Being Left-Handed

I know I’m a couple of weeks late, but did you know that 13th August was left-hander’s day? This the day when people like me can celebrate their left-handedness, the daily struggles we face and empathise with other left-handed folk about how shit it can be 😂😂😂😂

I posted this tweet last year and it got loads of likes and retweets (in fact it’s probably my most liked tweet ever!!) It also shared on Twitter moments and I was even featured on a local radio show where I talked about what it’s like to be left-handed!!

Only 10% of the population are left-handed, so here’s what it’s like to be left-handed in a right-hand dominant world:

  • When people find out you’re left-handed, they’ll always tell you they know someone is left-handed. What a fascinating fact, please tell me again!
  • Cutting paper/fabric with right-handed scissors is really fucking hard because the top blade is the wrong way wrong and it’s hard to see the cutting line!
  • Whenever I go to tear off Sellotape/cling film/tin foil, the serrated edges go the other way and I ruin what I’m trying to tear off
  • Whenever I wrote essays and stories at school so I was always one of the messiest writers and, if I was writing on plain paper, my writing would always veer upwards because I couldn’t see where I’d written before.
  • Any time I write with a pen, I always get ink marks on the side of my hand!
  • Most measuring cups only have the quantities written on one side so you can only see them if you’re holding the cup in your right hand!
  • Left-handed products like pens, scissors, knives etc are always more expensive 🙁
  • If I need to have blood tests or injections, the doctor or nurse will always assume I’m right-handed and I have to correct them!
  • I’ve told many sports instructors that I’m left-handed but a lot of the time (unless it’s a racket sport) I’ll play right-handed. I apparently play golf right-handed!!
  • People make stupid shit like left-handed clocks where the numbers go anti-clockwise round the face, and think they’re helping us!
  • My boyfriend always forgets I’m left-handed and asks why I’m holding things wrong!
  • When I hold products in my left hand like mascaras, lipsticks or skincare products, 9 times out of 10, the writing is either upside down or I’m looking at the back of the product!! This goes for food packets like Tic Tacs too!

On the plus side:

  • The biggest positive is that I always know my left from my right. I’ve never ever struggled with this 😀
  • When playing sports, people don’t expect you to be left-handed and it can often be an advantage (like when I used to play netball in middle school and everyone crowded round my right side to stop me throwing and I could just throw the ball with my left hand lol)
  • Driving a car is super easy for me because my dominant hand is the one controlling the gearstick (we have a right-hand drive car because we live in the UK)
  • If I’m at the computer at work and I have to take a phone call, I can write things down AND still use my mouse to use the computer at the same time 😀

Are you left-handed? Do you know anyone who’s left-handed? Let me know in the comments below 🙂 x

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18 Comments

  1. I never knew you were left handed Holly. My dad’s left handed… 😉 Sorry, couldn’t resist. But I’m ampidextrix, I write with my right hand, mostly because I was made to in Primary school so I think I just got used to it, but do most other things with my left hand. E.g. sports, holding my cutlery, etc. Using a right handed tin opener is a nightmare, I can’t do it. I need Ned Flanders left-orium.

    1. Ahaha no way, is he? 🤣🤣
      Oh that’s cool, I wonder if you’d been a leftie if they hadn’t made you be right handed?
      I have an electric one lol x

  2. My brother and I are both left handed. Technically I’m ambidextrous as I still do most things with my right hand except write. I use right handed scissors but I feel your pain about ink smudging on the side of your hand when writing. I hate how nurses assume everyone is right handed when giving injections/taking blood. I can actually apply mascara with both hands, I use the hand on the same side the eye I’m doing is on, it’s useful as I never smudge my mascara and don’t have to awkwardly reach across. I’m proud to be a left hander x

    1. My brother is the same, he only uses his left hand to write but he’s right handed for everything else!
      Teach me your ways, I can only do mascara with my left hand, and although I don’t smudge it, I can’t see while I’m doing my right eye lol x

      1. Haha, it is a talent I’m proud of! I hold the wand in each hand on the same side of each eye I’m doing, left hand for left eye and right hand for right eye. Allows you to really get in close and use the other eye which isn’t being done to see what you’re doing with it feeling like vision is obstructed x

  3. And we always have to switch our cutlery round in restaurants or friends’ houses because it’s always wrong. Same goes for if someone makes you a coffee – you always have to swivel the mug round! Also, those mugs you get with raised designs? You always end up drinking at a weird angle because it was made with the expectation that you’d be drinking out of the other side!

    1. I eat with my fork in my left and my knife in my right, do you do the opposite then?
      Ah yes, I always have to turn my mug round when other people make me drinks 🤣🤣

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