Adjusting your personality to fit a certain situation. [Archive]

HousesOfApollo

03-27-2008, 12:34 AM

(Sorry if the title of this thread is a little vague; I had attempted to communicate as much as possible in the space allotted. I'm also sorry if this is in the wrong section.)

Has anyone here experienced a temporary shift of emphasis within their own personality during a particularly intense competition with someone else? This happens to me quite often whenever I end up arguing with someone who is extremely emotional about the way they make decisions in their lives. Whenever I'm around someone who is extremely emotional, and there is a confrontation, I find that I recoil and act like an absolutely stereotypical INTJ. The traits of this personality type become very pronounced in me when I feel threatened, or if someone is trying to manipulate me on an emotional level. All the typical negative stereotypes of the INTJ are then lobbed at me. I am "evil" all of a sudden.

In this state, I'll tend to be much harsher than usual, and critical of the other person's mindset. My mind begins to focus on my opponent's faulty appeals to emotional bias, and then I will begin to tear it apart mercilessly. This tendency of mine is probably why I am TJ more so than F or P, though I sometimes feel more balanced than many others seem to be.

My suspicions about this balance have been supported by my reactions to an entirely different situation. Sometimes, I end up conflicting with someone who shares Thinking and Judging personality traits, but is more extreme than I am. To these people I'm more likely to argue that it's a good thing to have a heart, so long as it remains a backseat driver; it can offer suggestions, but they had better make sense to the Thinking Man behind the wheel. The debate never ends, though. Few actions are taken before a very intense inner dialog occurs.

Whenever I'm contesting something with a person who is extremely Thinking/Judgment I start to take on the softer edges of my lesser Feeling side. Now, I don't entirely switch over, but I do recoil all the same. I suppose that this might be because I'm sort of like a 'Diet Coke' subtype of the INTJ profile. Empathy often manifests itself, albeit far too slowly to help me much in casual encounters. Love is strong, one dimensional, and lacking nuance, but I'd like to have it in my life more than hatred. Rarely am I emotionally motivated, and when I am polite to someone so as not to hurt feelings, it's usually calculated so that empathy doesn't bite me at some point in the future. Since the harsher tendencies of my own personality used to get me into a lot of trouble in my youth, I've learned to put on a front of benevolence that I don't always feel.

All this seems to slide on a scale for me, however, depending upon the situation. When something grates against my innermost operating principles, those principles become more salient; then if I am presented with an extreme image of own traits, they seem to be less salient than usual.

Many of the members of this forum seem like quite pronounced INTJs, and this lead me to doubt the validity of my own type. When, however, I investigated the MBTI further, and read some decent profiles of the INTJ that were based more on core psychological concepts rather than stereotypes, I found that it fits me quite well; the only difference seems to be that of degree, and balance. No other type seems to click into place for me, and I've been obsessed with this stuff for some time now. (I also happen to have a very pronounced, pensive, and piercing stare.)

Perhaps I am like this because I spend a lot of time trying to get in touch with my own shadow side; I'm always trying to look deeper within myself. There was a time in my life when I felt as though I were actually two people, a scientist and a dreamer. These two opposing elements of my psyche seemed to wrestle for a long time, until eventually I felt much more like the scientist. I'm speaking metaphorically now, of course.

Now, I am curious about what you guys have to say about this. Any similar experiences? Thoughts? Are there any other 'Diet Coke' INTJs out there? Thought and analysis are welcome, as always ;).

Antares

03-27-2008, 08:16 AM

Myrak

03-27-2008, 09:14 AM

I definitely feel the same way. I can definitely argue that there are two sides to me, and they seem to be very opposing ends of the spectrum. However, they fit together somehow, since they are both a part of the same spectrum.

That is just the inner me. I definitely change according to the social situation as well.
I think my default is just the sarcastic, cynical person. It's my way of dealing with the meaningless politicking that goes on between people everyday. Everyone acts so politically-correct, "oh you can't say that" et al, I just love seeing how they react when I give them the verbal equivalent of a punch in the face.

I'm much more lax on this when I'm with my mates, who 'get' my style of just who I am, so I can be more open with them.

If I'm in an argument or verbal fight, I'll get emotionally invested insofar as thinking "You're a fucking dumbass, how can you not understand my point?". I try not to get into those kinds of heated arguments, nothing ever comes out of them.

