# Left-handed in a right-handed world



## Kivimees (Feb 16, 2013)

Being left-handed in a right-handed world presents lots of annoyances. Even some simple tasks become difficult or complicated.

I can't be the only left-handed TC participant, so lefties, what's your biggest annoyance?

Mine - trying to use a soup ladle. :lol:


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

Cutting a cake or pie with a right-handed cake knife. Otherwise I hardly care, honestly. Nothing is soooo bothersome that I can't learn to deal with it. Maybe Right-handed people would be shocked anyhow at what meager inconvenience I still have ("how could you possibly settle with even the slightest inconvenience?!"). Some friends of mine were shocked when I chose right-handed desks at college, but really, why would I _look _for a left-handed desk? I just go with whatever desk is in best place of the room for me. Also, I like right-handed desks cuz I can rest books in front of me (and use my right hand for turning pages) while writing on my lap with left hand. It's kinda hard to turn pages of large books on your lap, especially when the desks are small. Cutting cakes and pies though... x_x I wish there would be more "neutral-handed" appliances instead, that work for both lefties and righties.

Maybe when I get married one day I'll ask for left-handed household appliances for wedding shower.


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## Kivimees (Feb 16, 2013)

Huilunsoittaja said:


> Otherwise I hardly care, honestly. Nothing is soooo bothersome that I can't learn to deal with it.


Well, I have learnt to clean up after myself after (mis)using the aforementioned soup ladle.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

I'm ambidexterous with left-hand leanings. I eat left-handed but write, right-handed.

I don't remember, but way back when I was learning to write, I may have been discouraged from writing left-handed.

When driving, I feel better when the steering wheel is being controlled by my left hand alone.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

There's widespread discrimination and neglect of left-handed folks. I remember how difficult it was to acquire a baseball glove for lefties; and don't get me started on those credit card machines in stores - every single one of them is made for righties.

Most annoying, righties think in alien ways. I'm still wondering if they are really humans.


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## Cosmos (Jun 28, 2013)

Having to deal with right handed desks in every classroom.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Huilunsoittaja said:


> Cutting a cake or pie with a right-handed cake knife. Otherwise I hardly care, honestly. Nothing is soooo bothersome that I can't learn to deal with it. Maybe Right-handed people would be shocked anyhow at what meager inconvenience I still have ("how could you possibly settle with even the slightest inconvenience?!"). Some friends of mine were shocked when I chose right-handed desks at college, but really, why would I _look _for a left-handed desk? I just go with whatever desk is in best place of the room for me. Also, I like right-handed desks cuz I can rest books in front of me (and use my right hand for turning pages) while writing on my lap with left hand. It's kinda hard to turn pages of large books on your lap, especially when the desks are small. Cutting cakes and pies though... x_x I wish there would be more "neutral-handed" appliances instead, that work for both lefties and righties.
> 
> Maybe when I get married one day I'll ask for left-handed household appliances for wedding shower.


Ha! Ha! I can say left thumb down or right thumb down to marriage.....unless you are one of the rare humans who actually hits the bullseye and finds your true soulmate.


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

^^^ Cosmos, read my post above! There's way to adapt that might actually put us at advantage! lol...


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

hpowders said:


> Ha! Ha! I can say left thumb down or right thumb down to marriage.....unless you are one of the rare humans who actually hits the bullseye and finds your true soulmate.


It's just cuz I'm poor and wouldn't buy for myself any left-handed appliances, so I'd get others to do it for me. :tiphat:


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

Cosmos said:


> Having to deal with right handed desks in every classroom.


I forgot about that one. When I was a little guy back in the 1950's, I had a couple of evil teachers who tried to convert me to right-handed; they failed.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

"Left-handed in a right-handed world".

A great title for a TC poster's autobiography as to what it's like to be a classical music lover in a pop culture world.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

I'm mainly left-handed but the only thing which springs to mind is using right-handed scissors which I find really awkward.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

I always wondered what it would be like to be left handed, once I tried writhing and it just don't work.
Very strange


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## Cosmos (Jun 28, 2013)

Pugg said:


> I always wondered what it would be like to be left handed, once I tried writhing and it just don't work.
> Very strange


I feel the same whenever I try to see what it's like to write with my right hand. Spoiler alert; my handwriting changes from childlike and illegible to pre-alphabetic hieroglyphs


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## Krummhorn (Feb 18, 2007)

I am right handed ... the only problem I had with this was when in the UK driving a manual shift car. Shifting with the left hand was ... interesting; finally got the hang of it when it was time to leave. 

My mentor for learning the game of golf (I no longer play) was left handed. It was much easier to learn the proper swing as we were facing each other and it was like looking at a mirror. 

Kh


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

I'm mostly left handed. Except for Elgar's Ghost's scissors above, I found no inconvenience whatsoever. 

