Lifestyle

5 Things Left-Handers Often Hoped That Right-Handers Would Know

2018-04-25 , 4:24 pm

Last Updated on 2021-11-06 , 3:27 pm

How do left-handers survive in a right-handed world? Everything seems to be made for right-handers: Scissors, lecture hall tables, the way English is written… even a simple can opener is designed for the ease of use with the right hand. Ambidextrous people have the best of both worlds but lefties!

Those poor souls already have trouble seeing the lines they are cutting up with a pair of scissors, imagine getting them to sit through two painful hours worth of written examination held in a lecture hall!

If their wrist doesn’t bend like a candy cane by the time the bell rings, their back would be twisted like a pretzel trying to find a comfortable writing position on that tiny chair with a right-handed tablet arm.

I was thus fascinated by my left-handed friends. Being a left-hander myself, here are the top five comments people make when they know that you are a lefty:

1. Left-handed people are very clever. You must be very creative!

This is my favourite comment by far. Thanks for praising us! It makes all the wrist cramps, stiff shoulders, aching fingers and ever-present black smudges on the underside of our left hand worth it. To be fair, though, there are indeed a few illustrious left-handers in history: Bill Gates, Barack Obama, Oprah Winfrey, Leonardo da Vinci, Marie Curie, Aristotle, Jennifer Lawrence, Prince William, Niall Horan, Justin Bieber and Jim Carey.

2. Are you left-handed naturally or by choice?

Naturally. When we were young, we picked up a pencil one day and wrote with our left hand. We tried writing with our other hand but it just didn’t feel right, like swallowing a fishball without chewing, so we reverted to our left hand.

3. Can you write with your right hand?

Yes. But it’s much slower, a thousand times more tedious and involves a whole lot of illegible scratching on virgin paper.

4. Did your parents ever try to make you change from writing with your left hand to writing with your right hand?

Yes. It’s a matter of practicality, mostly. Nearly everything in this world is made for right-handers. If we wrote with our right hand, it’d be more comfortable for us and more cost-saving for the world because there’s no need to manufacture two of the same thing when just one will do.

5. You’re left-handed! So is he/she! You two can be great friends!

Yes, it’s indeed nice to make friends with fellow southpaws. It’s a herd instinct. Find something in common with one another and we can start making great friends from there. No man is an island. Misery loves company. Only a left-hander can truly understand the sufferings of a fellow left-hander.

Featured Image: Sergio J Lievano / Shutterstock.com