If I'm a serious emotional conversation with someone who matters to me, I usually do quite well to feign emotion. I would actually like to be more emotional and caring in those situations but I never can, it always ends up very one-dimensional.

Something I found interesting the other day; usually I am a very restrained person physically, never been in a fistfight et al. I was with a few good friends (and one not-so-good one) and they were talking about how I was physically capable of beating the ever-loving shit out of them if I wanted to. This got me very riled up and I actually wanted to punch someone right then and there. O_o; Very weird.

(I've probably gone off-topic here, but whatever. :D)

HousesOfApollo

03-27-2008, 12:10 PM

Well, we all have an ESFP 'shadow', or as far as the theory goes. I'm known to be sarcastic, critical and biting when I'm angry. 99.9% of the time I don't blow up or yell, but in this sense, I'm much more adept at emotionally harming others if I stay relatively calm.

"Have you ANY idea how I feel?"

"Well, I have some ideas, yes."

"..."

"But see here, you're assuming that I care."

Haha. I do sort of the same thing to their ideas. I'm always very careful not to attack the people themselves; just their ideas. When someone's motives are questioned I find that usually things get quite nasty, and I don't do nasty very well. And, after all, I do care if they end up going through a meatgrinder or not; I just don't care about their little pathetic prejudices and crap. I have no desire to hurt people emotionally, and I'm not very good at purposely hurting someone's feelings anyway. That makes me a little cruel sometimes, but it never crosses over into unnecessary cruelty; the cap-off point is well defined.

That said, few people feel like they're separate from their core ideals. You know, the stuff drilled into them ever since they were wee little things. I have a tendency to steam roll right over people's comfort zones, since I don't see any set of ideas as being inherently 'Off limits'. Everything ends up simply being a strait-forward thesis on the chopping block, ripe for evaluation. Rarely do I see people as inherently bad; most of the time I just see them as mindlessly perpetuating bad ideas. I'm more likely to truly detest an operating principle than I am any one human being.

I definitely feel the same way. I can definitely argue that there are two sides to me, and they seem to be very opposing ends of the spectrum. However, they fit together somehow, since they are both a part of the same spectrum.

That is just the inner me. I definitely change according to the social situation as well.
I think my default is just the sarcastic, cynical person. It's my way of dealing with the meaningless politicking that goes on between people everyday. Everyone acts so politically-correct, "oh you can't say that" et al, I just love seeing how they react when I give them the verbal equivalent of a punch in the face.

I'm much more lax on this when I'm with my mates, who 'get' my style of just who I am, so I can be more open with them.

If I'm in an argument or verbal fight, I'll get emotionally invested insofar as thinking "You're a fucking dumbass, how can you not understand my point?". I try not to get into those kinds of heated arguments, nothing ever comes out of them.

If I'm a serious emotional conversation with someone who matters to me, I usually do quite well to feign emotion. I would actually like to be more emotional and caring in those situations but I never can, it always ends up very one-dimensional.

Something I found interesting the other day; usually I am a very restrained person physically, never been in a fistfight et al. I was with a few good friends (and one not-so-good one) and they were talking about how I was physically capable of beating the ever-loving shit out of them if I wanted to. This got me very riled up and I actually wanted to punch someone right then and there. O_o; Very weird.

(I've probably gone off-topic here, but whatever. :D)

Oh, man, I hate all those political comfort zones (Using that word again!) that people have. Like, if someone is a real heavy smoker, and sick all the time, why is it inherently 'mean' to point out the error of his ways? It's just retarded, and not my idea of compassion at all. What I would do -- what I always do -- is build a case against what I call the 'bad idea' and then mercilessly rip it. I'm like the country prosecutor, and the bad idea is the demented killer I'm determined to prosecute.

However, I know that at least here in America we don't call out others on the error of their ways. Even if someone is constantly on the soapbox and perpetuating lies, we don't touch him because we must respect the precious beliefs of others. In this country we believe "What we want to believe," and that lets us feel comfortable. The political debate here in America doesn't seem to be about ideas as much as it is about factions of people who believe "What they want to believe."

