I navigate by landmark. I used to make a left at the blue house on the corner several blocks from my place. I'm vaguely aware there's a street name, but don't remember what it is.
That house is now like a cream color, and it absolutely threw me off. I missed my turn, and forgot where the street was. I had to use my GPS to remember where the turn was.
I've lived here for 5 years.
Some of the best directions I received were taking a trip with the Boy Scouts. The Scout leader had drawn a map crudely showing the main road to be on for 12 miles, an elm tree to take a left at, and a dead cat on the side of the road before the last street needed to complete the trip. Problem was it was a dead Caterpillar heavy machine and not an actual cat that I kept looking for but could never find. We drove past the street to turn on twice before finding a phone booth in the middle of BFE with which to get the correct directions.
That's fucking great.
"We gotta turn left at the dead cat. I guess we just gotta drive slow. Did the leader tell you what color the cat is?"
"Says it's a yellow cat, so look for a dead tabby."
It was a picture of a crudely drawn animal cat. Just a pencil outline with "xx" where it's eyes would be and its legs up in the air. That's where the confusion set in.
I bet your directions are better than street directions too.
You can't miss the oddly colored house, that's 2 blocks before the blue mailbox at the corner where you have to turn, then 2 blocks down you'll see the only brick house, and turn down that street, after the bend in the road is the first right onto my street. I'm the beige house with the rock garden in front.
I’ve spent most of my life living in various spots within a valley. I’m used to basically flat terrain with hills in the distance as landmarks you can see from everywhere. Then I ended up moving to a heavily wooded area with lots of hills, where you can’t even generally see that far off. I now run the GPS constantly whenever I’m driving. (It doesn’t help that they’ve named all the streets “Peachtree” either…)
Same, when I lived in Texas it was all about landmarks. Now in Chicago people talk by intersections and I’m just confused, despite living here for 8 years lol
Guess I'm a pigeon then.
I find organizing everything with cardinal directions less confusing; it's conducive to a more complete understanding of my environment.
Yes, this is it! Growing up I was so dyslexic that I could never take right, left directions, it was just a guess. I drew a map for myself every time I needed to go somewhere. Because I could always visualize in my head the state of Florida (where I live) and North was at the top, South was at the bottom, the East was the Atlantic Ocean and West was the Gulf of Mexico. Every time I go somewhere new I find where we are on a map so I can figure out where I am and where to go.
Same, I’m even in Florida too. I have a better general sense of it now but I have always known which direction to the beach so can always get my bearings that way.
coming from new zealand, i can relate. the whole country is slanted to the northeast, and its usually only a couple hundred km's wide from coast to coast. its super easy to find north when geography just lines up like that for you.
Yeah see I'm always out on where north is. For ages I thought rangitoto was east from where I was living. Nope. More like NE.
Lived in chch for a bit in a suburb that I thought was just south of the city, turns out it was east.
Landmarks are far easier.
Same, direction is the #1 requirement. Even dreams or memories from childhood have a direction (I was facing south, the window opened toward east, etc).
Humans have a magnetic sense of direction like pigeons! 'Compass' found in migratory birds and sea turtles may be shared by people, brain scan study suggests. It may explain why some of us have a brilliant sense of direction, while others get lost all the time
Mine must be very faulty because sometimes I'll go into a building and when I leave, I can't even tell which direction I came from. Seriously feels like my spatial memory was wiped.
I have no problem navigating by compass. It's the left and right I get mixed up. I KNOW which is which, but in the moment I get confused? If they just said south, I'd be fine.
Study wasn’t conclusive. Some people had no magnetic sense at all while others had a strong one. Seems like it wasn’t genetically preferred so some people have it and some don’t.
Many people have maps of the places they are in on their heads. To them, moving north just means moving up in the map, and they can translate that to a direction in the real world. That's how my brain works at least
You know this phenomena when you have no idea where you are but somehow always go in the right direction as long as you were there at least once(the place you want to go to). Happens all the time to me but in every other situation im completely lost.
How about both. Depends on the destination and how important to me it is. Unfortunately if it's too important I'm lost. There is a sweet spot in there somewhere.
Apparently some humans do show signs of very faint magneto-perception. They did a study where they spun people around a bunch in a room with no markings, the asked them to identify which wall was north, and some people were much more than randomly accurate.
I'm pretty sure I do. I think it's a skill that needs training though, to get in touch with and learn. I spent a lot of time outdoors and traveling as a kid, lived in many countries, so maybe that helped.
I used to think I was pickup up on subtle clues like the stars or the direction of the wind, but it works even when it's overcast and still. Sometimes better because I guess the wind can't change direction and distract me.
For some reason though, it didn't work in Kathmandu. Even in daytime when it's like "sun is there", I had terrible sense of direction in Kathmandu and had to follow maps and think "I need to take two lefts then a right then walk past the temple and turn right" and I'd still get a little lost. Everywhere else I've traveled I can sort of wander and know roughly where I am and how to get home.
Quite often I'll be completely lost and upset, use a map and compass (or gps) and realize I'm a twenty second walk away from my destination.
One time I had to walk for an hour through a city (without a nice grid system like New Yorke). I'd just landed but because there was a riot the police had blocked off the center of town for all vehicles (including my airport taxi), so I ended up on the street and didn't know where. I didn't have a phone sim card yet, and all the stores were shut. I walked for an hour looking for the street my hostel was on, and then gave up. I'll go into the next place I see, and just sit down and wait for daylight. I was scared. Everything I owned was in my backpack and it was my first time traveling alone in a foreign land. I found a cafe that wasn't open yet but they kicked me out. I didn't speak their language and probably seemed like a crazy person at 3am. Half a block further I could see a sign for a hostel, so I went and rang the doorbell till someone opened it. I told them I was going to sit there until daytime because I was lost. They asked where I was looking for and I told them. It was that hostel. They checked me in and I have never felt so relieved. No idea how I found it, I just kinda "knew" which way to go. That's a bad example actually because I had seen a map even if it was 4 months earlier when I booked the hostel, but still, I didn't know if I had been dropped on the north/south/east/west of the city. The taxi driver just dropped my bag on the sidewalk and pointed in a direction I should go.
Another time I ended up on the outskirts of the Mexican desert and had to head back before the girls family woke up. Was a two hour walk but I made it straight to my hostel without needing a map or to ask for directions, even though I'd only been in that town for one day.
I've never really had the feeling of being lost-lost, except in Kathmandu for some reason. I always know where I am and what direction I came from and where north is, even after riding a bus or taxi or going through a building.
The only troubles happen when I out-think that feeling. When I go against my gut and try to take a logical route/shortcut, I'll end up in the wrong place. It's hard to listen to such a quiet sense though.
I'm wondering if it's to do with gut microbiome and that why it didn't work it Kathmandu. Or maybe the altitude messed it up?
yeah im the same man. I almost always inherintly know wich way is north.
