On his blindness (my relationship with my spectacles)

At primary school, being smacked by the teacher for supposed stupidity when I failed to interpret the pictures on the wall that I just couldn't see.

The excitement of the anticipation of my first pair of glasses, at seven or eight. But no memory remains of how I felt when I first wore them.

Sixteen years old, emerging from the opticians and, walking to the station, seeing details of buildings I had not been aware of: an instant improvement to my sight I have hoped for with every new pair since but have never experienced again.

Eighteen, a tennis match, mixed doubles with John and two of his friends, and, mortifyingly, hitting not a single return in the centre of the racquet: not realising until days later that this was because I wasn't yet used to my brand new spectacles.

One pair of my spectacles still to this day, I imagine, on the bed of the River Cherwell, lost in a punting mishap, now playthings for dear BabelFish and his chums.

My spectacles, indispensable friends and trusty companions. In intimate contact with me from the moment I wake to the end of the day. No lover so close, nor so easily discarded when the replacement arrives.

When the phone rings at night, I first reach for my glasses: without them I cannot hear clearly, even on the phone. (No doubt my brain is distracted by attempting to make sense of the blur.)

I remember reading Patrick Trevor-Roper's The World through blunted sight, and realising how much my short-sightedness has influenced my progress, metaphorical and literal, through the world. As a child, how much more pleasant to look at a sharply-focused book close to me than a blurred landscape through the window: so no wonder I'm bookish rather than an outdoor type. And how much more pleasant (and less distracting for my brain, as above) to walk looking at the sharp, clear ground at my feet than at the confused mess of a distant prospect straight ahead: hence my poor posture and downcast mien.

And now my friends, by the miracle of laser eye treatment, are dispensing with glasses and lenses. And tell me how wonderful the result is. Why don't I do likewise? Not squeamishness - I can endure the dentist with equanimity, and by all accounts that is much less pleasant. But my short sight is part of me, and my spectacles part of my identity.

I like to hide behind them (even if I am grateful to my female friends I and C and A, who rejected the heavy frames I wore in the past and have successively chosen for me ever more slender, less masking ones).

Ostrich-like, I am, in my shyness, relieved that, since I cannot see other people's faces clearly, they cannot see mine.

I am happy that I cannot see effects of age when I look in the mirror, and that I do not notice the dust and dirt in my flat and need not waste too much time on futile housework.

I can survive the occasional disorientation when I take my spectacles off and, half-blind, cannot find them.

I can blame my poor vision for my failures, spectacle-less, on the football field.

So, although I have the opportunity to improve my sight and forget my dependence on these optics, I don't even consider it. What myopic timidity and lack of vision!