Which side of the bed is the left side? Is the answer based on the perspective of laying in the bed (person’s head at the head end)? Is the answer based on viewing it from the foot of the bed, looking at the head of the bed? Is there an “anatomical position” or special terminology like in boating for this?
For context: My boyfriend and I can’t agree on this. We change who gets which side based on the shoulder we’d predominantly sleep on and how it’s feeling. This let’s us get good cuddles before shoulder pain gets irritated. He comes to bed after me. A while back he asked what side I’m sleeping on. I said “left”. Later that night, he comes in and almost lays directly on me because he claims “left” is the other side. Since then we have to describe which side using complicated descriptions.
My wife sleeps in the middle, like a snow angel, so I always sleep on what’s left.
Oh, you are a witty one. Good answer.
Or what’s right.
Correct.
What’s left ain’t right.
The story of my life.
I have a problem with right and left, and this question illustrates it pretty well. I tend to give directions as east, west, north, south. Left and right move around when you do, so can’t really be assigned to stationary items like a bed. Our bed has a northwest side and a southeast side.
There are whole tribes of people who have no words for left and right but have words for the cardinal directions; and all directions or labeling is based on one’s position and facing in these directions. “put this in your East hand” could be an imperative in the culture.
Having said that, leverage stage direction: Left and Right is Audience Left and Right, whereas Stage Left and Stage Right also exists and is generally the reverse. For instance, I exit Stage Left but to look at it you’d think it was the Right.
Left/right are ambiguous terms.
Your solution would be a great way to practice spatial awareness. Could get exhausting constantly reorienting to where is north, but would benefit us in any post apocalyptic future.
Driver side, passenger side.
Which country?
Get nautical! Port and starboard.
I can get on board with this! (Pun intended)
But then which side is the Bow and which the Stern?
I would say the foot is the Stern and the head the bow I guess. Just to stay with a sort of head being the front of something and foot being the tail end.
But during normal use, you are facing the foot. I would think that makes it the Bow
I guess even if you are a stomach sleeper your feet are still towards the foot. Maybe this is best.
Captain drives from the stern, though. If you sit up in bed you’re facing the bow.
The bow would be the foot end, since you’re looking in that direction
Either:
- you establish a convention and both learn to choose one perspective or the other
- one of you tries to do that and the other pretends not to agree, because it’s cute and fun as a form of teasing
Pick one and I hope whatever you pick works for both of you. Agreement is easy, but teasing can be fun.
A very realistic answer. It’s unlikely either of us will concede so this is will be a perpetual joke.
Enjoy! “I’ve chosen to find it charming.”
In medicine you use the view of the examiner like your boyfriend. I don’t think that is reasonable for the people lying down though.
So using the point of the examiner, is the mattress the belly or back or the bed? I say it’s the belly, the baseboard would be the back. So it would be the same as laying in the bed.
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Nice job renaming stage and audience to bed and standing. I would’ve used their original terms. Our bed is not a stage and we don’t entertain an audience so that would’ve gotten weird/entertaining at some point.
And absolutely agree. I was dumbfounded when he said otherwise. There’s a good few who agree with the logic. Personifying the bed breaks that logic though.
But that’s the position you most commonly look at a bed from. And when figuring out where you’re gonna get into the bed.
Like the only time you actually use the information about sides of bed is from the perspective of outside the bed.
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Lie in bed on your back. Stick out your left hand. That is the left side of the bed. Stick out your right hand. That is the right side of the bed.
Completely arbitrary.
Imagine the bed is a clock. The 12 o’clock position is at the head — I don’t think anything else makes sense. That makes it unambiguous.
The positions are 3 o’clock and 9 o’clock.
This will only lead to more confusion.
And 3 is obviously on the right side of a clock and 9 on the left so the debate is settled.
Not if you consider the clock’s face is facing you. Facing your face. And so you can’t expect its right and wrong to be the same as yours.