Weirdly I don't use my right eye very much either. It works; my brain just doesn't bother with it, so my ophthppptthhhalomalologist (or however the infernal title is spelled) tells me. Usually my eyes line up, but the right one can wander when I'm tired. I'm in good company. Rembrandt had the same condition I've heard.


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## QuietGuy (Mar 1, 2014)

I'm left-handed also. I agree with everything that been said. The one thing that gave me fits was back when I was in college and taking a conducting class. I was forced to conduct right-handed. One [of many] criticisms of my conducting was that it was not "fluid" enough! I wonder why ......


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

I heard tell you can write _backwards _pretty well with your opposite hand. I've tried that before with my right-hand and it works for me. 

Here's a chance for me to speak up on something I feel strongly about, considering I don't always land into such a category of existence.

I'm not being a pushover by implying I don't think left-handed people need more representation or rights in the consumer market. I simply don't hold onto my left-handedness as something that makes me special, and ultimately better than anyone else. Forget history. Sure it was wrong that people for centuries had been discouraged from being left-handed as it was viewed as something evil  but you know what? _All _that really matters today is that I'm _free _to be left-handed (which can mean making trivial tasks a tad bit easier with neutral-handed appliances), _not _that I'm proud for being in a minority. And it's not because I have some unconscious fear of being discriminated. _I simply don't consider being left-handed as a part of my ultimate identity._ You could hit me in the head, I'd go into coma, and wake up right-handed and not feel devastated that THE ONE THING THAT MADE ME SPECIAL IS GONE!

It's common for people today to hold onto their quirks (yes, you could be a minority of short people, tall people, smell sensitivity, flavor sensitivity, music preferences, eye color, hair color, skin color, accent, shoe size, you name it) too tightly, as if it's the only thing to keep them from falling through the cracks of being ordinary, or fear of being the "guilty oppressive party." Or maybe past persecution makes left-handers feel good about themselves that they have a right to hate on right-handed people now. "Our suffering makes us better than you!" Believe me, minorities are just as arrogant as majorities. The majority person says "I'm the bigger side! That means I'm not some deviant so I'm in the right!" while the minority says "I'm the different side! That means I'm special!" but it's all arrogance. Yep, I did it. I condemned my own self, as well as other kinds of minorities. But as minorities like to say, "You don't know how we feel because you're not one of us!" Well you got that right, and minorities end up not seeing their own problems by always focusing their anger at the majority. So if I'm a minority correcting "my own kind" right now about something minorities would say _majorities _can't judge, doesn't that mean_ I _just _legitimately _criticized them according to that standard? Just saying... food for thought.

Transformation will come from within.... :tiphat:


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## Kivimees (Feb 16, 2013)

Huilunsoittaja said:


> I'm not being a pushover by implying I don't think left-handed people need more representation or rights in the consumer market.


Really? My guess is you've never tried to drive in a screw with a manual screwdriver. :lol:


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## drpraetorus (Aug 9, 2012)

I am left handed but somethings you just have to be ambidextrous with. I also have amblyopia in my left eye so anything that needs aiming I become right handed. I bowl and shoot right handed. You cannot shoot a bolt action rifle left handed. I chose to play the Horn because the valves are played with the left hand. I conduct left handed even though my conducting professors basically told me I would go to hell for conducting left handed. I am somewhat mystified by left handed string players who have their instruments strung opposite to the normal to accommodate being left handed. After all it is the left hand the does all the work on a normal string instrument. The right hand just pluck or bows.


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## georgedelorean (Aug 18, 2017)

Lefty here. I know many of the struggles well!


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

Left-handed, but no struggles. While I write and throw with my left, I've adapted unconsciously to a right-handed world. Thus I've always used my right hand for scissors, and find it hard to imagine doing otherwise. I'll also use my right to turn a key or open a combination lock, since my left is often busy carrying things. 

The one pursuit where I've consciously tried to be ambidextrous is fencing. In what (very little) training I've had, I've made a point of devoting equal practice time to each hand. I still couldn't beat anybody in a bout, but at least a wound in the arm won't stop me.


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

drpraetorus said:


> I am somewhat mystified by left handed string players who have their instruments strung opposite to the normal to accommodate being left handed. After all it is the left hand the does all the work on a normal string instrument. The right hand just pluck or bows.


Absolutely. It's always seemed to me that stringed instruments are designed for left-handed people.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

Although a lefty I still use my right hand for my mouse; yes, I have one of those. Maybe I use my right so that my left hand is ready to smash anyone hovering over me.


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## Jos (Oct 14, 2013)

Playing a Les Paul looks very weird.
Other than that I have very little problems as a lefty. Oh, fountain pens !
In my student years I played ice hockey. Being a lefthanded left defenser gave a few nasty surprises to the opponents


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

Jos said:


> In my student years I played ice hockey. Being a lefthanded left defenser gave a few nasty surprises to the opponents


Good point. Back when I played tennis, opponents would be thrown by my forehand/backhand reversal. Not to mention left-handed spin on the serve.


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