Such people seem like the shuffling workers from Apple's famous 1984 ad for the Macintosh; except I see them with smiles on their faces, since they believe in what they're doing. Yet, the reality is, quite often, that they're working for a corporation that doesn't actually make or do anything whatsoever, and could disappear off the face of the earth and no-one would ever notice. Because people often need to live a "Purpose-driven Life," they'll flat-out choose to believe that their lives are good, and that everything they're doing is the right thing to do. When I'm surrounded by people doing stupid things I really start to go crazy. Absolute stupidity is harder for me to grasp than complex philosophical ideas. It's too far beneath me.

I believe whatever my overactive mind leads to believe, and there is very little permanence to most of my beliefs. All I really have in life are my deep core values. Whenever I'm having an emotional conversation with someone I care about I try to solve the deeper problems behind their distress; I know that maybe I ought to hug or show more compassion in my face, but I usually settle for trying my best to come up with a solution to the problem. Oftentimes, my solutions are a little harsh, and I have little respect for those who disregard my advice. If you didn't respect my intelligence when you asked for my advice, don't come crying to me when things go south after you failed to heed my warnings.

I tend to give out a lot of advice; I feel like if something bad happens after I've warned someone, that it's a little less wrong. When I know for certain that someone knows the right, logically obvious thing to do and then does otherwise, I have little compassion.

"I told you so," is a typical reaction from me.

I know for certain that I can put anyone through hell if I can see it as being for their own long-term well being. I often fantasize about running an alcoholic rehab center where my tough love tendencies could thrive. One of the devious things I would do would be to lace bottles of drink with a strong stimulant laxative of some sort, then hide them somewhere in the facility. Upon finding these bottles, the patients would almost surely celebrate their cleverness. Then later, when they came to associate alcohol with extreme gastrointestinal disturbance, I would would surely celebrate my own cleverness, and remind them all the while during their agonies that even when they left the center that I would always be there; just to drive the point home. This tactic would be dangerous, and therefor would only apply to the most intransigent of alcoholics. Is this an INTJ way of thinking?

[The dosing would be difficult, and perhaps laxatives would be too dangerous because of risk of overdose and dehydration. Maybe the drinks would have to only be shot-sized glasses so as to delimit the amount of laxative they could ingest. I put a stop to this train of thought after I realized that such conduct would never be allowed. Better to let them believe what they want to believe instead of teaching them a difficult lesson. We have to be nice even if it kills people.]

I often surprise myself with my deviousness. Probably because of the aforementioned 'Diet Coke' qualities of my personality. Sometimes I'll be going about things, feeling quite normal and nice, and then all of a sudden I'm Professor Moriarty (Albeit the more sympathetic Moriarty portrayed in Star Trek: The Next Generation). For example, I could be coddling a puppy with all the gentleness in the world, all the while thinking, "What if we gave imprisoned sex offenders the option of freedom if they volunteered to be castrated and tattooed with a mark of shame upon their foreheads? Then we might stop obsessing about them, at least a little bit. It's cruel and unusual, I know, but it would be their choice." [This is a silly idea, I know. Most ideas I have are silly, but then again I have an awful lot of ideas.]

This essential edginess is why I believe that I'm INTJ more than INTP. As I understand it, they're a little more laid-back about things than their 'darker' cousins. No-one has ever described me as laid-back. Not once in my entire life. I'm more edgy, and dramatic. I like it when things are stark and bold.

Minerva

03-27-2008, 03:13 PM

Has anyone here experienced a temporary shift of emphasis within their own personality during a particularly intense competition with someone else? This happens to me quite often whenever I end up arguing with someone who is extremely emotional about the way they make decisions in their lives. Whenever I'm around someone who is extremely emotional, and there is a confrontation, I find that I recoil and act like an absolutely stereotypical INTJ. The traits of this personality type become very pronounced in me when I feel threatened, or if someone is trying to manipulate me on an emotional level. All the typical negative stereotypes of the INTJ are then lobbed at me. I am "evil" all of a sudden.

In this state, I'll tend to be much harsher than usual, and critical of the other person's mindset. My mind begins to focus on my opponent's faulty appeals to emotional bias, and then I will begin to tear it apart mercilessly. This tendency of mine is probably why I am TJ more so than F or P, though I sometimes feel more balanced than many others seem to be.

