Thought I had a horrible sense of direction because I’d get lost any time I had to follow “head north on” type directions. It wasn’t a big deal to me — GPS had been a thing for years by the time I was driving myself around with any frequency (later everyone had a cell phone & navigation). I just contained my hiking to well-marked trails when I’d go out adventuring. Sure, it would have been nice to hike the poorly marked parts of the GRP trails in France. But there are *plenty* of marked and worn trails available. Never felt like I was missing out … it was more of a funny quirk.

I’d offhandedly mentioned my navigational issues to a friend around 2007. He offered to help figure out my error because it wasn’t like “sense of direction” is relevant when following instructions (and, obviously, a compass wouldn’t just “not work right” for me). He wrote up directions from his hunting cabin over to the duck blind, and we both had a compass and the instructions. Walked out onto the porch, took a few steps, and realized we were both going in different directions. He came back over to see how I’d managed to get lost already. Head SE 300 meters … OK, get red pointy direction thing to SE, walk 300 meters. He gave me a funny look and asked if I knew how compasses worked. “Of course, magnetic North attract … oooooooh”.