Glasses Curiosity

Steven: [wearing Connie's glasses] How do I look?
Connie: [squints] I have no idea.

— Steven Universe, "An Indirect Kiss"

Bob wears glasses, and Alice does not. One day, she asks him, "Can I borrow/see/try (or try on)/wear your glasses?" He gives them to her, and she'll likely comment on either how bad his vision is or how cute/smart she feels/looks (or both). Another common scenario is Alice just randomly yanking them off his face and putting them on.

There are a few reasons a character might want to wear another's glasses. As stated above, they may want to look "cool" or "smart". Similarly, they may just be curious if they've never worn glasses themselves. Both or either could potentially lead to the character taking a "glasses selfie," depending on the setting. Another, more practical, reason is that they're having trouble seeing something far away or reading something, and might need glasses of their own. (If this works, they have Universal Eyeglasses.) When a bully does this, it's usually to mock their victim, especially if said bully is engaging in a game of Keep Away.

Asking to try on someone else's glasses could be a way of flirting with them. Most of the time, when somebody (real or fictional) snatches the glasses off of someone's face without asking first, they come off as rude and are demonstrating their inability to grasp the basic concept of personal space.

A less common situation is when a character who already wears glasses wants to swap specs with another to see who has the stronger/weaker prescription. Alternatively, someone who wears glasses can offer them to someone who is just reaching the point that they might need glasses, which could allow them to borrow a spare pair until they can get their own set.

Truth in Television, as many glasses wearers can attest to. This behavior typically starts during infancy and lasts all through grade school, usually (but not always) tapering off during or after college, when people begin to realize how awkward and frankly bizarre it is to just take people's glasses off their faces. People doing this are normally trying to invoke Bespectacled Cutie, Glasses Are Sexy, and/or some combination of Nerd Glasses and Smart People Wear Glasses. It can also be a direct result or consequence of Hold My Glasses. Depending on the style of glasses, this could easily veer into Making a Spectacle of Yourself territory. Related to Blind Without 'Em and Dropped Glasses and very similar to Purely Aesthetic Glasses.

Can also function as a mild form of Obfuscating Disability.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Gunslinger Girl. In "The Girl's Miniature Garden", the normally stoic Claes is not happy to find Petra trying on her glasses, which were given to her by her dead handler (who has been wiped from her memory, but she appears to remember him on a subconscious level). She responds by throwing Petra to the ground and wresting them off her.
• My Hero Academia: During the dorm room contest, it's revealed Iida has a full shelve of spare glasses he treats as completely normal, much to Uraraka's amusement. It's not directly addressed, but attentive viewers may notice that for the rest of the competition, both Uraraka and Mina now each wear a pair of Iida's glasses.

Fan Works

• One Equestria Girls fan-art by artist Ta-Na shows Sunset Shimmer trying on Twilight Sparkle's glasses.
• In the Ranma vs. Predator crossover fanfic by Jason Wages, Shampoo picks up Mousse's clothes (after the latter was turned into a duck) and gets curious about his coke-bottle glasses, trying them on. The extreme prescription disorients her at first, but it proves an incredible stroke of luck because the glasses' distortion happens to be exactly what's needed to cancel out the Predator's Invisibility Cloak, sparing Shampoo from being caught by surprise.

Films — Animation

• Atlantis: The Lost Empire: Kida takes and wears Milo's glasses while showing him around Atlantis for the first time due to never having seen the object until now.

Films — Live-Action

• Adventures in Babysitting: Brenda makes the mistake of taking her glasses off and putting them in the chair next to her to take a quick nap while in the bus station. A homeless woman walks up, takes the glasses, puts them on and finds her vision improved (which likely wouldn't happen in real life), and walks off.
• Captain America: Civil War: When Tony Stark tries to recruit Peter Parker, the former briefly tries looking out of the goggles in the latter's Cheap Costume.
  Tony: Lordy, can you even see in these? Aah, I'm blind!
• Charade: Reggie thinks that Peter's glasses are fake and tries them on, quickly discovering that they're quite real.
• Guest House Paradiso: Richie donned Eddie's glasses as a disguise. They were both rendered nearly blind as a result.
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1: Six other characters have to turn into Harry and consequently also have to wear his glasses. Hermione puts on a pair of Harry's glasses before transforming. Once she sees how much they adjust her eyesight, she criticizes his.

