I am, *essentially*, a right-handed person. During my mid/late teens and very early 20ties I was confused on several "issues" (almost ambidextrous, almost bisexual, etc). Straightened out by the time I was in my mid 20ties, but that's not to say I've *forgotten*... :) I have also -- always, and to this day -- had problems with "left/right" (*one* of the reasons my geometry grades were "subterranean" <g>).
When faced with an obstacle which has to be circum-navigated, I *tend* to go to the right, *most* of the time. One exception seems to be museums; if the same room has two doors, I always enter through the left one, which makes me go "up-stream" and meet all my erst-while companions mid-way through the circuit :)
So, I think it's *probably* related to "traffic rules", but there's room for individual quirks. especially if one didn't learn to drive until relatively late in life (I was 40)
Pam Dotson wrote:
I am certain it is related to driving. When I went to London this summer my
gut instinct, when approached by someone, was to go right -- and they nearly
inevitably went left, resulting in "the sidewalk dance." It was consistent
to the point that I could figure out who the other tourists were!
In a big city, on a busy street, pedestrians are *bound* to engage in that "sidewalk dance" occasionally, even if they'd been raised according to the same traffic rules; used to happen to me all the time in Warsaw, on one particular street (very busy but with old -- and narrow -- sidewalks), even before we had any tourists from the left-handed countries (at that time, Sweden was also one, though not any longer). I found that the best way to "disengage" (after both of us "dipped" into the other's path once) was to look that person in the eye and watch their body language (peripheral vision); almost always, the next move made us *veer*...
Jean Nathan wrote:
A man always used to take the road side of the pavement
to protect a woman from traffic and water sprayed by traffic, whether he was
walking alongside her or passing her in the opposite direction. That doesn't
happen much now,
In Poland of my childhood and teens a man also used to walk on the road-side of a woman, though only when walking *with* her. But, by the time I was 12 or so, the custom of the woman placing her hand on the bent arm of a man "went outa the window" (except in "reproduction dancing") and, by the time I was 16, a boy wasn't permitted to hold his "walking partner" by the waist, either (indecent), so *that* went outa the window, too. Don't know what's replaced the "protective rules" any more than Jean does; last time I was in Warsaw, I didn't see a single *pair* -- they all went in gaggles :) DH says I ought to place my left hand in the crook of his right arm no matter how we're moving, so I assume that's the "American Way" (or used to be; we hadn't done *that* in 15 yrs or more <g>)
Motherchaos (Mikki in Alaska) wrote:
I went to the University and recieved a degree in Psychlogy....while there I
was used (many times as psych students are) as a guinea pig for the students
going for their PhDs.
Oh, lordy, how that brings back memories... :) Nothing to do with left/right issue, and I wasn't Psychology (Apllied Linguistics, English), but one of my friends was in Psychology, and she roped me in (all unsuspecting) to act as a guinea pig for her group... There was a row of us -- 12 or so, with me #9 perhaps. We were all shown pairs of "shapes"; lines, triangles, circles, etc, and asked to say whether A was bigger/smaller/whatever than B; we gave our "verdicts" in order we were seated, and out loud... I was bristly to begin with, because geometry was so very much "not my cup o'T" but, being a responsible little citizen, I stuck through it ("one suffers for the common good" was a principle I was raised with and believed). On the first 4-5 "tests", I just said what I thought (even though 6-7 people before me and at least 1-2 after me were obviously even more near-sighted than I was, as their decisions were opposite of mine). Later on, puzzled by being *always* in the minority, I'd get up, go close to the exhibits (it was permitted), and make triple sure of my opinion before I gave it... Even so, I was still in the minority, which made me feel *very* insecure. I left the test feeling like a total failure/idiot, who couldn't even see straight; I *thought* I was right every time, but, obviously, I wasn't...
Later that week, my friend came by -- highly amused (we shared the "skewed" sense of humour, which is why we remained friends *after* the "test" <g>), to give me the results. Apparently, *I* was the only person being tested -- the rest of them were all "stoolies", from the Psych dept... I was being tested *not* on eyesight, but on response to peer pressure... What amused her was that I *royally* screwed up their statistics -- all the other "suckers" (un-clued, non-Psych, just as I had been) the dept had tested caved in somewhere between #3 and #6; I was the only one who went through all 10 without it ever even occuring to me to comply with the majority judgement for the sake of fitting in. "Well, *of course* I stuck to my guns", I said. "I thought I was contributing to the future of humanity; I thought my contribution was *important*", I said. "Probably not, since it discredits even the American tests" she said. "But I'm glad you're my friend"
Oh, well... :) She should have been a politician <g>
----- Tamara P Duvall Lexington, Virginia, USA Formerly of Warsaw, Poland http://lorien.emufarm.org/~tpd/
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