I've had mine for a couple of years, and besides showing my best friend from high school who was excited for me to finally ge them, since she was well aware of my kink for them, not many other people, if any at all, ever really reacted to them. My family would notice and say things like "oh I'm so sorry that's rough buddy". At one of my more memorable jobs, one of my coworkers commented "woah I didn't know you had braces!" After I'd worked there for a year and had them the entire time I'd worked there. This told me I needed to smile a whole lot more. I think mostly itll be people I haven't seen since high school seeing me and chatting for a bit, there's about a 50/50 theyll comment on them, but most try to be polite and not bring it up, One of the many reasons I want to be prescribed an extra oral appliance of any kind. Anything to draw attention to them lol. Since I got them right outa high school, there wasnt really a point I was scared to be getting them, i was just so excited to finally have them!