Literature

• The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time: Only mentioned in passing but Siobhan, the narrator Christopher's favourite teacher, wears glasses thick enough to induce headaches when 20/20 people wear them.
• I Am Number Four: Four tries on Sam's specs, which actually used to belong to Sam's missing father, and gets a major headache.
  Four: Jesus, is your vision really this bad?... You know these things will screw up your vision if you keep wearing them, right?

Live-Action TV

• Brooklyn Nine-Nine: In one episode, Santiago has to start using back-up glasses after her contacts dry out due to being forced to spend 48 hours in the precinct. Peralta snatches them off her face and wears them for a few seconds, which he soon regrets.
  Peralta: You're a blind cop! How has there not been a made-for-TV movie about your struggles?
• Girl Meets World: As part of the makeover Smackle requests in "Girl Meets Smackle," Riley and Maya remove her glasses. Later on in the episode, Maya is seen wearing them briefly, likely to prevent Smackle herself from doing so.
• That's So Raven: In "Bend It Like Baxter," Cory wants to impress a girl who likes glasses by grabbing and wearing a pair from the Lost and Found. A Surprisingly Realistic Outcome occurs when he tries them on and can't see and later gets a headache from doing so.
• Zoey 101: Early in "Trading Places," Lola looks over at the street from the basketball court she and Quinn were playing at and thinks she sees Zoey. Instead of saying something, Lola pulls Quinn's glasses off her face and puts them on. When Quinn starts to ask Lola why she took her glasses, the latter merely says "Look over there!" while still wearing Quinn's glasses. Quinn has to snatch them back.

Pro Wrestling

• Gentleman John Lynx (formerly of Prairie Wrestling Alliance) will sometimes recount an incident in which a wrestler jokingly tried on the pince-nez glasses Lynx wore as part of his costume — and found that not only were these spectacles not Purely Aesthetic Glasses, but also Lynx legitimately had a fairly strong prescription.

Radio

• The Ricky Gervais Show: Stephen Merchant mentions this being a serious pet-peeve of his, since the people trying on his glasses always react the same way; "Oh, I can't see a thing!"
  Steve: What were you expecting, X-Ray Vision!? No!

Video Games

• In Deltarune Chapter 2, if Kris enters the mansion's basement but exits it early, they'll see Susie teasing Ralsei by wearing his glasses and pretending to be a "big dweeb that loves homework". Ralsei's dialogue portrait also reveals that he has pink eyes underneath his glasses.
• In Ignatz and Petra's B support in Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Petra is curious about trying on Ignatz's glasses (as nobody in her homeland of Brigid has bad eyesight, or at least nobody who survives does). Petra proceeds to get nauseous, falls over with Ignatz, and with complete sincerity decides they are like the Heroes' Relics that only certain people can use.
• In one of her VR scenes in Megadimension Neptunia VIIR, Vert tries putting on glasses she borrowed from Chika to look more mature for the player. In an interesting variation, it isn't until she takes the glasses off that she becomes dizzy.

Webcomics

• Books of Adam: The subject of this strip◊, as shown in the page image, where someone asks to try on Adam's glasses and predictably comments that he's blind. Adam responds with an Eye Twitch.
• In a panel of Grrl Power, Dabbler keeps Sydney at bay with a hand on the latter's face after stealing her glasses and fooling around with them.
• Questionable Content: While both Faye and Marigold wear glasses, in this strip they choose to try each other's glasses. Faye's prescription is so strong, it shocks Marigold. Faye jokes that Marigold's glasses make everyone look like anime characters...
  Marigold: That's not what my prescription is like. [starts to whisper to herself] I wish that was what it was like.
• In an early strip of Scandinavia and the World, Denmark tries out Sweden's glasses after the latter dropped them. Hilarity Ensues, since Sweden is Blind Without 'Em and Denmark gets nauseous because everything is so blurry.
  Denmark: I think I'm going to faint...
  Sweden: Then let me take them off you! Stop walking around! Where are you, Denmark!?
  Denmark: I don't know! I can't see!
  Norway: [eating from a popcorn bag full of fish; thinking] This is why I don't own a TV.

Web Videos

• In a Buzz Feed Violet video titled "Truths Every Girl with Glasses Knows", Sara's friend asks to try on her glasses. Sara obliges, and her friend asks if the glasses make her look like a "hipster librarian" before saying they're blurry. Other videos with titles like "The Stolen Glasses" and "He/She/They Stole Her/His/My Glasses" are similar.

