Squires and I had a chat for a couple hours and we think that, next time, the organizer should spam the table with paperclips; would make it more obvious who's who. I saw you in the corner with a red shirt, but you were far from any door, of which there were three. :)
On a more serious note, let's do somewhere more central next time. South Minneapolis/Edina would be better. I'm coming from NE.
All I can suggest past that is to make a point of using the designations more often. It didn't really click for me until quite recently, either, but the only thing that seems even remotely likely to have triggered that click is that a project I was working on involved discussing some pictures with a friend, and I found myself having to actually think about whether X was to the left or the right of Y a few times a week for a couple months.
I smashed the left side of my face into a wall while sledding at age ten.
Ever since then, I simply had to remember which cheek the (very minor) scar was on. Don't try this yourself.
2saturn
Can you remember whether you're right-handed or left-handed?
And if so, can you remember which hand you normally hold a pen in?
2Kaj_Sotala
I remember it via the left and right mouse buttons.
1James_K
I deal with this by wearing a watch. I always wear a watch on my left hand. Whenever I have to work out whether I'm talking about my left or my right I stop and sense the extra weight. The wrist with a slight weight on it is my left.
2sixes_and_sevens
When learning the left-hand/right-hand motor/induction rules for electromagnetic fields, I spent about half an hour tapping alternate sides of my head, saying "motor, induction, motor, induction..." I can now instinctively tell you which is my motor hand and which is my induction hand.
I still have a problem with instant recall of left and right, though.
5AdeleneDawner
It's not the most graceful solution, but if you hold out your hands with your palms down and your thumbs pointed toward each other, the one that's shaped like an L is your left one. Or if you prefer verbal mnemonics, "you write from left to right".
I'm glad you two were able to meet up at least.