Let’s talk about the topic of the day:
What’s your sense of direction like?
Happy searching!
Alan
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Hi Alan,
My husband is completely sure of my full helplessness (in the above sense), even though I’ve never been lost irretrievably, as yet.
But he is firmly convinced that if he lets me walk with no his instructions, I certainly never find a right way.
Sometimes (when he has enough time for anxiety), it looks impressive.
For example, if I need to go somewhere alone (say, to a neighbour county), he - suddenly - becomes very serious, launches RAC route planner (software geoinformation system), constructs for me ‘the best way’, printed all that pages out in color and then explains it to me in full details – slowly and patiently, as if I am disable (maybe, he is right? I quite admit that.)
The only basis for that is my - innate? - inability /disability to say (to guess right :)) the right number of left/right turnings – even for the well-known way. I don’t count them and never remember by heart, just go and always find. Finally.
But for him it looks as an indisputable evidence of my sad, full and incorrigible topological cretinism.
P.S.
(I think, it would be excessive to mention that in most cases I do without his instructions. But he doesn’t know that. And never would believe if you said it to him )
Tamara
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Hehe, it is funny. But my sense of direction is bad , too. When i was wandering along New Street Corner in Nanjing i told myself" ok, it is your tenth time to be here, everything will be ok " , but i would be lost soon . Later i found myself circling around it within a 50 metres range. I should have believed my sense of direction which may lead me the right way . But usually they can’t stay in my mind longer and were proved to be wrong.
It is the same reason why i don’t like to travel alone. Those railway lines crossed make me afraid. When i stayed in the big hall of ShangHai Station I felt senses of nerves. That is really terrible. When i go to a new place i will notice all that things left by so that i will remember to go back , but they are too much for me . Finally i call friends to pick me up. :lol:
Well, i hope to enhance my sense of direction!
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It’s not so bad after all. I’m happy for that because my eyes’ sight is quite the opposite! I can often hardly read the street names unless I’m standing right in front of it…
So I have to make that up by a good sense of directions and a mind map of the main landmarks. When I travel to a new city for instance, I always take a look on the map in advance and try to get those things into my brains: Rivers and hills are my favorites, but I also appreciate high churches and towers of course and also citys built on slopes.
As an architect, I’m into geometries of course, and so I often find it easier to follow my way by looking at the angles of streets at a crossroad or curbs of the roads I can see on the map, instead of reading all the street names. And most of the time I’m quite sure about the general directions in a city, that really helps me a lot!
But of course there are limits to it. I will allways remember that night when I tried to find a cheap hostel in Venice, Italy. I asked for directions and was given answers like: follow the street till the next corner, then turn left, then walk on to the little square, take the third street to the right, cross the bridge and there you are… no chance at all! It was getting late, my luggage pressed hard, a lot of the small ways hadn’t any names, so I eventually asked for the way back to the main station. And that’s what they said: “Just follow the people and you will get there!”
Urs
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Hi Alan,
Once again, I can relate to your stories, since I have both a poor sense of direction and a strong sense of smell. Fortunately for me (or maybe not, but in this case it seems like a good thing), I don’t have that approachable look about me, therefore, I don’t get asked for directions a lot. Phew !
I’m a bit ashamed to say it, but before getting married I used to just follow my sister wherever we went, without ever paying attention to any kind of landmarks, in order to remember the way – had I ever needed to take the same trip; as a married woman, I tend to do the same thing, the only differrence is that I now follow my husband.
Incidentally, my sister is quite the opposite of me, she only needs to go someplace once and she will remember that, every single time – and she has been like that since…forever. I guess it is possible that my sister, as a first born, inherited from our parents all of those genes that seem to be responsible for our sense of direction, and then, there were none left for me…
Well, right now, I’m not sure whether you have this saying in English or not, but the first part of it fits me like a glove.
Women can’t find their way, men can’t find their socks.
Beeesneees, if you are reading this, I wouldn’t mind if you corrected my mistakes.
Many thanks
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Hi friends,
This is PredatorTheSkullCollector.
I’ve got a great sense of direction(which is good).
I’ve never used any kind of maps,gps systems or other sort of navigating
gadgets.Maybe my inherited calmness helps me a lot in finding the final spots or…something.
I can’t explain it.I have to admit that sometimes I need to ask somebody about the way to
the station for either there are no sign boards or it’s just…too complicated…
You know-big cities,thousands of streets surrounding you and if you’re in a hurry cos
you’re late for something and you have no time to walk around in order to find the place
by yourself,eventually you have to question about the shortest way to the desired spot
of yours.
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Hello Cristina,
As usual there are very few mistakes to correct.
‘difference’, not ‘differrence’
No space required between ‘phew’ and the exclamation mark. ‘Phew!’
No comma required here:
“and then[color=red], there were none left for me.”
You should be able to hear that you don’t pause at that point when you read it aloud.
“and then there were none left for me.”
Perhaps there’s something in what you say. I am the first-born child and like your sister, I have no problem reading maps (I can use a map and compass to find my way around unfamiliar countryside on an orienteering exercise) and I only have to visit a place once to be able to find my way back there without a problem. My sister could get lost in a box!
I think the author of this book must have heard your saying (There’s no point in clicking on it to ‘look inside’… that link won’t work on the image when it is posted here.):
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I love that! It’s so funny!
I wouldn’t say I’m that bad, though.
If I think about it, I was probably most nervous when I needed to travel by plane on my own; that was also my first flight ever. I was so afraid that I would end up in some unknown part of the world, half the earth away (or so) from both my country and the country I was supposed to go to.
On the plane, I sat next to a very talkative young man, to whom I had admitted to flying for the first time in my life. As a consequence, he instructed me on what I was going to experience – a sensation of pressure in my stomach when taking off and landing, and quite a bit of ear pressure or ear popping. He even got me one of those tiny bags – in case of airsickness. Then he kept inquiring as of any of that had happened yet.
I almost felt sorry to dissapoint him, but I felt none of that. I had other things on my mind: ‘‘Now that I had made it safely on the right plane, what if I ended up in the wrong place once I got off the plane and left the airport?’’
I was fine, though.
Many thanks for amending my text, Beeesneees
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By the way,I strongly recommend you to read the following book:
1.Why Men Don’t Listen & Women Can’t Read Maps (hardback)-by Allan and Barbara Pease
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Don’t you recommend the paperback version, Predator? 
I strongly recommend that you read…
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Thanks for the feedback.Anyway,you got me :))
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Thank you very much for all of your stories, I do enjoy reading and re-reading them.
By the way, I have a rather good sense of direction - even when underwater. (Certified deep diver here. :-))
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