Things That Make Me Go Hmmmmm...

Recently I was on a date and while we were talking she mentioned that she was left-handed. Now this may not seem odd to you, but I immediately perked up my ears. Why? I am glad you asked. I started noticing that most of the women I have dated in the last three years have been left-handed (70%). The thing is, only 10-15% of people are born left-handed.  I met all of these left-handed ladies online and none of the websites I used asked whether a person was right or left-handed for profile purposes, so it was not a conscious thing. I only found out about their "handedness" after the initial dates. As you can imagine, this has made me curious.

My initial thought was that it might have to do with the left-brained, right-brained function (or brain lateralization). According to this article:

Brain lateralization, the distribution of function into right and left hemispheres, is crucial for understanding language, thought memory and perhaps even creativity. For many years, handedness has been seen as a possible proxy, an external clue to the balance in the brain between left and right.

For right-handed people, language activity is predominantly on the left side. Many left-handers also have left-side language dominance, but a significant number have language either more evenly distributed in both hemispheres or else predominantly on the right side of the brain.

Maybe there is something about me and the way I communicate that attracts left-handed women on a subconscious level (or vice versa)?

In general...left-handers have less asymmetric brains, with more even distribution over the two hemispheres. “Perhaps a more accurate conceptual way to think about them is as non-right-handers,” he said. “Many of them are much more likely to be ambidextrous and have fine motor abilities with their right hands.” 

I took several brain hemisphere quizzes and I too seem to be more evenly split in my brain lateralization. On one quiz my score was 50% right brain and 50% left brain. On another quiz I scored a 10 on right brain dominance and a 9 on left brain dominance. This is very unusual for someone that is right-handed. A third quiz was visual in nature and again it indicated right brain dominance. The three quizzes I took are here, here and here. I am in no way vouching for the scientific validity of the quizzes. My results were consistent though.

In the big picture of my life, this probably doesn't mean much, but it does make me go hmmmmm...

The infographic below contains some more interesting facts about left-handedness.