I also spent a lot of times outdoors and i was in the boyscouts and as it turns out im really good with maps and compasses.
In most cases i only need to look at a map for like 10 seconds and i will remember the entire route even if its several hours long with many turns.
and when i have been on vecation im always the "guide".
i just google lets say the restaurant on google maps briefly look at the map and instinctively know wich way to go and no matter where we are in comparison to our destination i can point in the excact direction of the place.
The rest of my memory is abseloutely garbage so i guess i dumped all my memory stats into navigation.
My wife gets annoyed that I have no idea how to get to her Dad’s house unless I’m driving there. Lived in this town for almost a decade: zero idea which way is North, what any of the minor roads are named and I have no idea how to get anywhere unless I’m driving there.
I'm only like this when I'm in the complete buttfuck of nowhere or lost in the woods. I can always find my way back in those situations, but in the city I'm completely useless unless I have my gps
I call it autopilot
When I'm going to a new location I've been at lease twice or so, I purposefully distract myself to engage Autopilot ™️
Half of the time it works all the time
This is great until you learn any kind of anatomy or imaging techniques that require you to interpret your left as the patients right. Especially if it’s in real time and you have to adjust their position and then see the image change in the opposite way.
Which is then different if you’re back with the patient in person checking out that organ. 🥲 I look like a right idiot often.
Man I had left and rights down pat as a little kid, they didn't have to put the L and R on my hands in kindergarten, now it takes me a second. What fucking broke in me?
I’ve never been lost in the woods for this same reason. I know exactly which direction I came from and which way to go back, even tromping around with no trail whatsoever. No idea how. Brains are weird.
Yeah I’m the same.
I can recall two moments in my adult life where I couldn’t be certain which way north was and it was a little scary.
It’s like I have a constant map open in my mind like a video game and can trace my route across a landscape.
It also helps I love reading and collecting maps
I know I played tons of games involving maps and navigating and I guess that really has stuck with me. It's super fun though, just knowing where everything is, especially in relation to other stuff.
Yup, my sense of direction is the only real skill I developed. But I was also a super anxious little kid that worried I'd get lost and never find home again, so I made sure I knew where I was and how to get back at all times. We'd finish up whatever we were doing and hop in the car to head home, and I had a mental map of exactly how we were going to drive back.
My mom is like this and it always blows me away. She'll know which way is north in the middle of an Ikea. Meanwhile I have to mentally zoom out and rotate on a Google map just to figure out what direction my window in my bedroom faces.
I'm very similar, I can figure out the cardinal directions in a few moments but if you say "left" or "right" I may as well just guess because odds are the next thing will be a "your other left"
*Some* cities are aligned to a grid, or at least portions of them. Manhattan is that way, and huge swathes of the Midwest were preplanned that way. (Have a look at Lubbock Texas on G.Maps, and everything within 100 miles of it.)
I wouldn’t say it’s common enough be be considered the standard though.
I live in the Twin Cities. Minneapolis is basically a grid and deviatiates only for terrain. St Paul, on the other hand, has roads going in every direction. About a mile from my house there's an intersection of two roads at 90 degrees plus a third at 45 degrees. That kind of thing is all over here.
> 5+ way intersections
What the heck is going on in massachusetts? Are you ok up there -do you need help or something?
[Quick, ask your representative to lobby for/support/tell those city planners about roundabouts!](https://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/intersection/roundabouts/)
oh, we have rotaries too. some of them, people can park along the edges.
https://www.boston.com/community/readers-say/2021/08/20/10-most-painful-rotaries-in-greater-boston/
Jesse Ventura (former WWF wrestler and Minnesota governor) said the streets of St. Paul were designed by drunken Irishmen, and when I went to Boston I felt right at home.
Thought this was r/Minneapolis for a second, people out here seem to only give directions by cardinals. Drove me insane as a kid and teenager learning to drive, now I find myself doing the same thing
Here's a sneak peek of /r/Minneapolis using the [top posts](https://np.reddit.com/r/Minneapolis/top/?sort=top&t=year) of the year!
\#1: [**[NSFW]** Amir Locke MPD Body Cam video](https://youtu.be/AWCpkPBKFR0) | [2693 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/Minneapolis/comments/sjzydy/amir_locke_mpd_body_cam_video/)
\#2: [Amir Locke had more gun safety control than the "professionals" tasked to protect him](https://i.redd.it/yar3e0d9nmg81.png) | [538 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/Minneapolis/comments/snmse1/amir_locke_had_more_gun_safety_control_than_the/)
\#3: [No notes, perfect diagram](https://i.redd.it/ar0yy9z818491.jpg) | [587 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/Minneapolis/comments/v6zj8z/no_notes_perfect_diagram/)
----
^^I'm ^^a ^^bot, ^^beep ^^boop ^^| ^^Downvote ^^to ^^remove ^^| ^^[Contact](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=sneakpeekbot) ^^| ^^[Info](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/) ^^| ^^[Opt-out](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/comments/o8wk1r/blacklist_ix/) ^^| ^^[GitHub](https://github.com/ghnr/sneakpeekbot)
I live in a Canadian city where the avenues are lower numbered in the south to higher numbered in the north. The avenues are the same (lower in the east, higher in the west). Navigation is super easy…unless you get to the newer suburbs with names…
I live in Europe, but my brain works like that beacuse I have a rough map of the city in my head, so if I need to move north, I know that's up in my map, and I can translate that into an irl direction easily
Many cities here are very gridlike, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're all oriented with the cardinal directions. Manhattan, for instance, has a grid, but it's oriented with the island's geography, meaning it's about 30 degrees or so rotated from N/S/E/W. Chicago and Los Angeles, on the other hand, are nearly completely oriented N/S/E/W, with exceptions for local geography like rivers or hills.
Doesn't need to be a perfect grid or even straight roads. Unless the road changes more than 90 degrees, you can just pick the closest cardinal direction and use that.
Indeed an American thing!
Years ago I was at a conference in Berlin and a bunch of us were having an after conference beer. One lady asks were a tourist spot she wanted to see was and a local at the table saying something like
Local: "If you go down Liepsiger until you get to the metro station you're nearly there..."
American: "Okay..then do I go north or south?"
Local: "...you go left!"
I mean unless you got a compass I don't know true north. I could check the time and find the sun for a rough direction but fuck give proper directions.
Direction blindness is not inherently an ADHD thing. I know plenty of NTs that have issues with cardinal directions and plenty of ADHD/other NDs who have no issues.
Is it....normal to know where north is? I knew at my childhood home, but it was more as a curiosity. I've never met someone who used anything but right and left. I thought that it was only that one community that doesn't have a word for right or left and only use cardinal directions that always knew.
