View of the World through Tinted Vision

Disclaimer: Nope, this is not a post on racial discrimination. But yes, it is still colour coded.

I have dark eyes. Very dark eyes. I once thought my eyes were black, but then again, no one has black eyes (unless he has been punched). Asians have dark brown irises framing their black pupils.

When I smile, it seems like the whites around my eyes diminish and they turn all dark.
When I glare, a visible glint flashes across the dark orbs.

The point, however, is that I don’t really care much about the colour of my eyes. Sure, Nicole Kidman’s piercing blue eyes are striking, but then again; big or small, brown or blue, as long as they are expressive, I find them very beautiful.

Then, one fine day… I sold out.

Blame it on advertising, blame it on media exposure, blame it on a moment of weakness, blame it on vanity. Blame it on a certain Girl from Mars who made colored contacts cool. And it wasn’t that expensive to experiment a little. So, I went to my optician and bought my first box of contacts for $25 SGD. Warm Hazel Brown coloured contacts.

Mind you, I have very sensitive eyes. They tear whenever any foreign object is used around them—especially eyeliners. And remember? I can never aim eye drops into my eyes accurately. So how in the world am I ever going to don on contact lens? I have been wearing spectacles all my life! (most of the time, I just don't wear glasses at all, cos I am not very myopic)

To cut the long story short, I managed to put them onto my eyeballs after several tries and WOW! I was initially skeptical that those flimsy soft lens can change my eyes from virtually black to a light brown. I am impressed. My eyes looked significantly different. I felt my cool factor rise from a negligible 0.05 to a 3.

And many people found the change rather refreshing. Maybe I have been too drab. Apparently, the hazel eyed girl gets more fun than the ‘black’ eyed girl.

Soon, the novelty wore off—from my side. What originally felt like an ego trip to look like the lady from Venus quickly took a downward plunge. A tiny voice nags softly at my conscience. “Phony, phony phony…” it whispers. I tried to ignore it. After all, I reasoned that I had to get my 25 bucks’ worth of wear before discarding them 1 month later.

Unbeknownst to me, the trigger will pulled shortly after to end this internal struggle. I was in a public restroom washing my hands when I looked up. A girl with reddish hazel eyes stared back at me. Her eyes felt mighty uncomfortable and scratchy. If they could talk, they would be screaming in agony for oxygen for all and sundry to hear.

That was the moment of truth. That image of myself. The freak with reddish hazel coloured eyes.

I wanted to peel the contacts out from my eyes on the spot and flush them down the toilet bowl with aplomb.
But since my actual cool factor was 0.05 (out of 10), I kept them on and gingerly took them off when I got home.

It’s ironic that I saw things more clearly without the coloured lens. I saw the stupidity of it all. Those lenses are too artificial to look natural. We can all spot phonies from a mile. A change in eye colour may add interest and draw attention to ourselves but at the end of the day, who are we fooling? Our vain pretentious selves. Let me reel over and puke at myself.

Don’t get me wrong:
** I DO NOT mind people wearing coloured lenses. I have absolutely nothing against them.

It’s a personal thing. I Just Cannot Bring Myself to Live a Lie.