I would venture to say that you are INTJ, and when dealing with an someone with a strong F preference, your extreme logic comes out. I have noticed that INTJs love ripping theories apart. In your mind there is always a better, more efficient way to do something. As an IF, I tell you that emotion does get in the way. However, I would advise that when dealing with an emotional person, try to be as tactful as possible. Feelers do get hurt by bluntness.

My suspicions about this balance have been supported by my reactions to an entirely different situation. Sometimes, I end up conflicting with someone who shares Thinking and Judging personality traits, but is more extreme than I am. To these people I'm more likely to argue that it's a good thing to have a heart, so long as it remains a backseat driver; it can offer suggestions, but they had better make sense to the Thinking Man behind the wheel. The debate never ends, though. Few actions are taken before a very intense inner dialog occurs.Whenever I'm contesting something with a person who is extremely Thinking/Judgment I start to take on the softer edges of my lesser Feeling side. Now, I don't entirely switch over, but I do recoil all the same. I suppose that this might be because I'm sort of like a 'Diet Coke' subtype of the INTJ profile.

I am not surprised by these conflicts. Again, INTJs love a good argument, right? ;) I think it all depends on how well your Feeling side is developed. So if your "opponent" is more Thinking that you, your F comes to the defense, in the effort to show your opponent a new novel way of looking at something.

Empathy often manifests itself, albeit far too slowly to help me much in casual encounters. Love is strong, one dimensional, and lacking nuance, but I'd like to have it in my life more than hatred. Rarely am I emotionally motivated, and when I am polite to someone so as not to hurt feelings, it's usually calculated so that empathy doesn't bite me at some point in the future. Since the harsher tendencies of my own personality used to get me into a lot of trouble in my youth, I've learned to put on a front of benevolence that I don't always feel.

Hmmm... feels like acting doesn't it? I am ISFJ, but my iN and T is very developed. Sometimes I feel like an actress. There are times when I am so tired that I really don't wish to see anyone, but I have a meeting to go to or some dinner, or something like that. So, I put on my best face and just get it over and done with! You see, most people expect you to be "you" all the time. Whatever that may mean to them. But at the end of the day, no matter how tired I am, I do what I have to do, without stepping on anyone else's toes, or their feelings.

All this seems to slide on a scale for me, however, depending upon the situation. When something grates against my innermost operating principles, those principles become more salient; then if I am presented with an extreme image of own traits, they seem to be less salient than usual.

Many of the members of this forum seem like quite pronounced INTJs, and this lead me to doubt the validity of my own type. When, however, I investigated the MBTI further, and read some decent profiles of the INTJ that were based more on core psychological concepts rather than stereotypes, I found that it fits me quite well; the only difference seems to be that of degree, and balance. No other type seems to click into place for me, and I've been obsessed with this stuff for some time now. (I also happen to have a very pronounced, pensive, and piercing stare.)

Yep, it depends on how developed your S and F sides are. To what degree they are? I don't know... but you should have an idea.

Perhaps I am like this because I spend a lot of time trying to get in touch with my own shadow side; I'm always trying to look deeper within myself. There was a time in my life when I felt as though I were actually two people, a scientist and a dreamer. These two opposing elements of my psyche seemed to wrestle for a long time, until eventually I felt much more like the scientist. I'm speaking metaphorically now, of course.

Personal growth occurs all the time. All through our lives. The greatest journey one will ever take is getting to know oneself. However, getting to know oneself does not teach you about human interaction. With a well developed extroverted thinking, (keeping the bluntness to a minimum when addressing Feelers) you can learn to live well in the world of people. It takes a lot of practice for some of you guys, but if you work at it, you know you'll get it. When you know yourself well enough and you know how you react to things, then you can improve your reactions... refine them to enrich your life.

Now, I am curious about what you guys have to say about this. Any similar experiences? Thoughts? Are there any other 'Diet Coke' INTJs out there? Thought and analysis are welcome, as always ;).

HousesOfApollo

03-28-2008, 01:16 AM

All quoted text is Minerva's:

"I would venture to say that you are INTJ, and when dealing with an someone with a strong F preference, your extreme logic comes out. I have noticed that INTJs love ripping theories apart. In your mind there is always a better, more efficient way to do something. As an IF, I tell you that emotion does get in the way. However, I would advise that when dealing with an emotional person, try to be as tactful as possible. Feelers do get hurt by bluntness."

