To see or not to see, that is the question... And over the Past few weeks, it’s a dilemma I’ve found myself wrestling with. Obviously, I’m quite a stoic person, not someone given to even simple displays of emotion, but at times over the past month, the scale of my predicament has seemed so insurmountable that yes, I have sought solace through drink and the easy favours of Oxford’s nightlife.

But don’t judge me too harshly I beg you – having been forced to wear spectacles since the fragile age of seven when, let’s be frank, children are far from fair or understanding, my life was, for many decades at least, tainted by glasses that seemed forever smeared or steamed-up.

Imagine then my joy when, in my late thirties, I discovered that I could place my forefinger on my eyeball and thus wear contact lenses.

In an instant, all the fear, worry, and anxiety of a lifetime spent whipping out tissues and shirt tails to wipe away the grease and grime of my visible world dissolved, leaving me to experience for the first time what it was to be... ‘naked’, freed from the plastic frames that had masked my face for so long and capable, at long last, of being able to wear hats that didn’t make me look amphibian.

And so it has stayed for the past 12 years – uninterrupted and unsoiled by the slings and arrows of a receding hairline and the inevitable ‘bat wings’. Until now that is.

Yes, my eyesight has failed. Considerably. To the point in fact where I now need to consider...oh hell I can’t even say it... b-i-f-o-c-a-l-s.

Alright, let’s not get melodramatic; you can get ...bifocal... contact lenses, and I’ve tried them (the opticians at Boots in Cornmarket Street have been simply superb), but they tend to leave my eyes dry after just a few short hours.

So, do I stick with them, and shoulder the inconvenience of a body in meltdown, or do I bite the bullet, return to frames and accept that from now on I’ll resemble an ageing city councillor?

It’s a tough call and I’m not sure I’m emotionally ready for it. Frames are certainly easier, though I’ve already sworn I’ll never go bifocal (really, is there anything more creepy and disturbing than a grown man peering down his nose as he studies the menu in a restaurant?).

No, if I’m going to follow this route through to its inevitable end, I’ll choose two pairs of glasses, identical in design, but with one for reading and one for long distance.

I know all this boils down to is a crisis of confidence, but it’s a little like admitting that very soon too I’ll be making regular trips to the bathroom at night and choosing beige trousers from the racks at M&S.

Another five years at this rate and I’ll be asking for slippers at Christmas.