When I was an early teen, I thought the idea of wearing glasses was the coolest thing ever. I even wore fake glasses for awhile and made up an elaborate story about why I wore glasses all of a sudden.
“Cringe phases” are interesting aren’t they. You look back and you wish it never happened, but at the same time you realise that you grew from it. After all, some people just never outgrew their “cringe phase”, as we can see from the state of society and how well Tik-Tok represents it.
Perhaps we never really do outgrow having “cringe phases”. When do we ever truly stop making bad choices? Will we ever come to a point where we don’t have to deal with the consequence of regret?
Probably not.
We just need to learn to put on a pair of rose-coloured glasses.
And that’s exactly what I wanted for a long time, as a reminder of that sentiment, and also because my favourite character Daredevil wore them.
A problem I faced was the reality that I had accepted, the fact that my face was too big for the shape of most sunglasses. Therefore I held off ordering a bunch of cheap plastic sunglasses online that would likely end up in the trash.
However, as with most things, it’s usually impossible to find something that fits me perfectly just by walking into a store. Such is the life of one with a taste as insufferable as mine. So I never actually managed to get a pair of sunglasses, and a few months later I found myself in Cape Town, South Africa, in desperate need of a pair.
Once again, I decided to take the approach of buying some cheap sunglasses in the interim until I could find the perfect pair. I started off with a pair of black Cotton On sunglasses, and then moved on to a brown pair from a sports shop that seemed to fit my face well, but still felt off.
I never did find a pair of sunglasses that I loved during that first trip to Cape Town.
It was only upon my return to Singapore when I was shopping about for shoes, when I walked past a popular glasses store called Owndays, and I saw the perfect pair of sunglasses.
You see, after months of searching and experimenting, I realised that the perfect pair of sunglasses would have to meet the following criterion:
- Be big enough for my face
- Be clear enough for my eyes to be visible, yet dark enough to be practical
- Have the right shape
- Not be ridiculously expensive
With that picture in mind, I was able to then keep a lookout for the perfect pair, and be ready to grab it once I found this elusive pair of perfect sunglasses.
And so at long last, I now have a pair of sunglasses that I am very happy with.
I do still however wish that the lenses were tinted rose.
