I went to the doctor because I felt like I was being watched by my own reflection.

This joke tickles our funny bone by setting up a seemingly serious, almost philosophical predicament, only to deliver a wonderfully mundane solution. The initial setup leads us to believe the patient is experiencing some form of paranoia or a psychological issue, perhaps feeling self-conscious to an extreme degree. We might imagine a deep, introspective struggle with self-perception.

However, the punchline cleverly pulls the rug out from under our expectations. The doctor's advice, prescribing new glasses and suggesting less mirror-gazing, reframes the entire scenario. The "being watched by my own reflection" wasn't a profound existential crisis, but simply a literal problem of poor eyesight combined with a touch of vanity. The humor here is a delightful blend of misdirection (Review) and literal interpretation, turning an imagined psychological drama into a simple trip to the optician.

It's a classic example of situational irony, where the outcome is the opposite of what's expected, and it also plays on the common experience of needing vision correction. We've all squinted and perhaps misinterpreted something due to blurry vision, making the doctor's straightforward diagnosis a relatable and amusing resolution to a seemingly complex problem.