It is, so the story goes, usually short, 40-plus people who first go to see optometrists about their fading eyesight.
Why? Their arms are shorter and so they will be the first to realise that they can't hold the book far away enough to be able to focus properly.
I wish I was taller and perhaps I would have been able to postpone the inevitable.
For some years now, I have noticed that, under normal reading conditions, the words have been going a bit blurry. And, lying in bed at night, with a good book or magazine, it's become almost impossible.
Eventually, I had to admit the alternatives: see an optometrist or take the lamp shade off the bedroom light. And, then, to confront the reality of why I had put off doing something for so long. Vanity. Terrible word. Not normally associated with macho men. But the truth.
It's been a point of personal pride that I've never needed glasses. When I was at school, it was always the weeds who wore the glasses: the nerds, the teachers' pets. Not that I was ever devastatingly attractive when I was younger, but everyone knew the saying about members of the opposite sex not making passes at those who wore glasses.
And, when it came to matters romantic, I found my blue "Irish eyes", coupled with a reasonable sense of humour, made up for muscle and chisled features. For me, wearing glasses has always been an admission of weakness, of failure.
A cherished dream I never fulfilled was to become a pilot. I was always worried, in the back of my mind, that my eyesight was not good enough. So, I got it checked out by an eye specialist. He said: "20-20". Still, having passed the air force aptitude tests with flying colours, I chickened out at the last minute, not prepared to live the rest of my life knowing my eyes had let me down.
All of this was going through my mind sitting in a chair at Execuspecs at Cresta as optometrist Craig Watt zeroed a high-tech eye-scanning device in on my eyeball.
"When we scan the eye, we can pick up instantly many eye problems and we can also see signs of other health abnormalities," said Craig.
"And that is why it is vital for people to go for regular check-ups with optometrists - every 18 months or so."
You'd be surprised, said Craig, how many people neglect their eye health.
But, regular check-ups can allow opthalmologists (they are the specialist eye surgeons and optometrists are the technical experts who use lenses to correct eyesight problems) to operate and correct abnormalities.
Craig's scan of my eyes sounded quite normal: good blood supply to the right areas, no defects apparent. Normal for my age. Oh yes, he added, a bit of cholesterol. What?
"It would be a good idea for you to get that checked."
(I went off and got my blood tested. So I'm on a bunny-food diet from now. Thanks, Craig.)
There are a number of health conditions that manifest themselves through the eyes, so a visit to the optometrist can be a cost-effective insurance for your life. Even as I was metaphorically slapping myself on the back, Craig sat me down in another room, and twisted dials and lenses to assess the state of my sight.
That wasn't so good. My eyes were relatively normal, but the reality was that I was some way off perfect vision.
So, I've seen Extreme Makeover and I know that you just lie down and get laser surgery done.
"Laser surgery," said Craig's fellow Execuspecs optometrist Sir Nicholas Rose, "only works where there is a static defect.
"Unfortunately, it cannot correct the ever-changing and ongoing deterioration which comes about because of age."
Nicholas and Craig explained that, with time (okay, age), the lens in the eye loses its flexibility. In fact, the changes begin to happen right from the early years, which manifests as a continual decrease in the flexibility of the crystalline lens (which has to elastically change its shape in order to allow us to focus on nearer objects) to the point where we notice these changes in our early 40s.
But I wasn't quite ready to accept that. Wasn't it true, I asked them, that wearing glasses makes your eyes worse?
A myth, they assured me. Said Craig: "One quickly adapts to better, easier, uncompensated vision after getting specs. Vision that does not have to be compensated for is easier to process than compensated vision. So by having your vision corrected, your visual system literally 'forgets' how to process poorer vision, thus giving one the impression that you could see better without your specs before you got them."
But, with corrective lenses, you don't have to surrender your eyesight. And you don't have to look like the class nerd, or a fashion casualty.
Execuspecs focuses on upmarket fashion eyewear, recognising "that glasses can enhance, and not detract from, your appearance," said Nicholas.
But glasses on this face? A bit like painting a moustache on the Mona Lisa, I said to anyone who would listen. When I looked in the mirror, I saw someone who looked a bit like my father. It is a bit of a shock after four decades, to see yourself with glasses.
I still don't know. I still don't wear them as often as Craig or Nicholas would probably recommend but - damn! - they work.
Because the glasses are "multifocals", I can focus at different distances.
These glasses are better suited for someone like me than pure reading glasses, said Craig. With just reading glasses, you will eventually return to get something that allows focusing at different distances.
I didn't believe him at first, because I was convinced that any problem - age-related or not - was only at reading distances. But, now that I've been wearing the multifocals for a few weeks, I realise Craig was right.
There are some drawbacks, though. I find that the focal area is very small. What is in focus is in a narrower region than the wider regions in single vision (non-multifocal) lenses, forcing you to move your head rather than your eyes.
And, after wearing the glasses for some time, my eyes do feel more tired, making me worry about whether they are weakening - but Craig has assured me that is only the initial adaptation to the lenses and it does feel less of a strain the more I wear them.
Bottom line, though: don't make a spectacle of yourself by allowing deteriorating eyesight to dictate your life.