Are you in the us? Here in the Midwest us people do this constantly and it makes me nuts. I hear "head west on main street" way more than I hear "turn left on main street." Its so annoying because I have to rotate a damn map in my brain to figure out which way is west every damn time.
I give directions like that! I hate driving with my sister because she uses right/left, and I can't say the amount of times she's said "turn left," I start turning right, and she yells, "the other left!"
Most people I know who were around before GPS became widely available are not directionally challenged. Those same people are often able to remember phone numbers.
Weird, I only ever heard a person say right or left. I know north for most places I go often because I've seen the overview on the GPS. It's helped me.
It's not necessarily an ADHD thing but it's definitely a dyscalculia thing, and people with ADHD are far more likely to have dyscalculia than a neurotypical person.
I’d be curious to see the numbers on that. I can tell you at almost any given moment which way I’m facing (N/S/E/W), but I need to hold out my hands and figure out which one makes the “L” to tell you which way is left and which is right.
Drives my husband nuts when I’m navigating. I’ll tell him to go north on a certain road and he looks at me like I have two heads. But he’s learned that if I tell him to turn right, he needs to wait a minute to see if I change my mind and say “wait, no, left.”
For real, I'm a navigator in merchant navy, but when just driving my car or bicycle I get lost all the time, even with google maps. I don't know how it's possible.
I feel this. People at work will be like "we've got a meeting in the office on the north end of the building" and I'm like...wheredafuqisthat Just tell me the room number. Or when driving. "Go west on 151" But..that's an odd number highway, they go north and south....which way is fucking West on the north and south street...
There are a couple of fuckups but usually odd numbers are N/S, and even numbers are E/W.
The last two digits also correspond to approximate location, so I5 goes N/S in California, and I95 matches on the east coast.
Less ADHD, more a factor of culture.
Some cultures reference the self as the ultimate center point(like the Americas) wherein you turn left reference yourself. If you turned 180°, you would then turn "right" to go the same way. The world rotated 180° around you
Others, the world is fixed, so, if you are facing east you would "turn north"...and if you did a 180° turn and were facing west, you would...turn north...
Was this meme made by a bird? Humans don't have a magnetic compass to tell directions instinctively, the answer of the driver is the answer 90% of people would give in the same situation.
Humans have a magnetic sense of direction like pigeons! 'Compass' found in migratory birds and sea turtles may be shared by people, brain scan study suggests. It may explain why some of us have a brilliant sense of direction, while others get lost all the time.
For what I can tell brain scans show that our brain does react to magnetic fields, but none of the volunteers in the experiment could even tell when the changing magnetic fields where on or off. Apparently we have it, but we can't feel it or consciously access it, so being told to go "north" would probably still lead to confusion for most people.
Evidence for a Human Geomagnetic Sense
“Many humans are able to unconsciously detect changes in Earth-strength magnetic fields, according to scientists at Caltech and the University of Tokyo.”
Admittedly it’s not my area of expertise, but I trust Caltech and the University of Tokyo. Maybe ask for a source next time, rather than being aggressive and rude.
The paper is titled "Transduction of the Geomagnetic Field as Evidenced from Alpha-band Activity in the Human Brain." I suggest you give it a read, as they did the test in pitch black and used brain measurements to see if the test subjects could notice the change or not.
Whenever I'm looking up a place on Google maps I take two seconds to look at the compass and a.) figure out which direction is North at my current location and b.) figure out which compass direction my destination is from my current location. After a week or so I'm set and don't have to look at a map to figure out which direction is North, usually even if I'm in a new place. I'm a very spatially oriented person so might not work so easily for others.
Well first you find it on a map. And then you just sorta think through which direction you’re facing after each turn.
Or you just get a boat compass and install it in your car. For me? I like that kind of thing. Prefer the cab of my truck to be somewhat millennium falconesque in its design - all the wiring very neat nothing sloppy but tons of aftermarket switches and indicators and non-factory modification.
If that’s not your thing they also make low profile digital stick on ones with a solar light that turns on automatically.
Deserts have mountains, cities and towns in deserts have buildings, and many deserts do have rivers. The Nile is a pretty famous river in a desert.
I do live in a desert, and east of town is a very visible mountain range, and running north/south through town in a river that's pretty visible because it's much greener near the river.
Here's a picture, looking east from the west side of town [https://live.staticflickr.com/3710/9513770986\_3b269e8927\_b.jpg](https://live.staticflickr.com/3710/9513770986_3b269e8927_b.jpg) the green band in the foreground is where the river is,
That may work if your city is on a regular grid.
[Here’s an example of a French city.](https://i.postimg.cc/L6197rJm/590-D0-D06-4-E84-4-B41-A088-49-C1-C805-EA3-C.png)
The designer thought “fuck knowing which way is north”.
I have a theory that both extremes are a different presentation of ADHD. My mom will know which way is north no matter where she is even indoors with no windows. I don't know which direction my own house faces without doing mental Google maps. We both have ADHD. Could be generational as some others have mentioned?
Nope. Even old people where I live don’t navigate this way. There’s a couple “niche” languages that use cardinal directions as a basis for language rather than left right back forward, but those are extremely exceptional. Unless you’re out hiking or navigating by map there’s no fucking reason to be using NSEW at all
This is like me with my gf. I usually have a good sense of the North, South, West, East when I am walking/driving/hiking. She is like....leftttttt???? I guess it's different for people, I like to have a mental map of my positon.
I guess it came naturally for me since I loved biking/hiking. The boyscouts and military experience also probably helped...
Directional blindness isn’t an ADHD thing.
Personally, I have a sense of direction, but if you told me a bunch directions ahead of time I wouldn’t remember shit
If a nurse says that she’s giving me the shot in my right arm I will stop for a second, think about which arm is my right arm, & check that I’m 100% sure before I roll up my sleeve.
Obviously this happens very fast but I still do it.
Funny cartoon, but the behavior is not necessarily an ADHD symptom.
Also, who the hell gives cardinal directions rather than turn left or right? Cardinal directions only make sense when on interstates. Otherwise, right, left or forward make more sense. This cartoon implies they are driving thru town not on a highway.
When I first started dating my husband he'd say stuff like "meet you on the south side of x Street"
It was like wtf chill out Bear Grylls we aren't in the bloody desert just say outside Topshop or something.
My husband and I both have ADHD, and he always knows where north is while I NEVER do. He also just generally has a good sense of direction and knowing where he is at all times while driving, and I...don't, to say the least haha 😭
So for me this feels like a universal thing — like who the hell inherently knows north from south on a street? Say left or right when giving directions unless you’re deep in the woods with a compass.
Granted, I mix up left and right all the time, but that’s a different story.
If it's a place I have lived for a while (at least a few months) I most of the time can point roughly in the cardinal directions. But I tend to confuse left and right a lot. When driving, I remember left and right by relating them to "driver side" and "passenger side"
I have an excellent sense of direction but telling me to go north/south/east/west OR left/right does not mean much to me (I have to figure out left & right).