Western Animation

• Abby Hatcher: In "Abby Loses Her Glasses," Princess Flug briefly comes into the possession of Abby's glasses and initially doesn't want to return them due to receiving compliments while wearing them.
• American Dad!: In "Don't Look a Smith Horse in the Mouth," Francine yanks Steve's glasses off his face and asks if she looks smart in them when she and Stan come home drunk one night.
• Arthur:
  • In "The Big Blow-Up," Francine grabs Arthur's glasses off his face and puts them on during an argument she and Brain are having over a soccer game, claiming Arthur's not trustworthy because of his bad eyesight.
  • At the beginning of "D.W. Tale Spins," D.W. puts on Arthur's glasses to imitate him before claiming she can do anything he can.
• As Told by Ginger: In "Wicked Game," Noelle loses her glasses in a bet to Polly Shuster, who later wears them for a little while.
• Ben 10: Omniverse: In "For a Few Brains More," an intelligence-drained Azmuth grabs onto and steals Gwen's glasses in the middle of a fight and goofs off with them for a few minutes.
• Code Lyoko: Aelita tries on Jérémie's glasses while making a funny face during a Photo-Booth Montage in the season one finale.
• Dexter's Laboratory: In "Framed," Dee Dee steals Dexter's glasses and mocks him with them while the two kids are on the bus to school. Later on, after he retrieves his broken specs from the floor of the bus, he lets another girl try them on when she compliments him on them.
• Family Guy: In "The Heartbreak Dog," Chris reveals he loves trying on other people's glasses upon seeing a pair stolen from a nursing home by Meg. When he does try them on, he gets a headache and suddenly remembers that particular downside of wearing other people's glasses.
• Gravity Falls: During the "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue in the Finale Credits, Mabel is briefly seen wearing Candy's glasses while the two girls and Grenda partake in a Photo-Booth Montage similar to the Code Lyoko example above.
• KaBlam!: In one episode, Betty-Anne Bongo from The Off-Beats loses her horn-rimmed glasses. The Populars find and hide them from her, with Trina wearing them (she claims she's just "keeping them warm" for Betty).
• One episode of King of the Hill had Bill ask Hank if he could try his glasses on and giggles when he couldn't see anything through them. Another episode had a variant with contact lenses; Dale goes through the medicine cabinet of a house he's fumigating and puts in the owner's contact and says "Man, this guy's got bad eyes."
• The Loud House:
  • In "Picture Perfect", while trying to make his sisters look presentable for a sibling photo reshoot, Lincoln removes Lisa's glasses and puts them on Leni to make the latter look smarter (than she already is, as he himself says).
  • In "The Old and the Restless", Lincoln takes a passerby man's glasses and puts them on when the boy thinks he sees Pop Pop about to skydive.
• Rugrats (1991): "Chuckie Loses His Glasses" revolves around this. When Angelica and later Tommy put on his glasses, they see the same stuff he does without them. Angelica eventually gets so dizzy from wearing them, she gets sick... all over her dad's sweater.
• Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!: In "That's Snow Ghost," Scooby and Velma (the latter chained to a log) are being followed by another log with a pack of lit dynamite tied to it. Scooby plucks Velma's glasses from her face and puts them on so he can examine the dynamite more closely. Obviously, Scooby has no ill effect from using Velma's glasses.
• The Simpsons:
  • Other characters sometimes steal and wear Millhouse's glasses, with Bart even using them as goggles in one episode.
  • In "$pringfield", Homer finds a pair of glasses in the toilet and decides to keep them (unknowingly swiping the ones Henry Kissinger wears) after he likes how intelligent he looks with them. Even if, from his new perspective, wearing them makes Bart and Lisa look like something from a Salvador Dali painting.
• Steven Universe: In "An Indirect Kiss", Steven asks Connie if he can wear her glasses in exchange for him continuing to tell her the story of why there's a fence around a cliff. She agrees, in exchange for his juice box, and he wears them for much of the remainder of the episode.
  Steven: How do I look?
  Connie: [squints] I have no idea.
• W.I.T.C.H.: In "K is for Knowledge", Uriah Dunn purposely bumps into Taranee, which causes her to drop both her books and her glasses. He steals the specs and later puts them on to mock her.

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