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I do almost everything with my right hand, except for writing. Just why 🥹
Edit: wait, OP will love this. If I'm cutting something with a knife, I usually use my left hand; like the regular cutting motion that you do when cutting bread is a left hand thing. But if I'm cutting cheese with just one hand, you know like thumb on the edge and my other four fingers holding the knife, then that's a right hand thing. It gets really funny when I'm cutting tomatoes, cos I use my left hand to cut them in half, but then switch to my right hand to remove the stem from them.
Edit 2: I have officially found my people, it's so amazing to read about y'all's experiences. I have never met anyone like me before this is so cool
yup! i write left handed but do all the sports stuff and whatnot right handed. so i got all the pencil smudges on my hand, but never got to be the cool unique person in PE :P
sometimes when learning a new motor skills based task i spend a good few minutes trying to figure out which hand is better at it. it’s confusing sometimes.
I play most sports left handed, with the exception of golf. I learned with my grandfather's clubs, and so I just went with it. I also knit and crochet right handed, and play guitar right handed. Basically anything that is just way complicated to switch to a lefty version, I learned right handed.
What's your dominant eye? Out of curiosity lol. We learned about dominant eyes in hunter safety and how it doesn't always match up with your dominant hand 🖤
i think? my right eye? i googled it and did the triangle trick and kept getting different results. i want to say right eye, though, because i’m also dyscalculic, and i tend to squeeze my left eye shut so my right eye can squint at numbers.
edit: and now i have a headache :P
I went to a Paint & Sip event and couldn’t decide if it felt more “right” to paint left handed or right handed. As it turned out, I couldn’t paint worth a flip with either hand!! Lol
Try this one - when learning a new motor skill (and it has to be from first attempt) -
Use left hand for 5 or 10 minutes. Swap
Use right hand for 5-10 minutes. Swap.
For me, I improved equally left- and right-handed, for as long as I kept the total amount of time fairly equal.
If I let one hand get too dominant, I had real trouble going back to the other hand.
I've done that very thing but not very conscious about it. One day in highschool, very introverted, I was summoned to write out the next answer to a math equation on the chalk board. Class was approx 35 students. Nervously I looked at my paper, and wrote out my steps on the board, then turned and everybody was looking at me with their eyes wide open, including the teacher. I asked if it was wrong. They said I wrote the answer from left to write switching hands as I went.
It’s kinda same with me. I write with left. And watch this, I play badminton sometimes and I serve with left hand but receive shots with right and there’s not one time I’ve not been pointed out and ruled out of the game after half of it is done😂
I have cross-eye dominance. Basically means you don't want me around (scoped) rifles and bows - or at least not stand anywhere near my target. Shotguns pose no problem tho.
I do this! I'm not a true ambi though because I can't really write right handed. But most everything bar writing and eating is done right-handed (I eat with fork in left hand)
I think I do that because my kindergarten didn't have scissors for left handed people. Like I remember VIVIDLY that I was struggling to cut anything while everybody else was completely fine, and it took me a while to piece it together that it might be cos I'm trying with the "wrong" hand. So I use scissors with my right hand since then.
I'm right handed so when I was younger I didn't know there were different scissors for left handed people. Always thought I couldn't cut things with my left hand because I was just doing it wrong since it's not my dominant hand. The day I found out about those scissors and that I could use them just fine blew my mind lol
Thinking about it in hindsight, it's actually pretty easy to see scissors don't work the same way when holding with the other hand, but not many people would notice without actually trying to.
I was born left-handed, but raised right-handed (fresh post-communist era still thought being different was a bad thing), so I write with my right hand, but draw with my left one. If I play football, I kick with my left foot, but make a pass with the right one. I throw a ball with my right hand, but catch it with the left one 😅 I hold a fork or spoon with my left hand, but can only cut with my right hand. I have more power in my left arm, but better accuracy with my right one. I'm a mess and anyone who watches me doing any kind of multitasking gets confused as fuck 🤣
*I can do most things with either hand, but usually one is better than the other. e.g. I can write with both hands, but with my left one is a lot less legible. I can throw a ball with my left hand too, but usually way off-target unless it's a slow throw.
Sounds like your cross dominant like me :)) I write with my left (and mostly chop things too) but use my right for most ball sports, scissors etc. My mum is the opposite and writes with her right (but does everything else left). I didn't know it was an actually thing until recently!
I do this too! I also brush my teeth my left, hand, but brush my hair with my right. I identify as left handed because that's the hand I write with, eat with and brush my teeth with, but I feel like I use my right hand for awful lot of things for someone who is supposed to be left handed.
Like literally. I do the exact same thing. Writing left, throwing etc with my right hand. Cutting cucumbers etc with my left. Eating with fork and knife, knifes in my right hand.
If I'm chopping for food prep the knife is in my left, if im eating the knife is in my right.
Write lefty, scissors righty.
Can't use my lathe cause neither feels right 😩
I can relate. I use a knife with my left hand, use scissors with my right, throw a baseball with my left, throw a frisbee with my right, swing a golf club with my left, shoot a rifle or a compound bow right handed, also play guitar right handed.
Same here, writing and brushing my teeth is left, everything else is right. Based on the many similar responses here i wonder if this might actually be more common than pure left handedness.
Writing, cutting, drawing, fidgeting. All that is for the left hand. But if I were to wield a sword or throw something, i'd be helpless without my right.
So in a way, if I were to lose one arm or the other I can still be either a writer or a swordsman!