What I find most difficult, is being tactful after being alone for awhile. If I'm socializing all day with others, I tend to be more amiable. If I'm alone, I sort of tunnel deep into that introverted thinking mode, and when someone walks in the door I register it as an interruption. Then I have to sort of shift back into my interpersonal mode; I see it like I'm a computer, and I have to boot up all these little programs to help me interact with the world. The tact module is an extension of the interpersonal operating system, and sometimes it take a while to load. When a project of mine is derailed, I am irate.

This is what I say inside my head: "Don't do that to me! Never! I will not tolerate this insolence, fool! I'll speak to you when I'm damn good and ready!"

This is what I say outside my head: "Why... hello."

I wish everyone in the world was into this personality stuff like I am. Then all I would have to do is wear a shirt that says "INTJ" and people would have some idea of how to relate to me. As things are now, I think we mostly just react to people as if they were the same type of personality as ourselves; this is probably why I think everyone around me is so devious.

"I am not surprised by these conflicts. Again, INTJs love a good argument, right? I think it all depends on how well your Feeling side is developed. So if your "opponent" is more Thinking that you, your F comes to the defense, in the effort to show your opponent a new novel way of looking at something."

I think that I react to the over-Thinking folks because I have the same kind of ideas in my head that they do. So, whenever I encounter them, the softer internal arguments within me are projected outwards. When I encounter Feeling people, there is no need for my emotional side to have any say whatsoever. The other person acts like a surrogate for my own inner, irrational demons.

"Hmmm... feels like acting doesn't it? I am ISFJ, but my iN and T is very developed. Sometimes I feel like an actress. There are times when I am so tired that I really don't wish to see anyone, but I have a meeting to go to or some dinner, or something like that. So, I put on my best face and just get it over and done with! You see, most people expect you to be "you" all the time. Whatever that may mean to them. But at the end of the day, no matter how tired I am, I do what I have to do, without stepping on anyone else's toes, or their feelings."

I don't often have meetings to go to, and I rarely have dinner with people outside my family. The closest I get are trips to the doctor, which are quite horrible for me because I have a deep fear of bodily harm. This sense of the inherent fragility of the human body has caused me a lot of misery. Whenever I hit up against an irrational phobia, my logic starts to just run around in circles; my frustration is immense since I always want to move forward with my plans, and these little quirks are holding me back.

I like to feel in control at all times; if a situation is not well in hand I am extremely nervous. The same is true of conversations that wander into my territory. I'm known for seeming to ignore a conversation, and then suddenly butting in by saying something like "If you do that, you will surely perish!" Of course, I'll then go on to explain my reasoning. My conversations are structured like a series of short prepared statements.

"Yep, it depends on how developed your S and F sides are. To what degree they are? I don't know... but you should have an idea."

I am Introverted and iNtuitive to an extreme degree. Most of the time, my communications with others are very restricted, and the only time when I really feel like I'm normal is when I'm engaging in written communications such as this. Feeling is strong, yet simplistic. I do not work out emotional problems, and instead allow them to fester deep within the confines of my mental discipline. Think of it as having emotions occurring inside, without any real dynamics. They just happen to me, and I wait for them to go away. There have been periods in my life where I felt like I was having an absolute emotional breakdown, yet no-one around me seemed to notice at all; the breakdown was all internalized, then suppressed by moving forward on some new project. All that ever really stimulates me is the concept of new things to do and work out. If I'm angry or sad that's just another problem to solve.

Whenever I seem to be in a rut, I contemplate this line from Led Zeppelin's classic track Stairway To Heaven:

Yes there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run, there's still time to change the road you're on.

If I am presented with a difficult choice between two unpleasant outcomes, my first instinct is to seek out a third path. I see myself as something of a navigator, always plotting courses through dangerous waters.

"Personal growth occurs all the time. All through our lives. The greatest journey one will ever take is getting to know oneself. However, getting to know oneself does not teach you about human interaction. With a well developed extroverted thinking, (keeping the bluntness to a minimum when addressing Feelers) you can learn to live well in the world of people. It takes a lot of practice for some of you guys, but if you work at it, you know you'll get it. When you know yourself well enough and you know how you react to things, then you can improve your reactions... refine them to enrich your life."

