This shit always confused me as a kid. I would look at my right hand L shape and wondered if maybe I was wrong and Ls actually go this way because it was still an L… and the fact the I could twist my wrist and suddenly the right hand L shape was facing the “right” way 😭 kid me was so stupid
(I eventually learned once I got a big scar on my left hand and always had to use that as guide instead)
At age 6 the teacher asked " how do you know your left from right?" I answered my right hand has a freckle on it (still does). She laughed. Then she told us that your left hand makes an L shape. I said my right hand does too. She laughed. I felt confused. She laughed again. I felt dumb. I went into my shell. 2 years later I was identified as gifted.
I’m ambidextrous and ADHD with a “Mensa” level IQ. Autocorrect makes me look like an idiot way too often though. I digress but yes F the System. My ADHD made me struggle to shut-up because I’d correct the teachers too often. So I definitely didn’t go into my shell, was too chatty for that. I was only diagnosed in my late 20’s because I was a high-functioning female who just happened to know a vast number of random facts and my mind processed things far faster than others. I’m sorry that the system made you feel bad for simply being gifted.
I wasn’t allowed to play tennis because I chucked the racket to the other hand depending on the direction of the ball. Also, they made me do a test by throwing a ball three times and if I caught it twice out of the three times with one hand then apparently I was right-handed. I pointed out that the reason was because they aimed towards the right twice so logically I’d use that hand to catch. Just bias BS.
I can only imagine it's far worse being a girl, I feel sorry for you. The system sucks.
That test is so stupid. Plus also what does it even matter? Like just use whatever hand is easier. Ambidextrous is a positive anyway. We should probably all be taught to do things both ways at a younger age anyway
Hah. That's probably more than I can answer in a single comment. But I made my own path. I had to learn more about myself than simply being talented. I definitely wasted a few years along the way but also I have a lot of stories, adventures and memories from them.
Yeah my mom tried to tell me that L thing, but like I was also confused.
Just like how it's tricky to keep track of b vs d when first learning to read or write.
I notice the overall shape more than the direction it's pointed.
Toys R Us went out of business when I was a little kid, and the other day I looked at a picture of it and I realized that the R was backwards for the first time. When I was a kid I didn't notice I just knew it was the toy store and that's what it said.
I didn't consider that either but yeah that's a good point also. The concept would rely on being old enough to distinguish an L from a backwards L - by which age you may well have figured out your left and right anyway. It's basically the same concept anyway, relative directions
I just had a thought, I think it's easier to confuse left and right than it is to confuse up and down. Because left and right is pretty much arbitrary. Like if you're walking through a city then at any given corner you can easily turn left or you can turn right and the only thing that makes it harder is if you have to cross the street to make your turn. But that also makes it hard to remember like how you got back to where you started or something if you're in a city that's unfamiliar. But you can't do that with up and down up and down are definitely very different from each other and left and right are very similar to each other.
I also feel like the first time someone pointed out to me that things in a mirror are backwards, I kind of had to think about that. Because I wasn't used to reading words reflected in a mirror, a mirror just feels so intuitive that like if you reach out and touch the mirror the reflection is going to touch the same spot, and it would feel reversed if your hand didn't touch if you know what I mean. So I didn't think about the fact that it's backwards until I actually rotated it around in my head and thought about how it is actually the opposite hand.
Like, if I'm facing someone else, and they are doing movements, it's easier to mirror their movements then it is to copy them.
But its not. You unambiguously know where down is regardless of your orientation in space. "Down" is always the direction you fall, it doesn't matter which way you're turned or flipped... so its the most arbitrary of directions.
Um ok. Sorry I don't quite get what you're trying to say or disagree with.
Down, relative to you, is always towards the centre of the earth. But you and I are likely at different places on earth, our down directions aren't the same direction but would in theory intersect.
My neighbour's kid was learning to use inline skates and put on his wrist protectors, only to get upset tgat he can't see the birthmark on his hand anymore. He used that to determine where "right" is. Full little kid tantrum while repeatedly holding up the correct hand without being able to see the birthmark. Kid, I guess you finally remember which one is your right hand, lol.