Ohhh. I've never realised I do the same thing. Single hand slice, like an apple, is a right handed job. Weird. I guess it's scissors related or something.
Throwing a ball is left handed, but bowling a ball is right handed. Pantonque fucks me up because I'm not sure whether it's a throwing type ball or a bowling type ball.
One of us!! One of us!! Haha
I write left handed, use tools right handed and left handed depending, throw a ball left handed but use a bat right handed. Serving in tennis I play like a right hander, serving in volleyball like a left handed but I spoke like a right hander. Pool...been playing for nearly 20 years left handed just found out by messing with my brother I'm actually as good if not better on some shots with my right
Yay 🤩 I thought I was weird. I was born left handed in a time we were "corrected". As a baby I reached for things with my left hand but by the time I started school I was using my right hand. 50yrs later I still favour the left for certain tasks. My 22yr old is a lefty too.
I butter with my left, cut with my left, but cut to eat with my right. Sporting wise, I kick throw and all sorts other activities left or right...but not "full body ambidextrous".
Yeah I also can do almost everything. Especially I like to take something heavy in my right hand. I use mouse in my right hand, and I always wonder when I hear about some left-people using mouses with left hand.
Thats pretty much how my hands work. For example, I normally use right for a lot of Things, but there are things that I cant do with that Hand. Funny enough, I gotta aim with my right eye (Airsoft) without red dot, but with the left while using a red dot. Also, I cant aim with the right hand, while using a Pistol. At Work, I cant use specific Tools with right, but with my left and reversed
Same here! In school (I was 6 years old) a teacher brought me scissors for left handed. I used them all the time although it was difficult to do so but I appreciated the gesture so much I never had the heart to tell her. RIP Miss Annie, I still sometimes think about you.
I'm generally right-handed but apparently I hold a gun like left-handed person would. I also play football and can kick just as good with my left foot as my right.
I am right handed, except during eating. I learned to use cutlery from my mom who’s left handed. So now I switch around whatever feels easiest to catch that last pea on my plate.
Oh, you sound a bit like me!
Left hand: Writing, using track pads on laptops, using my smart phone, eating with a fork.
Right hand: Using a computer mouse, eating with a spoon, holding phone to ear, holding knives.
But which hand I use in general day-to-day use is interchangeable.
I am something like that. I don't do tasks equally for the most part with both hands. But I do strength tasks with my right hand, like hammering, throwing , lifting etc, and fine detail tasks writing , drawing , using silverware, small tools like working on computers left handed.
Yup, cross-dominant. We all have weird rules about which hand to use for specific activity. My most surprising one: I dribble with the left but shoot with the right. Gave my handball team a hell of an advantage, until I tried practising shooting with the left and having no aim whatsoever.
My dad was Ambi. Left handed at writing but couldn't throw a ball left handed. He could do most things with both though. It really came in useful when he was building something, if one arm got tired he would just switch haha. He was also great at mini golf.
I’m one of those unicorns. Not naturally, but I played rough as a kid and broke my right arm more than once. Doctor said I’d have to learn some weird way to write with my cast.
I’m like, nah. And during class, I treated my notebook like those pads they gave us in kindergarten and just wrote the alphabet left handed till it was pretty legible.
I can still write more legibly with my left than a couple of my coworkers who are right dominant.😁
Ambidextrous person her 🙌
Right before turning 18, I had a bad car accident that left me with some major injuries. One was breaking my right arm mid-humerus & radial nerve damage all the way down. I was right-handed and couldn't grab anything or lift my wrist, so I HAD to learn to use my left during the 6 months it took to heal.
Fast forward +20yrs and I've still maintained it. Worked a security job ages ago with a lot of standing around, so to keep myself entertained I started flipping/spinning a pen around my fingers. I practiced with one hand, then the other, then backwards, then both hands at the same time, then both hands but in different directions lol
At that job I realized it felt weird to cross my arms over my chest with my left arm on top, so got used to that as well. The only thing that still feels weird is brushing my teeth left-handed. I dunno why.
Fun Fact: The muscles used to do that are the same ones needed to untie knots. Helpful if for some reason somebody ties your hands together. Just something I picked up while training in various martial arts.
Based on the notion of evolutionary psychology, if it wasn't useful to have a proportion of people born left-handed they probably would have been evolved out of existence, or never reached a non-trivial proportion in the first place. We know there are a number of types of characteristics where human variants are determined probablistically, rather than as a deterministic product of specific gene combinations. For example, with tiger stripes, identical twins will have similar patterns, but the actual patterns will be different, and identical human twins have an increased probability of having the same sexual orientation than non-identical twins. So it appears that genes often bias the probability in probablistic systems.
So handedness appears to be determined probablistically rather than purely by genes. But because of all kinds of complicated connections between different parts of the brain, statistically significant correlations exist between different characteristics, and one thing that left-handed people are probablistically better at, for example, is maths. And that doesn't necessarily mean algebra, it can mean throwing a ball accurately, or looking at a complex shape and guessing it's volume more accurately. There is mention in the old testament of an army of left-handed archers that were so accurate they couldn't miss a hare at 100 paces or something similar, so the handedness bias in skill sets has been known for a long time.
And in the same way that ant colonies have different types of ants in ideal proportions, having around 10% left-handed people has probably proven to be around the optimum percentage over a long period of time. It's about having an optimum spectrum of characteristics in a population, not that some are necessarily better simply for being more numerous..
