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.
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.
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.
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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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My wife sleeps in the middle, like a snow angel, so I always sleep on what’s left.
Or what’s right.
Correct.
What’s left ain’t right.
The story of my life.
Oh, you are a witty one. Good answer.
We customarily refer to the ends of the bed as “head” and “foot” which are analagous to the head and foot of a sail in nautical terms. Therefore “forward” in the ordinary bed naturally corresponds to the direction of straight up toward the ceiling, and the port side is the one on your left when lying in the bed facing that way.
Ahhh, it’s chips and fries I see.
If I’m talking about sides of the bed, I’m almost never in the bed at the same time, so I would be talking from a position at the foot of the bed. Beds are practically never in the middle of the room, so I wouldn’t be standing over the head of the bed while orienting. So the foot of the bed is the default position to reference.
If I’m in bed and talking about sides, I usually just guesture and say, “this side” (or “your/my side” if I’m talking to my wife) instead of designating left or right.
Your logic is that of my BFs.
If the bed to be used with people in it, I think that perspective should be the fixed perspective how it is used. If you’re partner is on your right hand side, the side you sleep on is the left.
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.
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
I have no idea. Like others I usually request the side closest to the bathroom since I go during the night more often than her. I could see it either way.
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.”
My girlfriend lies on my right arm, so she’s on the right side of the bed and I’m on the left.
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.
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.
Stand at the base.
Face the head
Now the age old question of “where is the base?”
On the bottom, holding up the mattress (optional)
Forget left-right. Use port and starboard.
Well, so which is the front and which is the back?
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
You mean “prow” and “stern”.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Fuck it, topside, underside.
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!!!
