HAMILTON, ON — Following their recent arrival, a new pair of tortoiseshell glasses is reportedly buckling under the weight of impossible expectations to make their owner suddenly fuckable.
Sources close to the frames say they were unboxed Friday afternoon amid whispered promises that they’d “completely fix my face” and “make me look like I have a New Yorker subscription I actually use.”
“I knew there’d be an adjustment period,” said the glasses, nervously fogging up. “But every time she puts me on, she does this full 360 in the mirror like I’m supposed to rewrite her dating history. I’m frames, not a time machine. I can’t undo three years of dating drummers.”
Owner Taylor McCormack, 29, admitted she bought the glasses because she couldn’t read street signs anymore, but secretly hoped they’d arrive with hot-librarian-who-will-ruin-you energy.
“I thought they’d make me look smarter, mysterious, like someone who orders negronis without Googling what’s in them first,” said McCormack, adjusting the frames for the fourteenth time in six minutes. “Sometimes I catch my reflection and I’m like, ‘Yes, film festival programmer who fucks!’ But other times I look like I’m about to explain my sourdough starter’s journey.”
Experts say it’s common for new eyewear to shoulder crushing existential burdens.
“People routinely ask $300 frames to do the emotional labour of years of therapy,” said Chris Sorley, an optician who’s witnessed this cycle of disappointment since 1985. “Glasses can’t fix what’s broken inside. They can only slightly reduce your astigmatism and, if you’re lucky, make you look like you’d be cast as ‘Journalist #2’ in a prestige drama.”
The glasses report feeling additional pressure from McCormack’s Instagram research, which included searches for “Greta Gerwig but slutty” and “Emma Stone if she worked at a bookstore.”
Despite mounting evidence to the contrary, McCormack insists she just needs “the right outfit” to unlock the glasses’ transformative potential.
“They haven’t found their ecosystem yet,” she explained, while panic-buying a $90 linen button-down she’ll wear once. “It’s like… they need a turtleneck. Or maybe a blazer with the sleeves pushed up? Something that says ‘I could explain the mortgage crisis, but I’d rather get naked.'”
The glasses, meanwhile, are struggling with imposter syndrome.
“I’m giving her 20/20 vision,” they said, exhausted, “but she is making me responsible for her entire sexual brand. It’s insane. Like, lady, if you really wanted to look that hot, you should’ve gotten contacts. Haven’t you seen ‘She’s All That’? How do you not know this? Even Superman is unfuckable in glasses, for chrissakes.”
At press time, McCormack was seen adding “fuzzy beret” and “statement brooch” to her search history, while the glasses were mentally preparing for their future as “the pair I wear when I get pinkeye.”