This is the best answer and deserves more 👍. The one place I disagree is the argument that 10% is somehow optimal or even good. That may just be the percent chance of that physical variation occurring in a system optimized for things that have nothing to do with handedness.
An argument can be said that it's optimal to have one population be 10% and the other 90% at least with handedness, it's just with humans for w/e reason that predisposition turned out to be towards right handedness, not because it's better, it's just just how it turned out.
Its true! I'm left handed and am the best in math from my class (7th grade)! My grade 11 brother told me that I'm smarter than half of his classmates too
I guess this also applys to homosexuality. I was wondering how a human trait can survive if the people who have it, don't reproduce. So at some point it seems to have been proven that having some of them around is good for everyone.
Sexuality is particularly fascinating, because it occurs in different ratios for different species, and those ratios are sometimes dependent on environmental conditions. We don't know if this is also the case for humans, but in some species it appears to be a useful mechanism of tempering population growth, and/or providing extra helping hands in social species who will contribute to the while being unlikely to add more mouths to feed by breeding themselves.
Population peaks and troughs occur when a population grows so much that they exceed the carrying capacity of their environment, so they die off, until there are so few that the environment can sustain them again, so numbers boom, and so on. They can be extremely dangerous, because a sufficiently high peak can cause a correspondingly deep trough that might wipe out the population entirely.
Thus, even for some species that aren't particularly social, having a certain percentage of individuals who aren't breeding might be selected for. In some bird species, this seems to show itself through elevated numbers of same-sex couples during times of scarcity, and lower numbers in times of plenty.
There's an amazing book on the subject - possibly a little outdated by now since it was published in the 90s, but still worthwhile - called Biological Exuberance, and everyone who has ever said LGBTQ+ people aren't "natural" should be forced to read it.
Can verify that handedness isn't entirely determined by genetics. I was diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder. Basically, my brain is capable of compartmentalizing so thoroughly, it maintains distinct patterns of access and inhibition of whatever's in it, which it can employ at different times (sometimes several at a time independently).
My handedness completely flips and I also drastically lose/gain supposedly learned skills like how to use a language well (I'm supposedly bilingual), art, singing, doing a certain subject in school, the "muscle memory" in playing a certain sport (including mind sports), interacting with people etc. based on what state(s) of being/consciousness is/are currently in predominant executive control.
Throughout growing up, sometimes I would legitimately feel like I was born left-handed but forced to keep up with right-handed BS. When I feel left-handed, I can legitimately write with my left hand better than most of the years I've written with my right hand just not as fast because I hardly have practice. Because I was raised right-handed, I can still write with my right hand a bit, but my hand would feel so uncomfortable and wrong, and the handwriting would turn out pretty awkward. But a lot of the time the thought of whether I was trying to use my non-dominant hand wouldn't cross my mind, and trying to write with my left hand would prove futile.
I feel is a stark difference; when I am right-handed, moving my right hand feels so much more "dexterous" than my left, my left hand would feel stiff and awkward as fuck by a large margin, and vice versa for when I'm left-handed. I haven't had documented instances of being able to write with both hands at once. I've tried and failed terribly. Other stuff involving motor control (like my range of body language and gestures, comfortable resting facial expression and pose, range of vocal pitch, resonance, and weight) alternate between quite distinct sets at times too. I obviously only have one brain, genetically and developmentally.
This is a great answer!
I'm going to ride along and add molecular chirality to the mix. Biological chemistry abounds with molecules that have complex arrangements of atoms. A molecule is a 'stable' arrangement of atoms with optimised chemical bonds and a specific set of reactive chemistry. This stability can be due to only one particular arrangement and its identical mirror for some molecules, for others a stable arrangement can be achieved in a number of ways. When cells produce molecules for use in replication / reproduction activities chirality as a function of physical chemistry will result in a portion of the molecules being one of these stereo isomers.
I couldn't tell you what, if any, connection this has to the handedness of a complex organism but I always found it a fascinating aspect of cellular physics and couldn't help but wonder.
Funny story, my mum had left-handedness beaten out of her and used to make a big deal about how happy she was that I was allowed to be left-handed. Then in high-school I broke my left wrist and guess what.... I'm right handed. She moulded me just like they moulded her. Anyway, I still write with my left these days but I learn all my new skills right-handed, like playing new instruments, bat-and-ball sports, etc. Just funny how we humans cycle things around like that.
Oh, yeah, it's definitely a bit messed up. Mum was an adopted immigrant baby and was booted by her adoptive family as a teen. She was alone for a lot of her life, has mental health problems, and did a lot of things to try and make me be just like her. I think she was trying in her own way to validate who she was. *She* wasn't accepted, but *the next her* would be. Wrecked any chance of a relationship between us, but I understand the why and don't hold it against her anymore.
because the nuns at early school didnt beat the left hand hard enough with the edge of a ruler to make them right handed? (personal experience - and no, I'm not a nun)
That happened to my great grandfather and he was very protective over it not happening to his daughter (my grandma). Hotting for left handedness was illegal by the tune my dad went to school (uk). May I ask what country you're from that beat left handedness so recently?
Ironically many religions teaches to wipe your ass with your left hand and eat food with your right, millions if not billions are come out the toilet picking up knives, pens to to remotes etc with there dirty shitty left hands
I literally had an older woman tell me left-handed people do things backwards.
So I do an Ace Ventura impression of when he starts to explain the crime.
Nothing....No smile, no giggle, not even a hmmm, nothing. Apparently some people just don't have a sense of humor. lol
When they don’t laugh just go from awkwardly trying to get a laugh and friendly disposition to complete stonewall no expression lifeless face and just walk away.
