One PITA thing about being a southpaw is when you eat with a group of people

[raccoon]

(at a table, presumably), you have to (a) coordinate your seat so that no one is on your left, or you're
seated next to another lefty, (b) manage the best you can, trying to restrict your left arm movements and
still manage to eat, (c) learn to handle your utensils with your right hand.

How do you deal with this?

I usually go with #1 but it's not always possible....

[petronius]

1. It's rarely a problem for me - for some reason, people pretty much

choose on their own not to sit next to me...



(But I typically try to sit on an end with no one to my left, mostly because I'm tall and like the leg room the end seat provides. Other than that, elbows-in does the trick.)

[Sekhmets Daughter]

4. If everyone would remember to keep elbows in,

no one would ever have a problem!

[MiddleFingerMom]

2. I do everything right-handed except eat and write. At family functions, that's usually...

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... taken into account and I'm seated with no one on my left, but when elsewhere... (b) is
usually the solution.
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Or (d), I ask them to whiz everything up in a blender and bring me a sturdy bendy-straw.
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Although that kinda sucks.
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[Bertha Venation]

3. Mrs. V. and I are both left-handed

so it's easy if we're together. If I'm by myself in this group I'll try to grab an end seat real quick.

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

5. Sit on the end or outside seat in a booth

yes, we lefty's have to be aware of that........

[Arugula Latte]

6. I don't eat with lefties. They are devil spawn.

Obviously.

[Ron Obvious]

8. Indeed

Sinister people, lefties. Quite gauche, unlike us adroit righties.

[Quantess]

7. Learn the european style of

knife in right hand, fork turned upside down in the left hand. It looks sort of nice, too.

[MineralMan]

10. I adopted that style while still in

high school. As a lefty, it made sense to me. I did not know then that it was European.

[nomorenomore08]

17. That's "European style"? I guess I've just always done it that way without thinking about it...

[kcass1954]

9. When I was growing up, my seat at the dinner table was next to the wall.

I learned to eat with my elbow fairly close in to my body. My problem is with right-handers who can't do the same.

[MineralMan]

11. I use the European style, but can eat right handed

if necessary. It is rarely an issue, though. I can usually grab a convenient lefty seat.

[riderinthestorm]

15. +1. My left handed daughters have all been taught that as well. Makes it simpler nt

[MineralMan]

12. I taught myself to use chopsticks with

my right hand after a giggling waitress at a Chinese restaurant said, "I never see someone eat that way."

[sarisataka]

13. My daughter is backwards

so she usually sits on the left end of the table. Being a loving father I always try to sit on her left so we have elbow wars during the meal

It did make it easy teaching her to tie shoes etc. My wife and I were mirrors to her so she just matched our movement

[EvilAL]

14. If there's a rightie on my left,

I just put all the food into a pile on the centre of the plate and eat with my mouth.

[nomorenomore08]

16. More or less #3. I'm not ambidextrous per se but I can do a fair amount with my right

out of necessity. And I'm not even from a generation in which left-handedness was particularly discouraged.