Do Men Who Wear Glasses…?

What is the old adage?  Do girls make passes at—? No, that’s not it.  It’s Do guys make passes at girls who wear glasses? Ah, that age-old question. 

When Dorothy Parker’s famous quote hit print in 1937, Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses, it cemented the concern in spectacle-wearing dames from that day forward. Doomed them to a life void of passes from gents. The poor Janes! Cursed for having four eyes!

Did anyone ever stop to wonder if girls make passes at guys who wear glasses? Why did Parker single out girls to be the heirs of that blight?

I don’t suppose we’ll ever know. But thinking about it did make me realize something: I adore men who wear glasses!  I find them sexy, incredibly so. I’m not sure why, though. I study men who wear glasses.  I look close at photos in magazines of men who wear them. And I wonder. What is the allure? 

I’m not sure, but I can tell you this…

Anyone who knows me knows I’m a big fan of silent films, and, right up there with my beloved Rudolph Valentino, is Harold Lloyd, the comedic genius of the silent era. His talent is unparalleled. He didn’t need sound to be funny.  

But what really attracts me to him? His glasses! The horn-rimmed spectacles that stand between me and that hidden tiger. The optical paraphernalia that promises mystery just the other side of those two circles of glass.  A terribly handsome, sexy man lurks behind those frames. 

If you don’t count Timothy from my second grade classroom, then Harold Lloyd is the object of my first imaginary love affair with a spectacle-wearing fellow. I fell in love with the silent hunk with the manly charisma and boyish good looks the second I laid eyes on him. 

Oh, I know what you’re going to say. It’s the Clark Kent syndrome.  You’re going to tell me that I think there’s a Superman behind those specs. Nah.  It’s not that. Or is it?  

You just might be right. I stumbled across an interesting piece about my silent film hero, and this information would not only interest Superman lovers, but Harold Lloyd fans as well. Seems that the character, Clark Kent, was based partly on Harold Lloyd. Who knew? And I found it even more interesting that Kent’s name was derived from combining the names of two actors, Clark Gable and Kent Taylor. Go figure. 

So my darling Harold is a super man after all!

But still. I couldn’t have known that in second grade, when I daydreamed about Timothy, when I had the most agonizing crush on him. Later, in high school, there was Michael. And Alex. Ricky. And then later, Billy.  Bill. Tom, my husband.

To me, there is something so very sexy about a man stopping to take off his glasses before he begins to—well, make love. There. Oh, geez, I said it.  Yes. I admit it.  What a wildly wonderful experience, as a guy pauses to pull off his glasses and, with that careful deliberation (partly not to break them, of course), folds them shut and sets them on the table. Now he’s ready for business. Can you sit there and tell me that is not kind of sexy?  He’s undressing without undressing? 

Oh, calm down. I never made ‘whoopie’  with Timothy in second grade!  But maybe, just maybe, I sensed, even at that delicate age, the future allure those pieces of metal or plastic and glass would have on me. 

So, to my darling Harold. To Timothy, Michael, Alex, Bill, Billy, and Tom—wherever you are, I salute you! May the women you meet make passes at you! May the women who cross your path see your hidden Clark Kent!

You already know yours truly thinks you’re a hunk!