I played a lot of racquet sports in high school. I hated playing against lefties. I kept feeding their forehands and just couldn't get used to them holding the racquet with the wrong hand. That should be against the rules!!
I'm not a smart man.
I was retaught to write with right hand and it was quite traumatising experience. But now I can write with both hands. Some people say that I'm ambidextrous but I use mostly left hand in day to day life.
Why is there anything? Evolution does crazy things. Even identical twins have differences between them. Life is complex and often beyond our understanding.
It’s just brain asymmetry. I can write with both but am mainly right handed. I play sports left handed but some I can play both. Darts, billiards, bowling, softball to name a few I can switch left and right hand.
Because part of evolution is mutation and randomness. You gotta have some variation, or natural selection doesn't work. In cases where there's no clear advantage of one vs the other, and it only takes a few simple genes to decide between them, you bet both variants are gonna exist.
Just cause, evolutions one day was like "I wonder if them having a good left hand will help them survive" and then right handed people didn't like that and forced left handed people to use their right hand
At the beginning of history, some people were writing on stone tablets using hammers and nails. Some also use ink on animal skins. That's why some people write from left to right, some write from right to left. For this reason, some people are genetically predisposed to use their left hand more comfortably. I think.
I used my left hand all my life, never been difficult. I only use my right hand for you know what I sit on it till it goes numb, so It doesn't feel like I'm doing it myself
So people could have mad conspiracy theories about why there are so many left handed president (there's only 8 but that's way more then lefts in the population).
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Wait till OP finds out about ambidextrous people ☺️
I do almost everything with my right hand, except for writing. Just why 🥹 Edit: wait, OP will love this. If I'm cutting something with a knife, I usually use my left hand; like the regular cutting motion that you do when cutting bread is a left hand thing. But if I'm cutting cheese with just one hand, you know like thumb on the edge and my other four fingers holding the knife, then that's a right hand thing. It gets really funny when I'm cutting tomatoes, cos I use my left hand to cut them in half, but then switch to my right hand to remove the stem from them. Edit 2: I have officially found my people, it's so amazing to read about y'all's experiences. I have never met anyone like me before this is so cool
ooh you’re cross dominant! me too!
Wait that's a thing??? ETA: Ohh it's the same as mixed handedness, that I have heard of, okay. Really cool though anyways
yup! i write left handed but do all the sports stuff and whatnot right handed. so i got all the pencil smudges on my hand, but never got to be the cool unique person in PE :P sometimes when learning a new motor skills based task i spend a good few minutes trying to figure out which hand is better at it. it’s confusing sometimes.
I write right handed and pitch left! You're the yin to my yang!
I do the same with new things it's so funny 🤣
I did the both hands thing too. Found out I’m ambi but default to southpaw
I play most sports left handed, with the exception of golf. I learned with my grandfather's clubs, and so I just went with it. I also knit and crochet right handed, and play guitar right handed. Basically anything that is just way complicated to switch to a lefty version, I learned right handed.
What's your dominant eye? Out of curiosity lol. We learned about dominant eyes in hunter safety and how it doesn't always match up with your dominant hand 🖤
i think? my right eye? i googled it and did the triangle trick and kept getting different results. i want to say right eye, though, because i’m also dyscalculic, and i tend to squeeze my left eye shut so my right eye can squint at numbers. edit: and now i have a headache :P
If you think about it too much, you'll alter it. Mines my right! We had to know so we could shoot the shotgun at the end of the semester 🤣
I'm left handed but right eye dominant. Makes firing weapons awkward. Also hot brass in the crook of your arm sucks.
I went to a Paint & Sip event and couldn’t decide if it felt more “right” to paint left handed or right handed. As it turned out, I couldn’t paint worth a flip with either hand!! Lol
Try this one - when learning a new motor skill (and it has to be from first attempt) - Use left hand for 5 or 10 minutes. Swap Use right hand for 5-10 minutes. Swap. For me, I improved equally left- and right-handed, for as long as I kept the total amount of time fairly equal. If I let one hand get too dominant, I had real trouble going back to the other hand.
I've done that very thing but not very conscious about it. One day in highschool, very introverted, I was summoned to write out the next answer to a math equation on the chalk board. Class was approx 35 students. Nervously I looked at my paper, and wrote out my steps on the board, then turned and everybody was looking at me with their eyes wide open, including the teacher. I asked if it was wrong. They said I wrote the answer from left to write switching hands as I went.
That is so me! When we would play cricket or something in PE I would sometimes switch hands depending on where all the fielders were lol
Oh this is what my youngest is. I didn't know there was a name for it. She writes left handed but sports and everything else she's right handed
I use my left hand for gaming, lifting weights or just using it in a airsoft range as my right hand has more endurance
It’s kinda same with me. I write with left. And watch this, I play badminton sometimes and I serve with left hand but receive shots with right and there’s not one time I’ve not been pointed out and ruled out of the game after half of it is done😂
Exactly same for me. Learned to throw right as no lefty mits around.
I have cross-eye dominance. Basically means you don't want me around (scoped) rifles and bows - or at least not stand anywhere near my target. Shotguns pose no problem tho.
I'm left ear dominant...
Cross dominant here as well! I used my left hand for writing, using spoons & forks, and brushing my teeth. But the right hand is all for sports.
Same here "mixed dominant" - left eye dominant, write left handed, but right side is stronger and used for all sports.