Let’s say you have a day to move your stuff and you’re down to the last minute. You only have time for one more trip back inside. Your girlfriend says to grab whatever’s left of the clock. You go inside and look at its clockwork face, still gazing up at you with blank, bright numbers. Where the clock has hung all these years, to one side there’s a window with a bottle sitting there. To the other a vase with flowers. What do you take? What’s left of the clock, the vase, or do you say screw it and grab the bottle, without bothering to read carefully what’s inside?
I’m afraid this is all just more confusing, sorry
When we sleep, the monsters are at our 6.
The answer is easy, but to get to it, a little bit of a thought experiment is probably helpful. I say, look to how we define our own left and right sides for guidance. When facing forward, our left hand is on the left side of our body, and the right hand is on the right side of the body. Perspective doesn’t matter, and there is no ambiguity.
Now we need to extend this to the bed. A bed has a head, just like a person does. So where would its face be? It seems clear to me, unless you are sleeping on a dead mattress, that the face is clearly going to be looking upwards at the ceiling at the head of the bed. So the left side of the bed, if you are standing at the foot of the bed looking at it, would be on your right. Just like the left side of your friend, when you are standing in front of them and looking at them, is on your right.
Now if you just imagine the mattress to be perfectly spherical and in a frictionless environment…
(Obviously just having fun with this answer, but it’s also the right answer)
It’s easiest if you think of the bed as a person. I call mine “Ed the Bed”
I’ll have to counter his argument with this. I think it nullifies the standing at the foot line of thinking.
My girlfriend lies on my right arm, so she’s on the right side of the bed and I’m on the left.
Forget left-right. Use port and starboard.
Driver’s side and passengers side?
Stage left and stage right? (Depends on where your curtains are).
People drive in different sides in different parts of the world.
Fuck it, topside, underside.
The majority of people occupying the same bed will have congruent driver/passenger sides. Distant strangers don’t need to know which side you are referring to. Couples from different regions could adopt the local convention.
Well, so which is the front and which is the back?
You mean “prow” and “stern”.
Beds have a head and a foot, so the head is fore and the foot aft.
Ah. But in a bed race, it’s foot-first, implying a direction of travel that itself dictates head==aft and foot==fore. Totally different from how ironman flies, fwiw.
port and starboard are based on the orientation of the ship, not the outside observer
Yes, but without knowing which is fore and which is aft you cannot make that judgement.
fore would definitely be the foot of the bed. that’s where you are looking when you are using the bed properly
Define “properly.”
the bed was designed for sleeping. just because you can face any direction while fucking on it doesn’t mean anything, because the same can be said of a ship
The front is where the spoiler isn’t.
Race car beds FTW.
I actually love this. Imagine all cars are race car beds and then use driver and passenger side lol.
This is the correct answer. It’s how ships avoid running into each other. When whoever is steering the vessel is facing the bow (front, usually the pointy bit), port is their left, starboard their right. Ship’s running lights are red on the port side, green on the left. So if you’re out on the water at night, you can immediately see whether a ship is coming towards you or moving away. The rule for passing an oncoming vessel is “port to port”, thus avoiding confusion and collision.
Sitting up in bed I would consider the headboard the stern, because I have my back to it, and the foot the bow. So the area to starboard is right, and portside is left. Ahoy maties!!!
Imagine you are driving the bed. If you lean up you’re looking forward. You could call them driver and passenger side based on this. Sort of like port and starboard lol.
Imagine you are driving the bed
actually quite enjoyable, ty!
but that would make beds the other way around in some countries
“Complicated descriptions”? Is there a lamp on one side, or a closet door? Just use that as a frame of reference, I wouldn’t call that a complicated description. Or, if you usually have the same bigs-poon, little-spoon orientation, you can describe which shoulder you’re laying on. But I still think using features of the room is the simplest way. “I’m laying on the closet side.”
Fair point. Complicated descriptions may have an exaggeration, but relative to simply left/right it’s still mildly accurate. I’m not a sensory thinker so pulling from objects other than what I’m referencing seems like adding a few extra cognitive steps. Silly, I’m aware, but that’s my brain.
Ahhh, it’s chips and fries I see.
We use “my side” and “your side” so it’s always correct from any perspective.
