On Sunglasses

Hmmm, I wonder how I do this without insulting almost everybody who’s ever worn sunglasses?

Oh well, no risk, no reward, right?

Sunglasses and I have always had a bit of a strained relationship. This is because many people seem to wear them to look cool and not to actually protect their eyes from the sun, which is a practice that I find annoying. For example, recently at work I was sitting in the lunch room when I saw one of those preppy guys who style each individual follicle of hair on their head with gel walking through the building wearing sunglasses. I nearly fell off my chair laughing. (I was laughing in an annoyed manner.) Now, you could argue that he was most likely on his way out, except for the fact that it was completely overcast and gray outside, without a hint of sun in the sky. Now you tell me that he wasn’t trying to look cool.

Anyway, this is the exact practice I’ve vowed never to fall into; wearing sunglasses somewhere where sunglasses don’t need to be worn. (Say that 10 times fast!) This may partially explain why I didn’t even keep sunglasses in my car for a number of years. (I know it doesn’t really make sense, as cars are where they’re the most useful. Maybe I didn’t want to even give myself the opportunity to wear them somewhere where they didn’t need to be worn.) And so, because of this, I've spent many hours in the car squinting into the sun, which probably explains why my face is stuck in a seemingly perpetual squint. (Not because I’m trying to emulate Clint Eastwood.)

However, recently I finally broke down and purchased a pair of sunglasses for my car, as my squinting was finally starting to hurt my face. (Insert your joke about hurting other faces here.) Everything was going good with this endeavor until the other day, when disaster struck. I had stopped at the grocery store and walked all the way across the parking lot when I realized that I was still wearing my new sunglasses. Obviously, I didn’t want to wear them into the store, because it would convey that I was desperately trying to look cool. (“Feast your eyes on me! I’m wearing sunglasses! How edgy, dangerous, and/or perhaps sophisticated!”) Yet I also didn’t want to go all the way back to my car to dispose of them. So I settled on a compromise where I pushed them up so they rested on my head. Still, I felt like some preppy guy wannabe trying to show off. I looked around the grocery store and nobody else had sunglasses propped up on their head, and it seemed that everybody was looking at me out of the corners of their eyes and judging. (“Ooh, look at that guy! He thinks he’s so cool! I’ll bet he pulls out his smart phone to text just to show everybody how important he is!”) I almost apologized to the checkout person when I went through, just out of principle.

So, you may ask, in my incredibly narrow view of how the world ought to be, where exactly can a person wear sunglasses and not be trying to show off? In my mind, the valid options include: when you’re in your car and it’s sunny, when you’re playing sports outside and it’s sunny, and when you’re at the beach and don’t want to be caught looking at members of the opposite sex, especially if you’re with your significant other. (I’m pretty sure I’m kidding about the last one.) Besides that, it seems like squinting would work just fine.

Now, I’m pretty certain I’ve just insulted quite a few people who wear their sunglasses in other scenarios who don’t feel they’re doing it just to show off. For any of you who fall into this category and are ready to write an angry response, I just have to ask you one question: Are you really, really sure? I mean, maybe you don’t even know you’re doing it to try to look cool!

I suppose I should stop now before I make matters any worse. (I’m not even going to attempt to fix things.) However, I can’t change who I am, and that’s just that. Sunglasses and I will never be on the best of terms, and it probably says a lot more about me than it does sunglasses. However, we’re just never going to see eye to eye.

Probably because I’m always squinting.

(Sidebar: There was an awful lot of parenthesis usage in this entry, wasn’t there?)