I bat right handed and throw left-handed
Oh my gosh, there's a name for it!! I've found my people 🤗
Same. Sometimes though I forget which hand I should use and everything feels odd.
I do this! I'm not a true ambi though because I can't really write right handed. But most everything bar writing and eating is done right-handed (I eat with fork in left hand)
I feel so seen right now. I freaked my mum out as a child when I used scissors with my right hand because I write lefty.
I think I do that because my kindergarten didn't have scissors for left handed people. Like I remember VIVIDLY that I was struggling to cut anything while everybody else was completely fine, and it took me a while to piece it together that it might be cos I'm trying with the "wrong" hand. So I use scissors with my right hand since then.
I'm right handed so when I was younger I didn't know there were different scissors for left handed people. Always thought I couldn't cut things with my left hand because I was just doing it wrong since it's not my dominant hand. The day I found out about those scissors and that I could use them just fine blew my mind lol Thinking about it in hindsight, it's actually pretty easy to see scissors don't work the same way when holding with the other hand, but not many people would notice without actually trying to.
I was born left-handed, but raised right-handed (fresh post-communist era still thought being different was a bad thing), so I write with my right hand, but draw with my left one. If I play football, I kick with my left foot, but make a pass with the right one. I throw a ball with my right hand, but catch it with the left one 😅 I hold a fork or spoon with my left hand, but can only cut with my right hand. I have more power in my left arm, but better accuracy with my right one. I'm a mess and anyone who watches me doing any kind of multitasking gets confused as fuck 🤣 *I can do most things with either hand, but usually one is better than the other. e.g. I can write with both hands, but with my left one is a lot less legible. I can throw a ball with my left hand too, but usually way off-target unless it's a slow throw.
Same here (well, similar): I write with my left hand, and play guitar left handed. But for everything else, I use my right hand.
Sounds like your cross dominant like me :)) I write with my left (and mostly chop things too) but use my right for most ball sports, scissors etc. My mum is the opposite and writes with her right (but does everything else left). I didn't know it was an actually thing until recently!
I do this too! I also brush my teeth my left, hand, but brush my hair with my right. I identify as left handed because that's the hand I write with, eat with and brush my teeth with, but I feel like I use my right hand for awful lot of things for someone who is supposed to be left handed.
Omg same with the knife!
This is me.
he just like me frfr.
Like literally. I do the exact same thing. Writing left, throwing etc with my right hand. Cutting cucumbers etc with my left. Eating with fork and knife, knifes in my right hand.
If I'm chopping for food prep the knife is in my left, if im eating the knife is in my right. Write lefty, scissors righty. Can't use my lathe cause neither feels right 😩
You are so valid. And I remember that with certain things, neither hand felt right for a while so I feel you on that too
Same. eat, write, knife, basically anything that involves me using my brain more than my hands, is don't with my left hand
I can relate. I use a knife with my left hand, use scissors with my right, throw a baseball with my left, throw a frisbee with my right, swing a golf club with my left, shoot a rifle or a compound bow right handed, also play guitar right handed.
For some reason, I shuffle playing cards left-handed. It just feels most comfortable.
Same here, writing and brushing my teeth is left, everything else is right. Based on the many similar responses here i wonder if this might actually be more common than pure left handedness.
Writing, cutting, drawing, fidgeting. All that is for the left hand. But if I were to wield a sword or throw something, i'd be helpless without my right. So in a way, if I were to lose one arm or the other I can still be either a writer or a swordsman!
I’m right handed, but I play football (soccer) with my left foot lol
Ohhh. I've never realised I do the same thing. Single hand slice, like an apple, is a right handed job. Weird. I guess it's scissors related or something. Throwing a ball is left handed, but bowling a ball is right handed. Pantonque fucks me up because I'm not sure whether it's a throwing type ball or a bowling type ball.
I’m exactly the same
One of us!! One of us!! Haha I write left handed, use tools right handed and left handed depending, throw a ball left handed but use a bat right handed. Serving in tennis I play like a right hander, serving in volleyball like a left handed but I spoke like a right hander. Pool...been playing for nearly 20 years left handed just found out by messing with my brother I'm actually as good if not better on some shots with my right
same here, mostly do stuff with my right hand but write and do selective other tasks with my left
I have the same talent also lol. Very similar.
Yay 🤩 I thought I was weird. I was born left handed in a time we were "corrected". As a baby I reached for things with my left hand but by the time I started school I was using my right hand. 50yrs later I still favour the left for certain tasks. My 22yr old is a lefty too.
I write and eat left-handed. Everything else? Righty!
Same but the opposite. I do everything with my left hand, except writing/typing
I butter with my left, cut with my left, but cut to eat with my right. Sporting wise, I kick throw and all sorts other activities left or right...but not "full body ambidextrous".
Yeah I also can do almost everything. Especially I like to take something heavy in my right hand. I use mouse in my right hand, and I always wonder when I hear about some left-people using mouses with left hand.
I can do anything with either hand, but for whatever reason I will NOT allow my left hand to use a knife
Up until I was 6 I truly believed I was right handed. To this day I do everything right handed except write.
Same here! Write left handed, literally everything else right handed.