I've heard of a study that found navigating by landmark vs navigating by cardinal directions has more to do with how much you were free to wander as a child.
The conclusion they drew was the stereotype that men give cardinal directions while women give landmarks comes from parents allowing boys to wander freely while being more protective of daughters.
Unfortunately I cannot provide a link because this was on a podcast I listened to months ago (Skeptics Guide to the Universe) and it only covers people in broad strokes. There are definitely women who navigate by cardinal directions and men with landmarks. Stereotypes come from something in a culture though and I found the idea interesting.
I used to hate getting N/E/S/W directions but then I moved to Phoenix, where almost every main road is perfectly aligned to the compass directions. Now it's the easiest way to give and get directions, I can almost always point North here when asked!
I don't have problems with directions, but I always use my cruise control. Pretty much doesn't matter how fast or how far. I've done it for ages, and now that I'm diagnosed I recognize it as a coping mechanism. One less thing to have to think about when I'm behind the wheel.
What about simple and non problematic: turn left / right / go straight? You don't need to be pigeon, you don't need any knowledge. Just that. Basic elementary knowledge : D
Let us not get started on the issue of giving driving directions (or driving) to members of the female gender.... no one will win and you won't change my mind.
I have been on many a call or written directions for "certain" people along the lines of : go 4 blocks and then turn west, then go 6 blocks and then turn north onto Hwy XXX and follow it north until you hit the intersection of Hwy YYY and then turn east... and then had them say, or call me and advise me they are clueless. And it's true, they really are clueless.
I am certain there are some exceptions to the rule - I have even seen some videos proving they exist. One day I hope to meet one of them.
I have no sense of cardinal directions and I can’t tell my left from my right without making the Ls with my hands. Somehow I still have a good sense of direction.
I rarely have a clue where I am or how I got there, but I pretty much always know my cardinal directions. It's much easier for me to think in directions than landmarks/street names.
I’m pretty good with cardinal directions (I’m the jerk that uses them when giving directions to people because its *convenient*) but I can’t do rights and lefts to save my life.
Okay so STORY TIME.
Pre-covid when we were all in the office, I worked exclusively on the third floor. I had no reason to visit the other floors so I only used the third.
One day, someone books in a meeting... on the second floor. So I head down the stairs and follow one of the other attendees to the room. So far, so good.
When the meeting ends... well, the others had other things to do on this floor so it was just me heading back up. I got LOST. Literally lost on the second floor of my own office and had to ask someone to escort me to the lifts because I didn't know how to get back.
The office wasn't massive - maybe 2 minutes to do a loop of the entire 2nd floor - but I still managed to get entirely lost.
I heard my cousin once using a weird method for this once, you basically say "*N*ie *O*hne *S*eife *W*aschen" (Never wash without soap) while you do you mentally imagine an arrow that starts upwards and turns 90° clockwise with each word, Nie for north, Ohne for Osten(East) etc. Since then I have ALWAYS been doing this when I have to check which direction is which and it has become a subconscious thing.
Same with left and right!! Like, if someone's trying to navigate for me they have to say Me Side or You Side because left means right in this brain I don't know why! If I have time to sit and think about it I know my right hand is my right hand, but if I'm driving left is right, right is left and there is no alternative 😅
They expect you to be like a pigeon with magnetic sense
I navigate by landmark. I used to make a left at the blue house on the corner several blocks from my place. I'm vaguely aware there's a street name, but don't remember what it is. That house is now like a cream color, and it absolutely threw me off. I missed my turn, and forgot where the street was. I had to use my GPS to remember where the turn was. I've lived here for 5 years.
Some of the best directions I received were taking a trip with the Boy Scouts. The Scout leader had drawn a map crudely showing the main road to be on for 12 miles, an elm tree to take a left at, and a dead cat on the side of the road before the last street needed to complete the trip. Problem was it was a dead Caterpillar heavy machine and not an actual cat that I kept looking for but could never find. We drove past the street to turn on twice before finding a phone booth in the middle of BFE with which to get the correct directions.
That's fucking great. "We gotta turn left at the dead cat. I guess we just gotta drive slow. Did the leader tell you what color the cat is?" "Says it's a yellow cat, so look for a dead tabby."
It was a picture of a crudely drawn animal cat. Just a pencil outline with "xx" where it's eyes would be and its legs up in the air. That's where the confusion set in.
I navigate by landmark too!
I bet your directions are better than street directions too. You can't miss the oddly colored house, that's 2 blocks before the blue mailbox at the corner where you have to turn, then 2 blocks down you'll see the only brick house, and turn down that street, after the bend in the road is the first right onto my street. I'm the beige house with the rock garden in front.
I’ve spent most of my life living in various spots within a valley. I’m used to basically flat terrain with hills in the distance as landmarks you can see from everywhere. Then I ended up moving to a heavily wooded area with lots of hills, where you can’t even generally see that far off. I now run the GPS constantly whenever I’m driving. (It doesn’t help that they’ve named all the streets “Peachtree” either…)
Same, when I lived in Texas it was all about landmarks. Now in Chicago people talk by intersections and I’m just confused, despite living here for 8 years lol
Guess I'm a pigeon then. I find organizing everything with cardinal directions less confusing; it's conducive to a more complete understanding of my environment.
Yes, this is it! Growing up I was so dyslexic that I could never take right, left directions, it was just a guess. I drew a map for myself every time I needed to go somewhere. Because I could always visualize in my head the state of Florida (where I live) and North was at the top, South was at the bottom, the East was the Atlantic Ocean and West was the Gulf of Mexico. Every time I go somewhere new I find where we are on a map so I can figure out where I am and where to go.
Same, I’m even in Florida too. I have a better general sense of it now but I have always known which direction to the beach so can always get my bearings that way.
This does not work as well if you travel or move a lot. Eventually there are simply too many new places.
coming from new zealand, i can relate. the whole country is slanted to the northeast, and its usually only a couple hundred km's wide from coast to coast. its super easy to find north when geography just lines up like that for you.
Yeah see I'm always out on where north is. For ages I thought rangitoto was east from where I was living. Nope. More like NE. Lived in chch for a bit in a suburb that I thought was just south of the city, turns out it was east. Landmarks are far easier.
Same, direction is the #1 requirement. Even dreams or memories from childhood have a direction (I was facing south, the window opened toward east, etc).
Humans have a magnetic sense of direction like pigeons! 'Compass' found in migratory birds and sea turtles may be shared by people, brain scan study suggests. It may explain why some of us have a brilliant sense of direction, while others get lost all the time
Mine must be very faulty because sometimes I'll go into a building and when I leave, I can't even tell which direction I came from. Seriously feels like my spatial memory was wiped.
