When I was little, I had better than perfect vision (15/20). Yeah, you read that right suckerssss! But, as my eyes began to scrunch more and more to read the board, and as I found myself constantly sitting in the front row of classes (for reasons other than being a huge nerd), I realized that my precious, beyond-perfect eyesight had been lost. :’-( In its place came fairly manageable bad vision and a fresh pair of glasses. Glasses are all the rage now, to the point that people wear them as ~fashion~ pieces, but weren’t exactly cool in middle school. If you’re at all familiar with contact lens levels, I am a -1.75 in both of my eyes. What that translates into is a sense of basic shapes and forms, but inability to recognize people unless I’m very close to them. On the whole, my faulty eyes are a disadvantage, but there is one pro to my blurry vision: I’ve recently realized that I can go to the Ratty without either glasses on or contacts in and seamlessly avoid having to acknowledge people I’d rather not converse with!
Normally, when someone tries to escape having to interact with someone, they fail by in some way making it clear that they’ve seen the other person, but are consciously choosing to avoid them—it might be in the form a badly executed fake phone call, an obvious forced gaze in the opposite direction of the person, or a clear darting of the eyes to see if the other person sees them too. But when you genuinely can’t make out the faces of the people around you (as is the case for me without corrective lenses on!!!), you can truly evade people without even looking rude. This newfound skill essentially makes me the nicest asshole ever; I achieve all of my ulterior motives (quick Ratty to-go-box filling, avoidance of all banal small talk, and maintenance of my status as a nice human) without even hurting anyone’s feelings! #score. If you also have less than perfect vision, I recommend trying out my method. And if you have perfect vision, 1) f you, and 2) try out some of the eyesight worsening methods discussed here so you can be a kind asshole too!
So the only time you’ll know for sure I’m ignoring you is if you see me in glasses, otherwise who knows…
Image via, Suzanne Antoniou.