Ask HN: Do you like being left handed? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Do you like being left handed?

Was reading some old HN threads on left handedness, and it got me wondering: do you like or dislike being left or right handed?

If you’re a lefty like me, are you more frustrated that it is a right hander’s world? Or do you like the feeling of being different?

I like that I’m different for being left handed, and I wonder if righties wish they were different, or if they are glad that they’re not different?

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Since handwriting is not as widely used I'm less troubled by being left-handed. It was always a deal that my hand would smear ink and pencil as I wrote. I never learned to hook write so my hand always slides right over my writing. Now I barely write anything more than my signature these days.

I only eat/cook and write left handed - I'm right handed for everything else so I'm perhaps not typical. Eating as a lefty can be problematic because I always grab the wrong drinking glass. However I eat European style with my knife in my right hand and I don't need to switch hands with my fork - I enjoy that.

Not sure if full lefties have this issue but I often have directional issues with right/left commands. I will often turn the opposite direction from the commanded direction. This was really tough while I was training for Marshall Arts. It also happens if someone is directing me while driving and I often have to ask several times to be sure I'm going to turn in the correct direction. People think this is charming but I don't.

Other than that it's hard to find a good/affordable Japanese left handed knife. First world problems I assume. Plus some mobile software is primarily right handed and isn't easy to use if you're holding your phone or tablet with your left hand.

I'm a tennis player and would've preferred to play as a lefty because it gives you a few advantages over most other players (i.e. ball spins differently [can catch people off-guard], a lefty's cross-court forehand [stronger shot] can be easily placed against a righty's backhand [their weaker shot]).

However, there are a number of things that I take for granted because I'm a righty (scissors, camera shutter accessible to my right hand, ink not smudging, can openers, etc) and I think I would've been frustrated as a lefty.

I noticed it helped me in both ping pong, and basketball a lot.

Ping pong just because a right isn’t use to a lefty, and a lefty is use to a righty.

Basketball in pickup games with folks who haven’t played me before, I score a lot of points as they just give me a lane to drive to the left. Then after a couple games the advantage mostly goes away.

I used to be left handed as a child, but my grandfather would refuse to look at my drawings if I drew them with my left hand. This (successfully, I guess?) prompted me to start trying to draw with my right hand so that he'd look at my creations, resulting in my becoming right-handed.

If I think about it, I _kind of_ wish he'd just let me stay left-handed. It was like a slightly "quirky" trait was trained out of me, which I think would've been cool to keep. But it's not a big deal, and I have no strong feelings either way.

I am a right handed person, but I try to get the left hand to do an activity the moment I am conscious about it. Two such examples are brushing teeth and using the mouse. Long time back I started using my left hand for brushing. Even 15 years later, it doesn't feel natural but I got good at the finer movements.

Around the same time, I was playing a lot of video games and got Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, so I started using the mouse with the left hand. I can't draw well with the left hand on say in MS Paint, otherwise I got pretty comfortable with it.

I wrote with my right hand until I was 24 years old and then discovered that I'm naturally stronger and more dextrous with my left-hand. I transitioned to left-hand writing and I've been writing with my left ever since.

Nowadays, it's easy to customize devices like mouse, keyboard, etc.. to be either right-handed or left-handed dominant and so it's an easy adjustment for me.

I enjoy being lefty. My grandfather was trained into being righty except for golf, so I noticed early on how things were not made for me and I had to do extra work. My father uses a lot of power tools and the extra dangers were apparent there as well.

Overall it has probably helped my programming as I had been thinking outside the box for longer than the righties.

My uncle was a leftie but my grandmother wouldn't allow it and forced him to write with his right hand. To this day, his handwriting is horrible. I probably should have been left-handed but suspect I don't actually have a dominant hand (foot, etc).

It seems so foreign to me that being left handed would be something to disallow.

I don’t think (?), this happens anymore today though??

I don't think so either. My uncle is about 75 so this was quite a while ago.

As a left dominant lacrosse player, I feel I was probably able to play at a competitive level that I would not have if I had been right dominant. So things have been good for me as a lefty.

I am left handed and never think about it. At this point in my life it makes no difference. when young it would have been better to be right handed for sports, etc.

I mostly don't care. Good left-handed scissors or quick drying ink make a difference. Other stuff (corkscrews, breadknives, etc) don't seem so important.

My wife learned to open cans with knives and she does it faster than I can use a can opener now.

I’m a rightie and never really think about it unless I see someone writing with their left hand.

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