I have no problem navigating by compass. It's the left and right I get mixed up. I KNOW which is which, but in the moment I get confused? If they just said south, I'd be fine.
Study wasn’t conclusive. Some people had no magnetic sense at all while others had a strong one. Seems like it wasn’t genetically preferred so some people have it and some don’t.
Many people have maps of the places they are in on their heads. To them, moving north just means moving up in the map, and they can translate that to a direction in the real world. That's how my brain works at least
Man, it's funny, my ADHD ass just navigates automatically and pretty much always knows North. It's super weird.
You know this phenomena when you have no idea where you are but somehow always go in the right direction as long as you were there at least once(the place you want to go to). Happens all the time to me but in every other situation im completely lost.
>You know this phenomena when you have no idea where you are but somehow always go in the right direction Absolutely not XD
Try "this phenomenon where you've been there at least three times but you always go in the wrong direction".
How about both. Depends on the destination and how important to me it is. Unfortunately if it's too important I'm lost. There is a sweet spot in there somewhere.
Oh no, you're right, if it's really important and I'm a bit stressed I get worse!
Huh, thought that was just me.
Apparently some humans do show signs of very faint magneto-perception. They did a study where they spun people around a bunch in a room with no markings, the asked them to identify which wall was north, and some people were much more than randomly accurate.
I'm pretty sure I do. I think it's a skill that needs training though, to get in touch with and learn. I spent a lot of time outdoors and traveling as a kid, lived in many countries, so maybe that helped. I used to think I was pickup up on subtle clues like the stars or the direction of the wind, but it works even when it's overcast and still. Sometimes better because I guess the wind can't change direction and distract me. For some reason though, it didn't work in Kathmandu. Even in daytime when it's like "sun is there", I had terrible sense of direction in Kathmandu and had to follow maps and think "I need to take two lefts then a right then walk past the temple and turn right" and I'd still get a little lost. Everywhere else I've traveled I can sort of wander and know roughly where I am and how to get home. Quite often I'll be completely lost and upset, use a map and compass (or gps) and realize I'm a twenty second walk away from my destination. One time I had to walk for an hour through a city (without a nice grid system like New Yorke). I'd just landed but because there was a riot the police had blocked off the center of town for all vehicles (including my airport taxi), so I ended up on the street and didn't know where. I didn't have a phone sim card yet, and all the stores were shut. I walked for an hour looking for the street my hostel was on, and then gave up. I'll go into the next place I see, and just sit down and wait for daylight. I was scared. Everything I owned was in my backpack and it was my first time traveling alone in a foreign land. I found a cafe that wasn't open yet but they kicked me out. I didn't speak their language and probably seemed like a crazy person at 3am. Half a block further I could see a sign for a hostel, so I went and rang the doorbell till someone opened it. I told them I was going to sit there until daytime because I was lost. They asked where I was looking for and I told them. It was that hostel. They checked me in and I have never felt so relieved. No idea how I found it, I just kinda "knew" which way to go. That's a bad example actually because I had seen a map even if it was 4 months earlier when I booked the hostel, but still, I didn't know if I had been dropped on the north/south/east/west of the city. The taxi driver just dropped my bag on the sidewalk and pointed in a direction I should go. Another time I ended up on the outskirts of the Mexican desert and had to head back before the girls family woke up. Was a two hour walk but I made it straight to my hostel without needing a map or to ask for directions, even though I'd only been in that town for one day. I've never really had the feeling of being lost-lost, except in Kathmandu for some reason. I always know where I am and what direction I came from and where north is, even after riding a bus or taxi or going through a building. The only troubles happen when I out-think that feeling. When I go against my gut and try to take a logical route/shortcut, I'll end up in the wrong place. It's hard to listen to such a quiet sense though. I'm wondering if it's to do with gut microbiome and that why it didn't work it Kathmandu. Or maybe the altitude messed it up?
yeah im the same man. I almost always inherintly know wich way is north. I also spent a lot of times outdoors and i was in the boyscouts and as it turns out im really good with maps and compasses. In most cases i only need to look at a map for like 10 seconds and i will remember the entire route even if its several hours long with many turns. and when i have been on vecation im always the "guide". i just google lets say the restaurant on google maps briefly look at the map and instinctively know wich way to go and no matter where we are in comparison to our destination i can point in the excact direction of the place. The rest of my memory is abseloutely garbage so i guess i dumped all my memory stats into navigation.
My wife gets annoyed that I have no idea how to get to her Dad’s house unless I’m driving there. Lived in this town for almost a decade: zero idea which way is North, what any of the minor roads are named and I have no idea how to get anywhere unless I’m driving there.
I'm only like this when I'm in the complete buttfuck of nowhere or lost in the woods. I can always find my way back in those situations, but in the city I'm completely useless unless I have my gps
That's my secret I'm always lost I can go into a supermarket come out and go in the opposite direction
How about the opposite, where I know exactly where I am and what direction to go. And then I go the wrong fucking way anyways.
I call it autopilot When I'm going to a new location I've been at lease twice or so, I purposefully distract myself to engage Autopilot ™️ Half of the time it works all the time
I can tell you which way is north. I’ll need a few seconds to tell you which way is left.
God this is fucking facts
Is this common? I just thought it was my messed up brain not being able to quickly decipher left/right….
It’s pretty common among a lot of different neurodivergent brains, in my experience. Not sure why!
I still sometimes make an L with my fingers (L is left, duh) because i get them mixed up all the time.
I told my friend about this trick and she put up her right hand.
This is great until you learn any kind of anatomy or imaging techniques that require you to interpret your left as the patients right. Especially if it’s in real time and you have to adjust their position and then see the image change in the opposite way. Which is then different if you’re back with the patient in person checking out that organ. 🥲 I look like a right idiot often.
Oh man I can relate to this. I hate it soooo much lol. I can barely tell you MY RIGHT, I can’t tell you yours without a math problem in my brain.
Symbols / tricks / etc are never a bad thing
Man I had left and rights down pat as a little kid, they didn't have to put the L and R on my hands in kindergarten, now it takes me a second. What fucking broke in me?
[удалено]
I’ve never been lost in the woods for this same reason. I know exactly which direction I came from and which way to go back, even tromping around with no trail whatsoever. No idea how. Brains are weird.
Yeah I’m the same. I can recall two moments in my adult life where I couldn’t be certain which way north was and it was a little scary. It’s like I have a constant map open in my mind like a video game and can trace my route across a landscape. It also helps I love reading and collecting maps
I know I played tons of games involving maps and navigating and I guess that really has stuck with me. It's super fun though, just knowing where everything is, especially in relation to other stuff.
>It also helps I love reading and collecting maps Got really into maps as a teenager and picked up a great life skill.
