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.
Or what’s right.
What’s left ain’t right.
Correct.
Oh, you are a witty one. Good answer.
Right, left if you’re looking at the bed from the foot.
Stage right, stage left if you’re looking out from the bed toward the foot.
He did theater stuff in HS, so we may adapt this if neither of us concede. Good work around.
Theater stuff in high school… Is that like making out backstage after rehearsal?
Probably along the same lines as band camp. I’m sure there’s a few “This one time…” stories.
the former is known as “audience left/right”
but allow me to use a more dated theatrical terminology:
prompt side and bastard prompt.
Forget left-right. Use port and starboard.
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!!!
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.
Seems like a flawed system. Why would auto manufactures not force the whole world to do it the same?
I assume OP and their partner drive on the same side of the road as each other though lol
We use “my side” and “your side” so it’s always correct from any perspective.
Stage left is the only definition that matters here, unless you have good reason to care about audience left owo
House left is the better methodology, you’re going to be talking about sides while looking at the bed more often than while already in it.
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.
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.”
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.
When we sleep, the monsters are at our 6.
This will only lead to more confusion.
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Driver side, passenger side.
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.
No right or left.
Window side or door side.
If this doesn’t apply to your bed, then you have aligned the bed improperly.
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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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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.
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.
Those do exist, if you exit stage left facing away from the audience it stays put. Which side of your bed do you seat your audience and can we get a ticket to the performance?
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.
My dance teachers always gave up and started using directions like “toward the mirror, towards the back wall, toward the door, toward the window” because right or left always a slight pause while I was figuring out which is which, and probably not just me. Once the dance was learned it was fine. Jazzercise teachers have to announce backwards (yell right when they are themselves going left), they wanted me to teach but sure it would break my hold on R/L entirely.
Driving it’s easier, left is the side with oncoming traffic here. But when giving directions I’m not driving and revert to the N,S,E,W - I am not a compass, just lived here a long time, I had a friend who was a compass, you could blindfold her, spin her around a bunch till dizzy and she could still find north, blindfolded.
Following because this drives me nuts too
Someone save us, give us an authoritative answer
Happy to hear we aren’t the only ones.
To avoid confusion, just say driver and passenger side.
I meant this to be a joke, but if you assume your bed drives forward toward the side with your pillows then it actually works. But if you read in bed with a reading pillow then I guess you probably want to drive your bed toward your feet side of the bed…
Driver and passenger side confuses me more because of your last point. It’s backwards. But it still needs to be named foot of the bed and not head because it’s where it feet go. So your first point also makes sense. Both are right and wrong at the same time
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.