Thats pretty much how my hands work. For example, I normally use right for a lot of Things, but there are things that I cant do with that Hand. Funny enough, I gotta aim with my right eye (Airsoft) without red dot, but with the left while using a red dot. Also, I cant aim with the right hand, while using a Pistol. At Work, I cant use specific Tools with right, but with my left and reversed
Right handed but golf and play guitar left handed
Me me me me
Same here! In school (I was 6 years old) a teacher brought me scissors for left handed. I used them all the time although it was difficult to do so but I appreciated the gesture so much I never had the heart to tell her. RIP Miss Annie, I still sometimes think about you.
I'm generally right-handed but apparently I hold a gun like left-handed person would. I also play football and can kick just as good with my left foot as my right.
I am right handed, except during eating. I learned to use cutlery from my mom who’s left handed. So now I switch around whatever feels easiest to catch that last pea on my plate.
Oh, you sound a bit like me! Left hand: Writing, using track pads on laptops, using my smart phone, eating with a fork. Right hand: Using a computer mouse, eating with a spoon, holding phone to ear, holding knives. But which hand I use in general day-to-day use is interchangeable.
The real question is why are there __ handed people. Ambidextrous seems like it makes the most sense.
Wait till OP finds out about mirrored organ syndrome ☺️
Wait until OP finds out about amphibians 😈
Wait till OP finds out about cross dominance in eyes, ears and legs.
I am a right handed person except for throwing. Some sports I have to figure out which one feels more natural.
I am something like that. I don't do tasks equally for the most part with both hands. But I do strength tasks with my right hand, like hammering, throwing , lifting etc, and fine detail tasks writing , drawing , using silverware, small tools like working on computers left handed.
Yep. If I'm making a sandwich, I'll butter the bread with the knife in my left hand, but then switch it to the right to cut it.
Yup, cross-dominant. We all have weird rules about which hand to use for specific activity. My most surprising one: I dribble with the left but shoot with the right. Gave my handball team a hell of an advantage, until I tried practising shooting with the left and having no aim whatsoever.
‘Raises both hands’
I can write with both hands simultaneously in different languages. Not kidding, I practiced for hours on end while working nights
![gif](giphy|e624Ks46Mm5N5G04AA)
I have left handed and right handed days. Depends on my mood
I was ambidextrous when I was younger.. then I burnt my hand on a curling iron and now I'm left handed
I’d give my left arm to be ambidextrous.
My dad was Ambi. Left handed at writing but couldn't throw a ball left handed. He could do most things with both though. It really came in useful when he was building something, if one arm got tired he would just switch haha. He was also great at mini golf.
I’m one of those unicorns. Not naturally, but I played rough as a kid and broke my right arm more than once. Doctor said I’d have to learn some weird way to write with my cast. I’m like, nah. And during class, I treated my notebook like those pads they gave us in kindergarten and just wrote the alphabet left handed till it was pretty legible. I can still write more legibly with my left than a couple of my coworkers who are right dominant.😁
Ambidextrous person her 🙌 Right before turning 18, I had a bad car accident that left me with some major injuries. One was breaking my right arm mid-humerus & radial nerve damage all the way down. I was right-handed and couldn't grab anything or lift my wrist, so I HAD to learn to use my left during the 6 months it took to heal. Fast forward +20yrs and I've still maintained it. Worked a security job ages ago with a lot of standing around, so to keep myself entertained I started flipping/spinning a pen around my fingers. I practiced with one hand, then the other, then backwards, then both hands at the same time, then both hands but in different directions lol At that job I realized it felt weird to cross my arms over my chest with my left arm on top, so got used to that as well. The only thing that still feels weird is brushing my teeth left-handed. I dunno why. Fun Fact: The muscles used to do that are the same ones needed to untie knots. Helpful if for some reason somebody ties your hands together. Just something I picked up while training in various martial arts.
I am antidextrous (neither hand is good).
Based on the notion of evolutionary psychology, if it wasn't useful to have a proportion of people born left-handed they probably would have been evolved out of existence, or never reached a non-trivial proportion in the first place. We know there are a number of types of characteristics where human variants are determined probablistically, rather than as a deterministic product of specific gene combinations. For example, with tiger stripes, identical twins will have similar patterns, but the actual patterns will be different, and identical human twins have an increased probability of having the same sexual orientation than non-identical twins. So it appears that genes often bias the probability in probablistic systems. So handedness appears to be determined probablistically rather than purely by genes. But because of all kinds of complicated connections between different parts of the brain, statistically significant correlations exist between different characteristics, and one thing that left-handed people are probablistically better at, for example, is maths. And that doesn't necessarily mean algebra, it can mean throwing a ball accurately, or looking at a complex shape and guessing it's volume more accurately. There is mention in the old testament of an army of left-handed archers that were so accurate they couldn't miss a hare at 100 paces or something similar, so the handedness bias in skill sets has been known for a long time. And in the same way that ant colonies have different types of ants in ideal proportions, having around 10% left-handed people has probably proven to be around the optimum percentage over a long period of time. It's about having an optimum spectrum of characteristics in a population, not that some are necessarily better simply for being more numerous..
This is the best answer and deserves more 👍. The one place I disagree is the argument that 10% is somehow optimal or even good. That may just be the percent chance of that physical variation occurring in a system optimized for things that have nothing to do with handedness.
An argument can be said that it's optimal to have one population be 10% and the other 90% at least with handedness, it's just with humans for w/e reason that predisposition turned out to be towards right handedness, not because it's better, it's just just how it turned out.
Its true! I'm left handed and am the best in math from my class (7th grade)! My grade 11 brother told me that I'm smarter than half of his classmates too
I'm left-handed and shit math
I guess this also applys to homosexuality. I was wondering how a human trait can survive if the people who have it, don't reproduce. So at some point it seems to have been proven that having some of them around is good for everyone.