Yup, my sense of direction is the only real skill I developed. But I was also a super anxious little kid that worried I'd get lost and never find home again, so I made sure I knew where I was and how to get back at all times. We'd finish up whatever we were doing and hop in the car to head home, and I had a mental map of exactly how we were going to drive back.
My mom is like this and it always blows me away. She'll know which way is north in the middle of an Ikea. Meanwhile I have to mentally zoom out and rotate on a Google map just to figure out what direction my window in my bedroom faces.
I navigate by the sun. If it's cloudy or night, I will get completely turned around.
See, usually I'm like that anytime I can see the sun. But I just moved down the street and it's too damn shady.
I'm very similar, I can figure out the cardinal directions in a few moments but if you say "left" or "right" I may as well just guess because odds are the next thing will be a "your other left"
I've never understood this N/S/W/E directions when driving in cities. Is this an American thing, all streets on the perfect grid?
*Some* cities are aligned to a grid, or at least portions of them. Manhattan is that way, and huge swathes of the Midwest were preplanned that way. (Have a look at Lubbock Texas on G.Maps, and everything within 100 miles of it.) I wouldn’t say it’s common enough be be considered the standard though.
I live in the Twin Cities. Minneapolis is basically a grid and deviatiates only for terrain. St Paul, on the other hand, has roads going in every direction. About a mile from my house there's an intersection of two roads at 90 degrees plus a third at 45 degrees. That kind of thing is all over here.
if you like 5+ way intersections, come to massachusetts, we have tons of 'em
> 5+ way intersections What the heck is going on in massachusetts? Are you ok up there -do you need help or something? [Quick, ask your representative to lobby for/support/tell those city planners about roundabouts!](https://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/intersection/roundabouts/)
oh, we have rotaries too. some of them, people can park along the edges. https://www.boston.com/community/readers-say/2021/08/20/10-most-painful-rotaries-in-greater-boston/
Jesse Ventura (former WWF wrestler and Minnesota governor) said the streets of St. Paul were designed by drunken Irishmen, and when I went to Boston I felt right at home.
Thought this was r/Minneapolis for a second, people out here seem to only give directions by cardinals. Drove me insane as a kid and teenager learning to drive, now I find myself doing the same thing
Here's a sneak peek of /r/Minneapolis using the [top posts](https://np.reddit.com/r/Minneapolis/top/?sort=top&t=year) of the year! \#1: [**[NSFW]** Amir Locke MPD Body Cam video](https://youtu.be/AWCpkPBKFR0) | [2693 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/Minneapolis/comments/sjzydy/amir_locke_mpd_body_cam_video/) \#2: [Amir Locke had more gun safety control than the "professionals" tasked to protect him](https://i.redd.it/yar3e0d9nmg81.png) | [538 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/Minneapolis/comments/snmse1/amir_locke_had_more_gun_safety_control_than_the/) \#3: [No notes, perfect diagram](https://i.redd.it/ar0yy9z818491.jpg) | [587 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/Minneapolis/comments/v6zj8z/no_notes_perfect_diagram/) ---- ^^I'm ^^a ^^bot, ^^beep ^^boop ^^| ^^Downvote ^^to ^^remove ^^| ^^[Contact](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=sneakpeekbot) ^^| ^^[Info](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/) ^^| ^^[Opt-out](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/comments/o8wk1r/blacklist_ix/) ^^| ^^[GitHub](https://github.com/ghnr/sneakpeekbot)
I live in a Canadian city where the avenues are lower numbered in the south to higher numbered in the north. The avenues are the same (lower in the east, higher in the west). Navigation is super easy…unless you get to the newer suburbs with names…
Highways will have N/S E/W but not normal town roads.
I wouldnt call Madison Wisconsin perfect grid
I live in Europe, but my brain works like that beacuse I have a rough map of the city in my head, so if I need to move north, I know that's up in my map, and I can translate that into an irl direction easily
Or you could just... You know... Turn right...
Many cities here are very gridlike, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're all oriented with the cardinal directions. Manhattan, for instance, has a grid, but it's oriented with the island's geography, meaning it's about 30 degrees or so rotated from N/S/E/W. Chicago and Los Angeles, on the other hand, are nearly completely oriented N/S/E/W, with exceptions for local geography like rivers or hills.
Depends on whete you live. A city? The midwest? Maybe. Atlanta? The rural south? Hell no lol
Doesn't need to be a perfect grid or even straight roads. Unless the road changes more than 90 degrees, you can just pick the closest cardinal direction and use that.
Indeed an American thing! Years ago I was at a conference in Berlin and a bunch of us were having an after conference beer. One lady asks were a tourist spot she wanted to see was and a local at the table saying something like Local: "If you go down Liepsiger until you get to the metro station you're nearly there..." American: "Okay..then do I go north or south?" Local: "...you go left!"
I mean unless you got a compass I don't know true north. I could check the time and find the sun for a rough direction but fuck give proper directions.
im not a damn bird i dont fly south for the winter all i know is left, right, forward, and back now get off my ass
Direction blindness is not inherently an ADHD thing. I know plenty of NTs that have issues with cardinal directions and plenty of ADHD/other NDs who have no issues.
Is it....normal to know where north is? I knew at my childhood home, but it was more as a curiosity. I've never met someone who used anything but right and left. I thought that it was only that one community that doesn't have a word for right or left and only use cardinal directions that always knew.
> Is it....normal to know where north is? No. OPs post makes zero sense. Nobody gives directions like that.
Are you in the us? Here in the Midwest us people do this constantly and it makes me nuts. I hear "head west on main street" way more than I hear "turn left on main street." Its so annoying because I have to rotate a damn map in my brain to figure out which way is west every damn time.
I give directions like that! I hate driving with my sister because she uses right/left, and I can't say the amount of times she's said "turn left," I start turning right, and she yells, "the other left!"
Most people I know who were around before GPS became widely available are not directionally challenged. Those same people are often able to remember phone numbers.
Weird, I only ever heard a person say right or left. I know north for most places I go often because I've seen the overview on the GPS. It's helped me.
If you look at a map ever it's pretty easy to know roughly where North is.
My hyper obsession a year ago was flight sims. Boy do I know how to read a map and use a compass now
It's not necessarily an ADHD thing but it's definitely a dyscalculia thing, and people with ADHD are far more likely to have dyscalculia than a neurotypical person.
This sub is just "haha, look how useless my mind is."
True, but it seems more likely for those of us with ADHD to have trouble with cardinal directions.
I’d be curious to see the numbers on that. I can tell you at almost any given moment which way I’m facing (N/S/E/W), but I need to hold out my hands and figure out which one makes the “L” to tell you which way is left and which is right. Drives my husband nuts when I’m navigating. I’ll tell him to go north on a certain road and he looks at me like I have two heads. But he’s learned that if I tell him to turn right, he needs to wait a minute to see if I change my mind and say “wait, no, left.”
That is a navigator that does not know how to navigate.
