Fresh Eyes
How a trip to the optometrist revealed I am sexy and it can be proven with science
I am one of those people who was born with big, hulking, blue alien eyes. I’ve learned it’s not the color that makes them striking, however. It’s my giant cartoon-sized pupils.
When I was a tween, in one of my first-ever visits to the eye doctor, the optician asked to dilate my eyes. “Oh, nevermind. I see someone’s already given you the eye drops,” she said.
“No they haven’t” I replied.
“They haven’t? Huh, that’s weird. I guess you don’t need them then.”
Everyone’s pupils change in size based on light and other factors, but the baseline for mine is that they are freakishly huge. I have only been asked to have my eyes dilated during any eye exam one time ever since, and I suspect it was because they do that for everyone, like an old lady getting asked to show their ID when buying alcohol.
For a long time I believed this meant I was just a strange-looking mutant. People throughout my life have seemed to wince upon making eye contact with me. It’s why I had low self esteem and began to hunch my shoulders.
Recently, in my grown up years, I’ve learned that more likely than not, they were simply bewildered.
Somewhere I read an article where they tested pupil size related to attractiveness, and the bug-eyed folks like myself scored high. Historically, in ancient Rome, women sometimes used a plant called belladonna to dilate their eyes in order to appear more attractive and have better odds as a seductress. Belladonna is also poisonous; I feel fortunate to have been born with a mutation my horny ancestors died for.
Shakespeare said “the eyes are the window to the soul,” but I don’t think that’s accurate. People have looked me in the eye and misinterpreted the meaning of my soul on many occasions. What’s true more often than not is Anna Farris’ line in the movie House Bunny, “The eyes are the nipples of the face.” They are. Eye contact is intimate. Vulnerable. A bit strange when one of them is pointed in another direction, but not worth halting a conversation that’s already in motion. That would be rude.
I am grateful to have nice eyes. The final lifting of the veil about their undeniable hypnotic quality came after my most recent encounter with an optician– again, this is someone who looks deep into people’s eyes for a living.
I was being fitted for glasses. This man was a seasoned professional, and made a point of assuring me of that fact while he looked deep in my eyes and helped measure the frames.
When we were done, he rang me up for the lenses; the frames; the UV protective coating, and all the other bells and whistles that aren’t covered by my nonexistent vision insurance.
“Is this price okay?” he asked. Considering my eye doctor had just declared me legally blind for how bad my vision had decayed since my last appointment, I wasn’t really in a place to compromise — if it weren’t for the fact that this guy had been staring into my eyes for the past five minutes.
“I had a birthday last year,” I say. “Could I get a discount?”
“Yeah! Like you had your birthday this month?” he asks. It was mid January and my birthday is in early November. Not that it mattered, he was already under the influence of my pupils.
“Not this month, but certainly in the last 365 days, there was one somewhere” I say. I’m only a little ashamed to say that upon delivery of this sentence, I batted my eyes. It was subtle, but intentional.
“Y’know what, I think we can do that,” he says.
Look, I know with great power comes great responsibility. I promise to use this power for the highest good of humanity, but sometimes that includes making a free cocktail appear in my hands with nothing but a wink; or saving $50 on a pair of RayBan frames for blinking twice.
You’d do it too if you could.
