Wednesday, August 07, 2013

What if myopia makes your social skills worse?

Last night as I went about my evening routine, I took off my glasses to wash my face, and then didn't bother to put them back on to take my garbage to the garbage chute.  As I walked back from the garbage chute, a small group of young men whom I didn't know emerged from one of the other apartments.  I looked in their direction and realized that without my glasses, I couldn't read their facial expressions.  I wasn't sure if they were making eye contact with me or if they were giving me a smile of acknowledgement or if their head just happened to be turned in my direction.

Because of this, I felt I didn't know how to respond appropriately.  I don't like to greet strange men with more enthusiasm than they greet me, but I do like to return neighbours' greetings in kind unless there's a specific reason not to.  Without my glasses on, I couldn't see his face clearly enough to gather the necessary information.

I wonder if this is why I have poor facial expression skills in general? 

I've always been nearsighted, but we didn't catch it until I was 12 or 13.  Maybe in the formative years of my life, I simply didn't receive information from facial expressions, so maybe I don't look there for information as much as other people, and am not as accustomed to using facial expressions to communicate because I'm not as accustomed to them being informative.  I do remember in elementary school, my mother mentioned that she recognizes people primarily by their eyes, which baffled me because I recognized people primarily by their hair.  That would make sense based on my eyesight - eyes are smaller and more detailed, but hair is larger and quite often has a specific shape and a contrasting colour.  (Since I was a child at the time, my peers didn't drastically change their hair nearly as often as people do in adult life.)

When I was walking down that hall last night without my glasses on, I felt a bit frightened and intimidated because I couldn't read the strange men.  This is similar to the sense of fear and intimidation I felt about everyone when I was a kid.  In retrospect, I wonder if it's just because my eyesight didn't allow me to read people?

4 comments:

laura k said...

It's very, very possible. It's likely.

Being hearing-impaired (or hard of hearing, as it is called in Canada) definitely impedes developing social skills. You can easily imagine why. A near-sighted person would have the same disadvantage, I think.

This is a really interesting insight into your own development. Why was your near-sightedness caught so late? Did they not have mandatory vision and hearing exams in school? Or did you not tell your parents that you couldn't see the blackboard properly? Those would be the usual ways of identifying children in need of glasses.

impudent strumpet said...

I think at least part of the reason why it was caught so late is that one eye is significantly stronger than the other. We didn't catch it until I realized one day that I couldn't see the pattern on the wallpaper out of my left eye. (The guys in the hallway in the original blog post were on my left.)

I have no memory of eye tests in school. I do vaguely remember hearing tests. It's possible eye tests happened and I forgot about them.

Apparently I could read the blackboard well enough that I didn't perceive any problems. I can't tell you if I was sitting close enough to the board or if my teachers were writing largely and clearly (a possibility for elementary teachers who students are still working on the simple fact of reading). It was baseline reality at the time, so I didn't notice any details. I do know that my eyes kind of worked harder at focusing before I started wearing glasses. With glasses on, I can just relax my eyes and they focus properly. Without, I have to make a specific effort to focus. It still doesn't come out nearly as well as with glasses, but I guess it got me by in school.

laura k said...

So maybe it got you by educationally, but wasn't enough socially. Maybe decoding letters on a blackboard is easier than decoding facial expressions, especially since you're good with language.

I'm assuming your facility with language has been with you from an earlier age, before you could identify it as such. It might have helped you compensate in school.

impudent strumpet said...

I was reading fluently by kindergarten, so I probably had better reading pattern recognition skills than my peers.