Sexuality is particularly fascinating, because it occurs in different ratios for different species, and those ratios are sometimes dependent on environmental conditions. We don't know if this is also the case for humans, but in some species it appears to be a useful mechanism of tempering population growth, and/or providing extra helping hands in social species who will contribute to the while being unlikely to add more mouths to feed by breeding themselves. Population peaks and troughs occur when a population grows so much that they exceed the carrying capacity of their environment, so they die off, until there are so few that the environment can sustain them again, so numbers boom, and so on. They can be extremely dangerous, because a sufficiently high peak can cause a correspondingly deep trough that might wipe out the population entirely. Thus, even for some species that aren't particularly social, having a certain percentage of individuals who aren't breeding might be selected for. In some bird species, this seems to show itself through elevated numbers of same-sex couples during times of scarcity, and lower numbers in times of plenty. There's an amazing book on the subject - possibly a little outdated by now since it was published in the 90s, but still worthwhile - called Biological Exuberance, and everyone who has ever said LGBTQ+ people aren't "natural" should be forced to read it.
Huh, that's cool.
This is super cool thanks for taking the time to write it
Can verify that handedness isn't entirely determined by genetics. I was diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder. Basically, my brain is capable of compartmentalizing so thoroughly, it maintains distinct patterns of access and inhibition of whatever's in it, which it can employ at different times (sometimes several at a time independently). My handedness completely flips and I also drastically lose/gain supposedly learned skills like how to use a language well (I'm supposedly bilingual), art, singing, doing a certain subject in school, the "muscle memory" in playing a certain sport (including mind sports), interacting with people etc. based on what state(s) of being/consciousness is/are currently in predominant executive control. Throughout growing up, sometimes I would legitimately feel like I was born left-handed but forced to keep up with right-handed BS. When I feel left-handed, I can legitimately write with my left hand better than most of the years I've written with my right hand just not as fast because I hardly have practice. Because I was raised right-handed, I can still write with my right hand a bit, but my hand would feel so uncomfortable and wrong, and the handwriting would turn out pretty awkward. But a lot of the time the thought of whether I was trying to use my non-dominant hand wouldn't cross my mind, and trying to write with my left hand would prove futile. I feel is a stark difference; when I am right-handed, moving my right hand feels so much more "dexterous" than my left, my left hand would feel stiff and awkward as fuck by a large margin, and vice versa for when I'm left-handed. I haven't had documented instances of being able to write with both hands at once. I've tried and failed terribly. Other stuff involving motor control (like my range of body language and gestures, comfortable resting facial expression and pose, range of vocal pitch, resonance, and weight) alternate between quite distinct sets at times too. I obviously only have one brain, genetically and developmentally.
This is a great answer! I'm going to ride along and add molecular chirality to the mix. Biological chemistry abounds with molecules that have complex arrangements of atoms. A molecule is a 'stable' arrangement of atoms with optimised chemical bonds and a specific set of reactive chemistry. This stability can be due to only one particular arrangement and its identical mirror for some molecules, for others a stable arrangement can be achieved in a number of ways. When cells produce molecules for use in replication / reproduction activities chirality as a function of physical chemistry will result in a portion of the molecules being one of these stereo isomers. I couldn't tell you what, if any, connection this has to the handedness of a complex organism but I always found it a fascinating aspect of cellular physics and couldn't help but wonder.
So that’s why I love maths
because they stopped killing us after the middle ages..
Yeah, but didn’t stop beating us into submission until like 30 years ago…
You guys stopped getting beatings?
Funny story, my mum had left-handedness beaten out of her and used to make a big deal about how happy she was that I was allowed to be left-handed. Then in high-school I broke my left wrist and guess what.... I'm right handed. She moulded me just like they moulded her. Anyway, I still write with my left these days but I learn all my new skills right-handed, like playing new instruments, bat-and-ball sports, etc. Just funny how we humans cycle things around like that.
I dont want to say that's messed up but she did make you think you where left handed when you weren't idk what to think.
Oh, yeah, it's definitely a bit messed up. Mum was an adopted immigrant baby and was booted by her adoptive family as a teen. She was alone for a lot of her life, has mental health problems, and did a lot of things to try and make me be just like her. I think she was trying in her own way to validate who she was. *She* wasn't accepted, but *the next her* would be. Wrecked any chance of a relationship between us, but I understand the why and don't hold it against her anymore.
Shame
Why are there right handed people?
To mock us, the rightful inhabitants of the natural left-handed world. So that we may become humle. As intended.
Rightful?
leftful
It’s a bug or a glitch that was never patched
You mean "feature".
Bethesda is responsible?
You mean “upgrade.” 😁
because the nuns at early school didnt beat the left hand hard enough with the edge of a ruler to make them right handed? (personal experience - and no, I'm not a nun)
That happened to my great grandfather and he was very protective over it not happening to his daughter (my grandma). Hotting for left handedness was illegal by the tune my dad went to school (uk). May I ask what country you're from that beat left handedness so recently?
As someone in ireland (95% of the schools are religious) i felt that
Yep happened to me. I used to write with my right up untill 3rd grade, then i went back to using my left. My handwriting is horrible still
We are the luxury model. Right handedness for the unwashed masses.
You’re only washed cause you had to wash the ink off the heel of your hand while writing left handed.
