I have worn glasses since 5th grade, so about 45 years. I tried contacts for a few years in my early 20s, but they didn’t work out. For one thing, they didn’t correct my astigmatism, so my vision was not perfect with contacts, and I caught myself reflexively pushing my (non-existent) glasses up my nose so I could see better. Also, I found reading a bit of an eye strain with contacts, and I was in college at the time so doing a ton of reading every day. Interestingly, the reason I wanted contacts was not to be free of glasses but so I could buy cheap, off-the-shelf sunglasses rather than prescription lens. One of the positive benefits of wearing contacts, I discovered, was that during sex I could see my lover and all her enticing parts in sharp focus, whereas before she was a gauzy blur like one of those Vaseline lens photos. Now I just leave my glasses on.
Yep: 40. Dry eye. Back to glasses. Contacts do let people see your face better, you have good peripheral vision, and they never get all spotty and greasy and need to be cleaned throughout the day. If I were sportier, I’m sure contacts would be useful for that. My big chunky “statement” glasses do tend to slide down my nose a bit.
But, now that I’ve been in glasses for years, I have to say, the glasses make life simpler. I’m getting ready for a vacation, and if I had contacts, I’d have to plan and remember to bring contacts, solutions, cases, eyedrops, AND my glasses. With glasses only, I have nothing to think about. Since I’m blind-ish without correction, I’m hardly going to go driving off to Florida and forget my glasses!
They certainly are simpler. That’s pretty much why I stick to them. No stuff, no paraphernalia, no cleaning, or ordering a supply of lenses. Nothing. I’ve seen all that at close hand (significant others who wore lenses), and want no part of it.
I put my glasses on as soon as I wake up. I take them off in the shower, put them back on after the shower, and take them off again right before I fall asleep. That’s it. Sometimes I switch to my (prescription) sunglasses if I’m driving or spending a day outdoors on a sunny day.
No hassle, no fuss, no trouble.
I can’t imagine switching.
I found out I needed glasses when I was 15, but started off wearing contacts for the first three years because I was to self conscious to be seen wearing glasses and didn’t want people to know I couldn’t see well, but I am nearsighted and have astigmatism and at the time they didn’t have toric lenses and they didn’t do a good job of correcting my vision. I finally got up the nerve to try glasses my senior year of high school and absolutely loved them and the much better vision I got from them and I found that after the first day wearing glasses nobody cared and really could care less that I was wearing glasses and I have been wearing them ever since. I did wear contacts when I played hockey but couldn’t wait to take them out when I was done. It’s now been 40 years, but I still love wearing glasses!
I’ve been wearing glasses for about 65 years, and have never wanted to wear contacts, because I feel a bit uneasy about sticking something directly on my eye.
I’ve worn glasses for about 20 years and now feel a bit naked without them. I’ve gone from cheap frames to expensive frames and now I’m going back to cheap frames - I’d like to have three or four different styles of glasses to choose from, depending on what I’m doing and wearing on that day.
I wore contacts from 15 to 18, but when I went to university my days were so long I would get dry eyes, so I stopped.
Wore glasses from 18-35, got contacts for my wedding since my wife wanted pictures without my glasses, wore them for maybe a month before my hatred of them won out and I was back to glasses forever.
Edit: Ha, missed that this was a zombie thread and I gave the same answer back in 2013
I got glasses when I was 15. After watching enough classmates and relatives constantly futzing with drops and solutions, I had no interest in contacts. Still no interest.
Specs since 1978 (age 16-17) – and at the time I did not really need them F/T, I could do entirely w/o them for close-in work so it was more convenient for me to have something easily removable and pocketable. During much of my young-adult life contacts, especally toric ones for my astigmatism, involved far too much hassle and expense (plus like heck I’d be fooling around with sticking things into my eye). It soon became part of my persona and image – JRDelirious is a guy who wears eyeglasses, would be part of my standard description.
Over the last 4 years I’ve been able to have only minor or no deviation in the prescription, and for a long time I’ve made it a point to just replace the lenses on good frames, so that has helped with the economics. Of course, the progress in optics materials and tech has been a boon, my Rx used to be a tougher order, now it’s no big deal.
