but due to demands, she got contacts in the 6th grade. I finally acquiesed to contacts junior year in high school, because I was tired of having my glasses steam up during eating and also I didn\’t like how my glasses got in the way when doing any physical activities.

But I missed having the obligated look of intelligence.

Ever since then, I have rarely wore glasses outside of the house. I always take off my contacts a few hours before sleeping and put them on when I go out. But during those…times of infected eyes or illnesses, I would be forced to wear those…glass walls. I felt that after wearing contacts for so long, wearing glasses again, I was building a glass wall between me and everyone else.

Ben noted this when I wore glasses early this week. That I seemed a different person. That I seemed to habor a different personality. To myself, the world was the same. I acted the same. Usually forgetting that I was wearing glasses. But I could occasionally feel how people reacted differently toward me. People could tell I was very nearsighted–I have a prescription of -9.0 with my eyes incredibly magnified behind the lenses. Some people couldn\’t recognize me. Ultimately, they weren\’t used to it. Sort of it a different haircut.

Is this proof that what we wear on the outside truly affects how people perceive us?