h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I am sporting a very large, very colourful bruise at the top of my thigh at present, having run full pelt into the corner of a desk last week in work. Now, I'm always sporting the odd bruise due to walking into tables, desks, bed corners, door frames etc and ,from observation of his work colleagues, my OH reckons that it's a female trait.

Is it? And if so, why is it? Chromosones? Hormones? Or just the fact that we're multi-tasking so much, we don't notice little things like pieces of furniture ???

The current Mrs SWL has developed the same problem. Have your eyesight checked at an optician - specifically your peripheral vision.

Have had regular eye tests since the age of 2...and I've been doing the walking into the furniture routine for years!

I thought you women were supposed to be so elegant.

We are elegant, we eleganty limp away when we've walked into things.

My usual is bashing arm into door frame. Almost daily.

Perhaps you are just in too much of a hurry? Slow down a bit maybe and get your bearings before going through the doorway!

Novo

Forcrisake let me park your car for you.



PP

hmm, walking into stuff is something I have a perfectly viable excuse for doing, but it happens very rarely. hmmm, now this is bizzare!

mini

My experience is that you don't even need to be rushing - it just sort of...happens!

I have loads of inexplicable bruises on my legs. Maybe I'm too short for the tables, chairs etc that are on my house

I have the same problem. And I can really feel ( no pun intended!) for you.

And my conclusion?

I measure space in metres and centimetres, but England still uses feet and Inches... Hence my perception and English reality are not equal...

And I've had some real bruises . One was the size of a tea plate (around 7" or, in real measurements, 18cms) where I misjudged a step on the underground, or the two cracked ribs, where I've found the ground rushing to make contact with my head... not once, not twice but three times.

I am really getting bored with the ground and air trying to swap places. It's against the laws of gravity but also proves one of the laws of physics, rather painfully, that two objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time.

And as for moving furniture just so I can stub my toe against it, or crack my elbow! Well!!

Anyone know of a good exorcist??

MFM

To the openning poster, we can rush around and not realise it due to anxiety/stress which coud cause walking into things so suggest making an effort to walk slower. It sounds odd but it actually works and is excelllant for fighting stress.
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I have an excuse at the moment as my current medication has a side effect of making people walk into things so can be excused (I was often walking into door frames at begining), it isn't quite as bad as it was though but do tend to spill and drop things more.

I'm constantly covered in bruises after walking into tables, counters, doorframes etc etc. I put it down to preoccupation while wandering about so not actually aware of my surroundings!

But...


I can parallel park way better than hubby!

A failure to successfully navigate objects (especially door frames) is a mark of my dyspraxia a learning disorder that affects mental and physical-co-ordination.

I am also frequently off-balance and liable to stumble unexpectedly when walking. These are all the result of poor pro-priorecptive feedback (the ability to locate my body in three dimensional space without looking) and under-active vestibular processing which is to do with how I manipulate my sense of balance from sense-date sent collected by the organs of the inner ear. and this explains why my vision and balance often fail to be co-ordinated in terms of spatial awareness hence regular bruises from door-frames.

Now I'm not suggesting regular bruises is a sign of dyspraxia, but dyspraxics regularly complain off problems of spatial awareness for these reasons but it is also the case that propriorception is a feature of any neurological disorders as well as my own.

I was going to say that I sometimes have a habit of bumping into doorframes. Having read all the previous answers though, I'd like to ask if anyone is able to walk through a door without getting injured? It seems to be a remarkably rare skill.

Perhaps by some freak act of nature your personal gravity field is much stronger than normal. So you get attracted towards objects and so hurt yourself. Or you´re clumsy.

did you consider those objects are actually after you? attacking you?

Hmmmm. I have remarkably few bruises now that I've stopped walking into swords so much

Maybe it's to do with the fact that I'm studying architecture? The doorframes know better than to cross me, or I'll have them replaced

Prepares to place cat in front of pigeons...

"my OH reckons that it's a female trait... Is it? And if so, why is it? Chromosones? Hormones?"

Well... there is some evidence to suggest that spatial coordination is linked to testosterone. See, for example:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15041084?dopt=Abstract

Basically, if you test women on a spatial coordination task, they do better if you give them a shot of testosterone first.