While I think this is true to a great extent, I don't believe we can change everything. One of the hardest things for me to come to terms with is the hard truth that I'll probably be this intensely introverted for the rest of my life, and that my emotions will always be poorly integrated. I think that I could probably do very extreme INTJ things if an unusual situation called for it, yet I would probably have a lot of internal guilt and remorse for it. Perhaps that makes me a little more tragic than the extreme INTJ model. Then again, it's a good motivation for me to make absolutely sure that I'm right. Interpersonal skills are important to me since I've never been a very good speaker; my skill in social situations comes from my innate abilities to argue my position. Though this only works on those who are open to such arguments.

Others have to meet me halfway, that's all there is to it. You're doing a fairly good job of it, and for that I respect you :).

[However, I do have a little criticism: I found how you commented inside the quote to be quite annoying since I had to copy-paste into textedit to separate your comments from my original statement. The quote feature didn't work because of the way you commented on my original text. Just keep that in mind for the future, alright? (That was tactful, right?)]

Minerva

03-28-2008, 04:18 PM

HousesOfApollo

03-29-2008, 01:20 AM

To HousesOfApollo

Firstly, I am sorry about the way I replied. I wanted to break your entry up and comment on each part. And, yes you were quite tactful.

Anyway, if it takes a while for you to "boost up" to personal interaction mode, then that's OK. You shouldn't be irate though. It is an invasion in your space, time, and thoughts, but try to remember that it probably was unintentional. INTJs are very rare and special in the way your brains work, so it is very conceivable that the person who interrupts you, has absolutely no idea that he or she disturbed you to such a degree. And saying "Well... hello." when you feel like saying the utter opposite is quite tactful. You should be proud. I have a close INTJ friend and when we were now getting to know each other, we got into some bad arguments because he would be so blunt, and as an F, I was hurt. But then as the friendship progressed, we understood each other better and we accepted each other. It turned out fine. Hanging out with me really improved his extroverted thinking. He used to offend lots of people -feelers anyway.

I agree. In fact, this personality type thing should be integrated into the school curriculum. People need understanding, not insults, being jeered at and the like. Ignorance is an immense problem!

Devious? Is that how you see yourself? Why devious?

Anyway, when I was in middle school, I used to wonder why people were not nicer to me. I always wondered why they were so different. Then as I got older I learned that not everyone thinks like me. Furthermore, everyone has a different background, so we all see life through different lenses.

Irrational phobias... You will find that all phobias are irrational. In fact, all feelings are irrational. Now... you probably know this, but, although you may not be easily in touch with your feelings, you are human. Part of being human is possessing emotions. However, the simple truth is that feelings are not to be reasoned with. They come and go. They are part of you. Feel them. Let them flow through you. You don't have to analyze them. This is why you get frustrated. Feelings were not made to be rationalized out. They are what they are. But yes... they do get in the way. How about trying to ignore them? Is that possible for you? I have learned to ignore my negative ones, but I have been dealing with them for so long.

Short prepared statements... typical INTJ. You have to practice to get good at something. I was always good with words and people. It goes with my personality type. Sometimes when I am hanging out with that INTJ friend I mentioned, I find myself protecting him when he says something really tactless and the other person is about to become offended.

You used the word fester when you talked about your emotions. That worries me. Is it that you hold it inside for too long and then you have one of these emotional breakdowns that no one seems to notice. Don't do that to yourself. As I am sure you know by now that that's not very healthy for you. At least you have this forum. That's good. At least you can write about things and bounce ideas off me. It is always an excellent idea to have someone help you through those times in your life. I know that you guys can be quite utilitarian, but instead of having things run wild for a long time, let someone help you better understand your feelings. It would reduce the time you experience these negative emotions. By the way... how do you solve being angry or sad? I engage in things that make me happy and makes use of what I know best. Anything that makes me feel good inside, you know?

Seeking an alternative way is not a bad idea, but sometimes you have to deal with a situation as it is. What happens if you can't find another route?