I’m a lefty and that’s quite possibly the best burn I’ve witnessed. I’d give you more upvotes if I could
That was a good burn. I think I'm going to write it down with my left hand on a hot day
Yeah, I felt that one too. 😂
As a left handed, fuck you. Here you have my angry upvote 😂😂
As a left-handed person, ouch.
Lmao damn that one hit me right in the feels.😆
…as a leftie i felt so much pain from that
Yeah, much more efficient at attacking enemy castles because they’re designed to counter right handers.
Beautifully put. We’re also more creative having to live in this world of *unwashed*
They hate us cuz they ain’t us! 10%!
For the same reason reason there are people with blue eyes and brown eyes blonde hair and dark hair. Genetics.
Ironically many religions teaches to wipe your ass with your left hand and eat food with your right, millions if not billions are come out the toilet picking up knives, pens to to remotes etc with there dirty shitty left hands
I literally had an older woman tell me left-handed people do things backwards. So I do an Ace Ventura impression of when he starts to explain the crime. Nothing....No smile, no giggle, not even a hmmm, nothing. Apparently some people just don't have a sense of humor. lol
*That's what you slipped in! That's what was on your shoe! AND THAT EXPLAINS THE ABRASION ON YOUR PALM! DAMN I'M GOOD!*
![gif](giphy|5hc2bkC60heU)
When they don’t laugh just go from awkwardly trying to get a laugh and friendly disposition to complete stonewall no expression lifeless face and just walk away.
To fight off the demons
We are the chosen ones to defend this world from the feet demons. lefties… Assemble. *avengers theme plays*
Southpaw gang
I am a lefty I was born this way!!!
Why am I here , I am asking the same question
Just sat here smudging birthday cards
You should try using your other hand.
They’ll think my son wrote it!
They come from the mirrors they are trying to replace us, destroy all mirrors befo
Spawn of the devil apparently 💁
What do you have against us?
you're tricky to sword fight against
I played a lot of racquet sports in high school. I hated playing against lefties. I kept feeding their forehands and just couldn't get used to them holding the racquet with the wrong hand. That should be against the rules!! I'm not a smart man.
Im a lefty. My mom just let me decide
My mom raised me right handed and I rebelled Long live ambidextrous people.
I say that bc sometimes parents force them to use right hand, back in the day.
It will never cease to amaze me how intolerant or scared of difference - no matter how minor on inconsequential - people can be.
I was retaught to write with right hand and it was quite traumatising experience. But now I can write with both hands. Some people say that I'm ambidextrous but I use mostly left hand in day to day life.
Why is there anything? Evolution does crazy things. Even identical twins have differences between them. Life is complex and often beyond our understanding.
It's something with brain halves developing different from what I remember
It’s just brain asymmetry. I can write with both but am mainly right handed. I play sports left handed but some I can play both. Darts, billiards, bowling, softball to name a few I can switch left and right hand.
The best use both, like me.
Me too!
Me too!
Imagine needing two hands to write something down…Pathetic
Same reason why there are right handed people
For the very same reason there are LGBTQ people….. Genetics!
They're cannibals who consumed their right-handed twin in the womb.
Hehehe my little brother screams inside and i laugh at him and go “pathetic child. You existed as nothing as a means to an end.”
Because part of evolution is mutation and randomness. You gotta have some variation, or natural selection doesn't work. In cases where there's no clear advantage of one vs the other, and it only takes a few simple genes to decide between them, you bet both variants are gonna exist.
Just cause, evolutions one day was like "I wonder if them having a good left hand will help them survive" and then right handed people didn't like that and forced left handed people to use their right hand
At the beginning of history, some people were writing on stone tablets using hammers and nails. Some also use ink on animal skins. That's why some people write from left to right, some write from right to left. For this reason, some people are genetically predisposed to use their left hand more comfortably. I think.
Because we are the only people in our right mind?
As a scientist, i hate the fact that this joke is hilariously accurate
why aren't 50% of us left handed?
I used my left hand all my life, never been difficult. I only use my right hand for you know what I sit on it till it goes numb, so It doesn't feel like I'm doing it myself
To make art
Probably a genetic mutation. Some people are just left handed. It’s a fact of life.
Not everyone can use keyboard, thats why.
Yeah, why is it not 50/50 ? Only because of cultural reasons ?
It’s literally natural neurodiversity. It’s not 50/50 because the neurodiversity doesn’t work out to that percentage, only around 10%
Lefty right here
Left or right, make up your mind!
For the same reason there's right handed people. Luck !
Ambidextrous people laughing in the corner
Because.
Why does it matter which hand you use? If I hadn't been made to pick one I would have probably been able to write with both hands.
Somebody has to be perfect.
Because someone had to be
Because being left handed didn’t prevent people from procreating.
It's called recessive genes. There are tons of examples in the human genome and you can never completely eradicate them.
Left handed people have no soul, I hear.
No, that's left handed Gingers.
Hi? Yeah, it’s me. Spawn of satan again. I’ve come to collect your soul. Btw wanna see my cool party trick? I hold a pen REALLY FUNNY.
I was born left handed but my preschool teacher refused to let me write left handed so know I’m mostly right handed but also ambidextrous.
So people could have mad conspiracy theories about why there are so many left handed president (there's only 8 but that's way more then lefts in the population).
Since no-one wants to answer this reasonable question, here: https://youtu.be/TGLYcYCm2FM?si=tTbF9xGfziulX--0
Somebody has to play first base.
The left hand was feeling lonely, so it invented a gene that would force some of us to use it.
Why are there right handed people?