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Sense of direction

wyverary

wyverary

Well-Known Member
V.I.P Member
Do you have one? I sure as heck do not. I've lived in my town for seventeen years and I still get lost on a regular basis. I don't know my way around it AT ALL, save for the routes I take regularly; and if I deviate from those even the slightest bit, I lose my way and it takes me FOREVER to find my way back.

What about you? Do you get lost? Or do you have superhuman directional abilities?
 
I think I have those superhuman abilities I guess. In my life I've lost track of where I went once... and that was because I didn't consult a map before.

But give me a map and I'll probably memorize it and know where and how to go about... pretty much everywhere.

I even had this as a kid. There's a funny story about this and my mom still thinks it's kinda remarkable.

I was 2 years old and I attended a supermarket opening in my area, about... a 10 minute walk from my house. Well, I attended, with my mom and grandmother. I was in a buggy, but I could walk at that age... but apparently, my mom thought, let's wheel him around. So the opening was going on, and all of a sudden I was gone. My mom totally stressed out.

What happened was that I bailed. Went to a local cornershop to get tobacco for my grandfather... which they didn't give me. But I walked in there and was like "I want candy... and tobacco for my grandfather". Then, I went enroute back home and sat in front of the frontdoor since I couldn't reach the doorbell. Later (don't ask me how much later) my dad opened up to go looking for me, since my mom called him from a phonebooth (in the time before cellphones) and found me on the porch.

So my sense of direction was always pretty ok. Like I said; got lost once. I remember visiting Amsterdam once and just memorizing the network of streets. Next time I went there, I went there through each and every alleyway I didn't cross the previous time, but it made sense that some streets were next to it and connected through those alleys.

If I had a license and was a safe driver I'm quite sure I could be a cabbie just for the sake of having excellent directional skills.
 
I have lived in this area all my life. This town is very small. When I need to go somewhere that is not a usual rout I have to get there one step at a time. I have to like sence the direction to start out and then find the next step as I go along decide where to turn as I get closer etc. I can't map out the rout from one destination to the other all at once in my mind but I know it will unfold as I go along. And I'm not good at reading a map either.
 
I have a poor sense of direction and a fear of becoming lost that makes going places or finding places quite difficult.
 
Oh gosh, WYV: don't even get me started on this one! I can get lost without moving! It's pathological. I've lived in this area since I was 9 & I'm now 48. I still have no clue about the side streets around my own except for a very few that I use regularly. When it gets dark, it becomes extremely difficult because everything looks alike. Coming home last night, I almost drove past my own flippin' street! If I ever develop Alzheimer's, my case will be epic: one for the books.
 
My sense of direction is horrible! If someone asks me for directions, I have to tell them I don't know. I hate doing it, but I don't want to look like a complete idiot attempting to bungle my way through explaining where some location is. And the mall here in my town? I've lived here 22 years and I can't even find my way around the shopping mall. :ooh:
 
Serendipity said:
My sense of direction is horrible! If someone asks me for directions, I have to tell them I don't know. I hate doing it, but I don't want to look like a complete idiot attempting to bungle my way through explaining where some location is. And the mall here in my town? I've lived here 22 years and I can't even find my way around the shopping mall. :ooh:
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My directions are great if I'm outside but put me inside the mall and I can walk around for an hour before I decide which door I came in.
 
I get lost in parking lots! No sense of direction what so ever. I've lived in the same area my whole life and can only travel the same few routes or forget it.
 
Serendipity said:
My sense of direction is horrible! If someone asks me for directions, I have to tell them I don't know. I hate doing it, but I don't want to look like a complete idiot attempting to bungle my way through explaining where some location is. And the mall here in my town? I've lived here 22 years and I can't even find my way around the shopping mall. :ooh:
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Same here! It's especially awkward because we get a lot of visitors where I work and they ask where something is and I'm like, "Umm..." and take out a map and spend ten minutes trying to find what they're looking for (which also requires some advanced interpretation as they often don't know the name of the building). I often wind up sending them to a co-worker.

Biblio-Love said:
I get lost in parking lots! No sense of direction what so ever. I've lived in the same area my whole life and can only travel the same few routes or forget it.
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Augh, me too! I should plaster my car with bumper stickers; I hate bumper stickers but it would make it easier to spot! That or paint it some crazy silly color.

EDIT: By which i mean I lose my car, but I also get lost in parking lots. One of the many reasons I can't go to the mall!
 
It looks like there are more directionless aspies than homing-pigeon types!! I will add myself to the homing pigeons. I have a tremendously good sense of direction. That said, I don't know if this is something either typical or atypical to just aspies. NTs probably suffer the same problems??

One of my (NT) girlfriends was so bad with this, she couldn't read a map unless it was orientated the right way (even if it meant turning the map upside down!) and as for using the words "left" and "right" interchangeably, lets just say her career as a rally driver co pilot would have been very very short indeed!!

Maybe it is an aspie thing, as I love maps, and as a kid would make my own up. So maybe it's an obsession of mine. That said, I generally can tell you where north is fairly accurately at the drop of a hat. Dont know what use that is though!
 
Those posting on Aspie dating sites ought to list this trait! Someone in the relationship has got to be able to turn around without getting lost. My husband is pretty good with directions, so whenever we travel, I leave that entire issue to him.
 
Tarragon said:
Maybe it is an aspie thing, as I love maps, and as a kid would make my own up. So maybe it's an obsession of mine. That said, I generally can tell you where north is fairly accurately at the drop of a hat. Dont know what use that is though!
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Mine too, in fact I'm really excited I just got one of my map books back from my friend. I have two that I'm considering making soon and I like to look at others for inspiration.
 
Tarragon said:
Maybe it is an aspie thing, as I love maps, and as a kid would make my own up. So maybe it's an obsession of mine. That said, I generally can tell you where north is fairly accurately at the drop of a hat. Dont know what use that is though!
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Holy crap, I've never met anyone else who got really into maps and would make up their own! I got into them when I was four, and I learned the names and locations of every street in my hometown, and I would draw road maps of my own imaginary cities for hours.

I don't really know if I have a good "sense" of direction as I rarely give myself the chance to have to figure stuff out--I always check maps first. I love Google Maps. I hate not having a car trip planned out. If I have to figure out where to go, I have to divert my attention from what's going on on the road. I've had a few close calls in those situations, and I've learned my lesson.

As long as I maintain my orientation to north, I can figure out where to go. The one time I've been really lost was when I didn't factor in a curve in a road, and ended up driving perpendicular to where I thought I was going for about twenty minutes.
 
I am often lost inside buildings - it's the tiniest things within that make even small buildings overly large. Give me a compass and some directions, though, I can roughly figure where we are within a 5 minute drive.
 
I always rely on either Googlemaps for driving directions or the GPS in the car. Without these tools, I'd be utterly lost. Things & places look eerily alike to me. Plus, yjr looks of things are always changing: new construction, signage,new stores that weren't there before...Baffling!
 
I'm not good at following directions, but when I get lost I have an uncanny ability to head in the right direction. Not really sure how to describe it, but it comes in pretty handy.
 
The worst is when you are going to a place you've been once before and you are convinced that the things you are passing look familiar when in fact you are in COMPLETELY the wrong place.
 
King_Oni said:
If I had a license and was a safe driver I'm quite sure I could be a cabbie just for the sake of having excellent directional skills.
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Same here. I never get lost, I remember almost everywhere I was. I only get lost because my mates are lost themselves. :P
 
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