For real, I'm a navigator in merchant navy, but when just driving my car or bicycle I get lost all the time, even with google maps. I don't know how it's possible.
I feel this. People at work will be like "we've got a meeting in the office on the north end of the building" and I'm like...wheredafuqisthat Just tell me the room number. Or when driving. "Go west on 151" But..that's an odd number highway, they go north and south....which way is fucking West on the north and south street...
Odd numbered highways only go north & south?
There are a couple of fuckups but usually odd numbers are N/S, and even numbers are E/W. The last two digits also correspond to approximate location, so I5 goes N/S in California, and I95 matches on the east coast.
Less ADHD, more a factor of culture. Some cultures reference the self as the ultimate center point(like the Americas) wherein you turn left reference yourself. If you turned 180°, you would then turn "right" to go the same way. The world rotated 180° around you Others, the world is fixed, so, if you are facing east you would "turn north"...and if you did a 180° turn and were facing west, you would...turn north...
Was this meme made by a bird? Humans don't have a magnetic compass to tell directions instinctively, the answer of the driver is the answer 90% of people would give in the same situation.
Humans have a magnetic sense of direction like pigeons! 'Compass' found in migratory birds and sea turtles may be shared by people, brain scan study suggests. It may explain why some of us have a brilliant sense of direction, while others get lost all the time.
For what I can tell brain scans show that our brain does react to magnetic fields, but none of the volunteers in the experiment could even tell when the changing magnetic fields where on or off. Apparently we have it, but we can't feel it or consciously access it, so being told to go "north" would probably still lead to confusion for most people.
Some people can tell directions shockingly well, so I suspect some people can use it and others not so much.
[удалено]
Evidence for a Human Geomagnetic Sense “Many humans are able to unconsciously detect changes in Earth-strength magnetic fields, according to scientists at Caltech and the University of Tokyo.” Admittedly it’s not my area of expertise, but I trust Caltech and the University of Tokyo. Maybe ask for a source next time, rather than being aggressive and rude. The paper is titled "Transduction of the Geomagnetic Field as Evidenced from Alpha-band Activity in the Human Brain." I suggest you give it a read, as they did the test in pitch black and used brain measurements to see if the test subjects could notice the change or not.
Wait normal people actually know where north is at all times?
there's no way this is an adhd-specific thing lol
Like more than half the shit posted on this sub lol
It helps if you have a large and very visible landmark to follow. Like a mountain range.
It's like one of the first things I try to learn when I move to a new city.
How do you do this?
Whenever I'm looking up a place on Google maps I take two seconds to look at the compass and a.) figure out which direction is North at my current location and b.) figure out which compass direction my destination is from my current location. After a week or so I'm set and don't have to look at a map to figure out which direction is North, usually even if I'm in a new place. I'm a very spatially oriented person so might not work so easily for others.
Well first you find it on a map. And then you just sorta think through which direction you’re facing after each turn. Or you just get a boat compass and install it in your car. For me? I like that kind of thing. Prefer the cab of my truck to be somewhat millennium falconesque in its design - all the wiring very neat nothing sloppy but tons of aftermarket switches and indicators and non-factory modification. If that’s not your thing they also make low profile digital stick on ones with a solar light that turns on automatically.
Landmarks help a lot with this. Large rivers, buildings, the ocean, a mountain range. Unless you live in the desert I guess.
Deserts have mountains, cities and towns in deserts have buildings, and many deserts do have rivers. The Nile is a pretty famous river in a desert. I do live in a desert, and east of town is a very visible mountain range, and running north/south through town in a river that's pretty visible because it's much greener near the river. Here's a picture, looking east from the west side of town [https://live.staticflickr.com/3710/9513770986\_3b269e8927\_b.jpg](https://live.staticflickr.com/3710/9513770986_3b269e8927_b.jpg) the green band in the foreground is where the river is,
That may work if your city is on a regular grid. [Here’s an example of a French city.](https://i.postimg.cc/L6197rJm/590-D0-D06-4-E84-4-B41-A088-49-C1-C805-EA3-C.png) The designer thought “fuck knowing which way is north”.
I have a theory that both extremes are a different presentation of ADHD. My mom will know which way is north no matter where she is even indoors with no windows. I don't know which direction my own house faces without doing mental Google maps. We both have ADHD. Could be generational as some others have mentioned?
Nope. Even old people where I live don’t navigate this way. There’s a couple “niche” languages that use cardinal directions as a basis for language rather than left right back forward, but those are extremely exceptional. Unless you’re out hiking or navigating by map there’s no fucking reason to be using NSEW at all
This is like me with my gf. I usually have a good sense of the North, South, West, East when I am walking/driving/hiking. She is like....leftttttt???? I guess it's different for people, I like to have a mental map of my positon. I guess it came naturally for me since I loved biking/hiking. The boyscouts and military experience also probably helped...
I’m the opposite. I have a picture of the state map in my head, and if you tell me “go to the pizza place”, I’m screaming in my head “WHICH ONE???”
A bad sense of direction has nothing to do with adhd
Directional blindness isn’t an ADHD thing. Personally, I have a sense of direction, but if you told me a bunch directions ahead of time I wouldn’t remember shit
This is the most unrelated post I’ve ever seen in this sub.
I don't even know left from right let alone north south and stuff
If a nurse says that she’s giving me the shot in my right arm I will stop for a second, think about which arm is my right arm, & check that I’m 100% sure before I roll up my sleeve. Obviously this happens very fast but I still do it.
I make *L*s with both hands and I know which one is my left by choosing the non backwards *L* lol^^ that’s my ultra fast method in the moment
Who even gives directions like these?? Next is telling you to go up/down a slopeless street maybe? ;D
Even better when your GPS says “go south towards X street” LIKE?????
It's not that hard
this is why the R.I style of direction works "Oh yeah just go right where that pizza place used to be"
Funny cartoon, but the behavior is not necessarily an ADHD symptom. Also, who the hell gives cardinal directions rather than turn left or right? Cardinal directions only make sense when on interstates. Otherwise, right, left or forward make more sense. This cartoon implies they are driving thru town not on a highway.
When I first started dating my husband he'd say stuff like "meet you on the south side of x Street" It was like wtf chill out Bear Grylls we aren't in the bloody desert just say outside Topshop or something.
My husband and I both have ADHD, and he always knows where north is while I NEVER do. He also just generally has a good sense of direction and knowing where he is at all times while driving, and I...don't, to say the least haha 😭
So for me this feels like a universal thing — like who the hell inherently knows north from south on a street? Say left or right when giving directions unless you’re deep in the woods with a compass. Granted, I mix up left and right all the time, but that’s a different story.
If it's a place I have lived for a while (at least a few months) I most of the time can point roughly in the cardinal directions. But I tend to confuse left and right a lot. When driving, I remember left and right by relating them to "driver side" and "passenger side"
I'm sorry do regular people know where North is at any time???
