If it weren't for the fact that if you hold your hands out with your index and thumb extended and the left hand side makes an L shape (L for left!) and the right a backwards L... I'd struggle to tell the difference.
@spika@yourautisticlife@actuallyautistic
Try this out for size, I'm autistic and also dyslexic so the "left hand makes an L" trick never worked.
But I Special Interested battleships and fast attack boats when I was little so Port and Starboard got the job done.
The labels are arbitrary. & yeah, if we all swapped them it wouldn't make a difference. But we'd ALL have to swap them. It's like the order of the alphabet. It's arbitrary, & seems unimportant until you're trying to find something in an alphabetical list, like a book on a shop shelf, or an encyclopedia entry. It's because we all agree & adhere that makes it work.
@yourautisticlife@actuallyautistic don't get me started on cutlery. It does not matter what spoon you consume soup with except on a personal level. We do not all need to use the same spoon. I like shallow, pointed spoons. "Dessert" spoons. But noooo, they're only for dessert. Gaaaahd, who came up with these rules? Get a hobby!
Now my left side feels lighter, smaller. Which ruined a renowned skeptic's bit during a talk where he was showing how easy it is to manipulate people. Basically you close your eyes & put your arms out in front of you. Then you're told you have a pile of books on one, & a helium balloon tied to the other. Gradually the balloon hand rises & the book hand falls. He put the balloon on right, & books on left. My left rose & my right dropped 🤣
I'm right handed, but I sometimes forget which hand I was supposed to hold the fork in and which the spoon, bc with the knife and fork it is the other way round.
But I have moments where my procedural and/or social memory disappears. Suddenly I don't know how to open a file with a certain clasp. Or I don't know if I was supposed to say goodbye to people and who I might already have greeted.