Sometimes I run across things that most people understand instantly & intuitively that I just can’t keep straight.

You know those faucets that just have one big handle in the middle? The left half is red to indicate hot, and the right half is blue to indicate cold. I’m guessing most people intuitively “get” which way to turn the handle to get the desired temperature. But not me. I always just turn it at random, and if I get the wrong temperature, turn it the other way.

If I took a second I could figure it out without resorting to trial and error. I get the design theory behind single handle faucets. Since the left side is red/hot, turning towards the left side means you’ll get hot water.

I think the reason it doesn’t click for me on an intuitive level is because by turning the handle towards the left, you move the red side out of your line of vision, and the blue side in. So to get hot water, you need to position the faucet so all you see is blue. It just doesn’t feel right to me, dammit!

Another simple concept I can’t intuitively get relates to blogs. Most blogs show the newest 10-20 entries on the front page, and you can click a link to see older ones. When you get to the bottom of the second page, you can either continue on and read even older entries, or return to the front page.

Now: when the links say “newer entries” and “older entries” or something like that, I’m fine. But oftentimes, it just says “Next” and “Previous”, and I can never keep them straight. “Next” takes you to a new page (which has older entries), and the “Previous” takes you to the page you were on before (which has newer entries). So if you want to see previously written stuff, you don’t click “Previous”, you click “Next”. I always click the wrong one, and end up on the wrong page. I’m dumb.