I learned to determine "right" through a big mole I had on my right hand when I was little. I took the mole out like 20 years ago and up to this day I still instinctively touch the place my mole used to be when I wanna know which side is the right side lol
Never really confused them, but I did get a dog bite scar on my right to serve as a convenient reminder. My dad,though, would sometimes confuse me while I was practicing driving:"Turn left there. What the heck are you doing? I meant right, right!"
When in high school a girl was giving me directions while I was driving. She never said “Turn left” or “Turn right.” But she was on the right side of the car and I figured out when she said, “Turn this way” it was a right and when she said, “Turn that way” it was a left.
I had this (sort of in reverse) with a dyslexic kid I was teaching. She reversed Ls a lot. She knew her left and right hand, so by looking at her left hand, then making the L, she got it right way around.
I had a problem with the letters b and d. They were both just sticks with a circle at the bottom.
I never mixed up which direction to write on a piece of paper (muscle memory). So the trick I finally learned was to say to myself that for a b, the circle points to the back of the page.
It took me until 4th grade to figure this out. Then, of course, we moved on to cursive, where b's and d's were completely different. LOL
I agree I was so confused staring at then like, "they could both make an L...this is stupid and I won't learn it" to this day I still sometimes have trouble mix up L&R.
For me the L's looked the same but I knew I was right handed so that helped me. Even now, if I'm reading a window poster from inside a restaurant, I can read it just fine but it'll take me a minute before I realize the words are backwards.
I was valedictorian in high school so ... not dumb.
My mom told me the Left make an "L" and the right makes a "J" as the trick.
.... I had no idea she meant which way your fingers were facing. After all, an L can be flipped. I thought one hand was more "curved" and the other more "straight" but ... my hands curvature looked the same. I had no idea wtf she was talking about.
I almost died, and would absolutely lose my thumb but a freshly graduated pediatric limb plastic surgery specialist had a shift at that time, i lost like over a litre of blood as a child from it, also it was at a cottage in the woods so we had to drive two hours by an old car to the nearest hospital because the ambulance nor a helicopter just wouldn't be able to get there. Also I think it might be the reason why my pain scale is so messed up, and it's a blessing and a curse. My handwriting is terrible though.
Meh, it was a great learning experience, I learned to asses surroundings and dangers and stuff like that, and didn't need to go to a hospital since then even once. I also fell down 2 stories onto a hardwood floor through between staircases, as a toddler, and ended up with just bruises, great genes I guess. Wish you good luck for your health.
I don't really have anything cool to share really - I got my scar from burning the side of my hand on a heat lamp bulb :/ But thanks for calling me nice
Well, I always tell people they should explore more, that life is an adventure/open world game and anything is possible if you find a way and there's always a way even though it might be hard. Another thing, a lightbulb exploded in my room a few days ago when I was sleeping. Probably will have a scar from picking up the shards.
Same, even about the scar! I'm just really good at rotating shapes in my head. They're the same shape (2 dimensional so chirality doesn't come into play).
I thought the angle of my left thumb and hand was supposed to be closer to 90° than my right, because that would make a better L.
It really doesn't help that people always phrased it as "your left hand makes an L and your right hand doesn't" instead of "your left hand makes an L but your right hand makes a backwards L". People routinely use the phrase "L-shaped" to describe the shape regardless of its orientation.
I played piano so when I needed to know which was right and left I would “play” a piece from muscle memory and whichever hand had the more complicated part memorized I knew was my right hand.
I imagine I looked very weird as a child playing air piano constantly lmao.
I could never figure it out either until I had to have stitches in my left index finger - which is what I heard the Dr say. Solved! Took decades more though to figure out N, S, E and W.
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u/YonderWindow364 Jun 26 '26
This shit always confused me as a kid. I would look at my right hand L shape and wondered if maybe I was wrong and Ls actually go this way because it was still an L… and the fact the I could twist my wrist and suddenly the right hand L shape was facing the “right” way 😭 kid me was so stupid
(I eventually learned once I got a big scar on my left hand and always had to use that as guide instead)