(As for surgery, well, I’m sure it has helped many but for me it would be a huge “no thank you” right off the bat. This can be corrected with $80 to $300 [depending on how fancy I get] worth of trivially replaceable plastic and metal, why cut at my eye before the cataracts hit.)
Glasses from 13.
Contacts (primarily), supplemented by glasses, from 18 until presbyopia really set in.
Nowadays I use progressive glasses daily, and I’ve got two different types of contacts for outdoor use: monofocals for when I need optimal distance vision (e.g. when hunting), and bifocal contacts for when I need to be able to read decently in moderate light, like SCUBA diving when it’s sort of critical to be able to read the diving computer/watch, or when I’m just walking around town and playing tourist.
Progressive contacts are a great invention, but unfortunately they’re a bit of a compromise. I can read a restaurant menu or a bus schedule, but I’d never use them at work in the office. That’d be too tiring on my eyes. My distance vision is also lacking a bit, particularly in low light. Not enough to be a problem in most situations, but definitely a problem when you need keen eyesight, like when hunting. It doesn’t really help that I can’t find progressive contacts that also correct for my (slight) astigmatism.
Glasses starting at 13, changed over to contacts in college, did a mix of contacts and glasses for about 20 years and then Lasik. The Lasik has held up for 12 years with only one corrective surgery and that was due to a cataract forming so it was kind of let’s just do it because we can.
I’m starting back into a phase where I’ll need computer glasses for work just because it’s more comfortable to have something to help me quickly adjust from the screen to papers on my desk. I’ll have to wait and see how those work out next month when they come in. Still I’d don’t really see ever going back to contacts at my age unless I got the ones that made your eyes look evil.
I started out with glasses as an elementary school kid. I went to contacts as a teen and wore them until I was prescribed bifocals in my early twenties. At the time, bifocal contacts were just being tried and I got them. They were pretty worthless, so I switched to glasses and have had them since. Trifocals now, so contacts likely, even with improvements in the last 25 years, wouldn’t be an option.
I wear glasses; they are easier. That said, I did wear contacts in college and people did like the change.
If I had the money I’d do Lasik even now. Still, who has that kind of money to spend in their back pocket anyway? Not me…
I’ve been wearing glasses since second grade, over 55 years ago. Never want to change. Not having them on would feel funny. In college my girlfriends wore contacts, and they always seemed to be cleaning them and putting them away and taking them out. It seemed like a big bother.
My wife wore contacts until her retina detached. Now she has two sets of glasses, which are never in the right place. Mine are on me or on my night table when I sleep. Much easier.
Glasses since high school. I couldn’t stand contact lenses. I know they’ve improved a lot since then (thirty-something years), but I’m fine with my glasses, and anyway I’m not sure that contacts can do what my glasses do – my prescription is for trifocals.
Not only have I not switched from glasses to lenses, I haven’t changed the frames since high school. I’ve bought new frames, of course – they don’t last forever – but they’re the same exact frames I was wearing back in the seventies.
I’ve had glasses since fourth grade. In early high school I got contacts and wore them for many years. In my 30s, after my second child was born and I was BUSY, the added effort to put them and take them out outweighed the pros of the contact lenses. I also got transitions lenses for my glasses around then and I love never having to think about sunglasses. So now I have been wearing glasses exclusively for about 10 years.
Got contact lenses when I was 12 for the purpose of slowing down the advance of myopia–I was needing a new prescription every six months. I only had to wear them a couple of hours a day, although I was free to wear them more–but they were irritating, so a couple of hours a day was all I did wear them.
Then it turned out that with my glasses I could not pass the eye test to drive. But with the contact lenses, I could. Suddenly they were a lot less irritating. (Well, not really, but I was able to overlook it for the great privilege of driving.)
I can still see a lot better with contacts than with glasses. As long as that’s the case, it’s contacts for me.
zombie or no
what lets me see them the quickest so to take defensive actions.
Started with glasses. Then contacts. Then LAZIC.
I figure that now that I also need reading glasses, I don’t want to futz around with anything else.