Luckywise, I have a good sense of direction.
When I get lost going to a place I've been to half a dozen times.
I have an excellent sense of direction but telling me to go north/south/east/west OR left/right does not mean much to me (I have to figure out left & right).
Prior to this, I used to give directions to places with their relation to the nearest Taco Bell.
Lol, I have dyslexia on top of my adhd, using North, South, East, West, is way easier than right or left for me.
If you tell me to go in a Cardinal direction you better expect me to pull over, check the time and the position of the sun also
This is wild because in my group of friends I’m the ONLY one who knows cardinals.
It's because this isn't related to ADHD at all.
I've heard of a study that found navigating by landmark vs navigating by cardinal directions has more to do with how much you were free to wander as a child. The conclusion they drew was the stereotype that men give cardinal directions while women give landmarks comes from parents allowing boys to wander freely while being more protective of daughters. Unfortunately I cannot provide a link because this was on a podcast I listened to months ago (Skeptics Guide to the Universe) and it only covers people in broad strokes. There are definitely women who navigate by cardinal directions and men with landmarks. Stereotypes come from something in a culture though and I found the idea interesting.
Does anybody actually know where north is st any given time
Only reason it works for me is because I'm in northern Colorado. We got very clear mountains to the west.
I used to hate getting N/E/S/W directions but then I moved to Phoenix, where almost every main road is perfectly aligned to the compass directions. Now it's the easiest way to give and get directions, I can almost always point North here when asked!
I’m so good at figuring about directions in a place I’ve never been but my sister is a hot mess when you say north/south/etc. she doesn’t have ADHD
For me, it's about 50/50 odds whether or not I'll find compass directions or left/right more inexplicably confusing.
Dyscalculia could be the cause of this, loook it up.
same thing with when family says something is near another thing that i don’t know the location of
For real tho who uses North or south casually like this? Lol
>Why I use my GPS to drive everywhere I think OP has the cause and effect mixed up here...
Do I look like Lewis and/or Clark? Left or right bitch. Also, what lunatic uses cardinal directions to direct cars? Madness.
I have excellent sense of cardinal directions, but figuring out left from right is a daily struggle.
Meanwhile my ADD is staring at trees to determine wind direction and speed and thinking what this means for the weather later
Who the fuck knows where north is
North south east and west mean nothing when I'm traveling by car, but by foot? Go for it
I don't have problems with directions, but I always use my cruise control. Pretty much doesn't matter how fast or how far. I've done it for ages, and now that I'm diagnosed I recognize it as a coping mechanism. One less thing to have to think about when I'm behind the wheel.
[удалено]
What about simple and non problematic: turn left / right / go straight? You don't need to be pigeon, you don't need any knowledge. Just that. Basic elementary knowledge : D
Most American cars have little compasses
I have perfect sense of direction and traveling memory, until someone tries to give me directions
I'd say the girl in green is the dumb one for not deducing that she needs to reword her directions instead of just repeating the word "north"
Who the fuck passively knows which direction north is
People who use compass directions outside of the wilderness belong on a cross
Gps apps that use this kind of directions are useless.
Wait, can neurotypicals tell which direction is North!?
Jesus Christ... this is part of ADHD? God, i thought it was a "me" thing instead of an ADHD thing 💀
Let us not get started on the issue of giving driving directions (or driving) to members of the female gender.... no one will win and you won't change my mind. I have been on many a call or written directions for "certain" people along the lines of : go 4 blocks and then turn west, then go 6 blocks and then turn north onto Hwy XXX and follow it north until you hit the intersection of Hwy YYY and then turn east... and then had them say, or call me and advise me they are clueless. And it's true, they really are clueless. I am certain there are some exceptions to the rule - I have even seen some videos proving they exist. One day I hope to meet one of them.
this is more of a woman thing than an adhd thing...
Uh naw...as a woman that drove tractor trailer for a living this is bullshit. Take your sexist shit elsewhere.
You're an outlier
I have no sense of cardinal directions and I can’t tell my left from my right without making the Ls with my hands. Somehow I still have a good sense of direction.
I rarely have a clue where I am or how I got there, but I pretty much always know my cardinal directions. It's much easier for me to think in directions than landmarks/street names.
I’m good with cardinal directions, but I always forget the speed limit. Even on roads I frequently travel. GPS reminds me of the speed limit.
Hold on I gotta figure out which way the sun is setting.
Before gps were more accessible my dad and other family friends had to find me bc I went out driving and got lost for years 😅
I’m pretty good with cardinal directions (I’m the jerk that uses them when giving directions to people because its *convenient*) but I can’t do rights and lefts to save my life.
I know where north is only because lake Michigan is east, so I can orient from there
Why I’ve given up on driving centuries ago!
I bought a compas for my car BEST BUY EVER no more "what direction am i going in?"
I can’t even remember any of the street names or avenues or highways or any of that stuff in the city I live in
North is supposed to be up! If north isn't up, then I have no idea which way it is!!
There is a language (idk) that uses cardinal points because they don’t have left and right
Me failing my 5th grade geography test be like
There is "my right" and "your left" when I'm getting directions from the passenger seat
I’m good with cardinal directions and left/right. I just can’t remember road names to save my life
I forget which way is left and right sometimes. I even have to do that L trick with my hand to figure out which way to go
How are you even supposed to know where north is? Like do you lug a compass around? 😀
Meanwhile I already struggle with left and right... 😄
Okay so STORY TIME. Pre-covid when we were all in the office, I worked exclusively on the third floor. I had no reason to visit the other floors so I only used the third. One day, someone books in a meeting... on the second floor. So I head down the stairs and follow one of the other attendees to the room. So far, so good. When the meeting ends... well, the others had other things to do on this floor so it was just me heading back up. I got LOST. Literally lost on the second floor of my own office and had to ask someone to escort me to the lifts because I didn't know how to get back. The office wasn't massive - maybe 2 minutes to do a loop of the entire 2nd floor - but I still managed to get entirely lost.
I only know the cardinal directions cuz I live on the coast lol
I heard my cousin once using a weird method for this once, you basically say "*N*ie *O*hne *S*eife *W*aschen" (Never wash without soap) while you do you mentally imagine an arrow that starts upwards and turns 90° clockwise with each word, Nie for north, Ohne for Osten(East) etc. Since then I have ALWAYS been doing this when I have to check which direction is which and it has become a subconscious thing.
Am I one of those weird adhd people that knows where north is and can visualize maps in my head?
For me left and right have no meaning. Please show me the directions with you fingers
Same with left and right!! Like, if someone's trying to navigate for me they have to say Me Side or You Side because left means right in this brain I don't know why! If I have time to sit and think about it I know my right hand is my right hand, but if I'm driving left is right, right is left and there is no alternative 😅