Nope, we can't change everything. You were born INTJ. And there is NOTHING wrong with that. However, don't think that you will always be this extreme introvert. You could end up being like that, but not necessarily. Practice makes perfect. But take baby steps. You don't have to master these things all in one great bound. And yes... it would be wonderful if we could all meet each other halfway. I say again, people need understanding from each other. As for doing a fairly good job, thank you for saying that, but I have been dealing with INTJs for some time now. Three of my closest family members was INTJ. One died.

Minerva.

One of the techniques I use when writing forum replies is to copy-pase an entry into textedit, break it all up, then write my response to each point; afterwards I'll delete the copy-pasted material, and hope the other person is smart enough to remember what he/she said; or look up and read the quoted text. This will look fairly awkward, but it is efficient:

My space is very important to me. It's like I need a certain amount of psychological room, and physical isolation provides that. As I see it, it's like I need open space so that there's room for all the new ideas and solutions I'm coming up with. When that space is full of people, my possibilities are delimited by their unpredictable presence. They interfere with my one-track mind as its racing towards one goal or another. People often think that because I'm hiding my projects from the view of others, that I'm up to no good; this is probably where the 'evil' stereotype comes from. Plain, simple projection at its finest.

One of the funny things about when I first looked into this stuff is how silly a lot of these information pages are. My first reaction upon settling on this type was, "But, I'm one of the good guys!" This was all sort of tongue-in-cheek, but it does indicate how this particular pattern of human personality is stereotyped.

If people started looking inward more often, and tried to understand each other's differences, this world would be a much better one. The achilles heel of all humanity is our collective dearth of self-reflectiveness. Often, I am thought of as very "belligerent." This isn't because I'm absolutely sure about everything. Quite to the contrary, it's because I've explored as many options as I can think about, all the while wrestling with doubt. Anything that emerges from such doubt has gained its strength from a kind of intellectual Darwinism.

The ideas of a truly critical thinker have a great deal of complexity and nuance after adapting to survive in such a hostile environment; they are the strongest. Inner conflict translates into outer resolve.

People think I'm devious because I keep my cards hidden; since they don't know what I'm doing, they just assume I have something to hide. Perhaps this is the leadership element at work. If I let people know that there's actually quite a bit of doubt inherent in my mental process, I may appear to be weak or vacillating.

I fondly remember an incident from my early childhood, from when I was about 6 or 7 years old: Two teenage girls from the local high school, my babysitter and her friend, were walking me home from school. Once we got home, my babysitter opened the gate in the yard outside our house; consequently, one of our dogs darted out into the street. Without hesitating for a second, I ordered one of the girls out into the street to stop traffic, and I sent my babysitter after the dog. To this very day, I don't know exactly why two girls twice my age obeyed me; all I know is that the dog got to live to a ripe old age, most probably because of my initiative. He was one of those dogs who just runs off and gets hit by cars; he was a moron, but a beloved one.

[My dad, his owner, was out of the house; therefore, I deduced that the dog would probably have run for a long time, and the probability of his survival on the streets was quite low since the dog was dumb enough to run after cars.]

People weren't nice to you because school is inherently hostile; it's where children go to absorb the inherent operating principles of their society. Such a process is likely to be stressful, since all advanced cultures suppress the natural tendencies of human instinct to a certain degree. Though this just might be that primitivist element of my mind speaking; I tend to think of people as self-domesticating animals.

I had to be dragged to school because it was so goddamn stressful. What was absolute murder, for me at least, was the Pledge of Allegiance; I got into a lot of trouble for lip-synching it. They hated me as a child; absolutely despised me. I always questioned everything, and that disturbed the peaceful authority of it all. Going to school was like going to war. To this day, I have an absolute hatred for rigid, undeserved authority. You know, the "Do what I say because I say it!" kind. I need reasons.

I did not want to say that stupid pledge, and they did not respect that; therefore, they convinced my parents to put me on Ritalin and antidepressants. My personality has this deep undercurrent of bitterness and anger primarily as a result of these unfortunate circumstances.

It wasn't until I quit these drugs cold turkey that these personality traits resurfaced; this was, to say the least, a profound experience. My development as a real person was paused during these [I]Drone Years, and I spend a lot of time trying to make up for that. Perhaps I ought to write a small essay on this subject, and post it here for discussion.

Heh, I would love it if there was someone who would advocate for me. With things being the way they are now, I have to let people make a lot of mistakes before they come to understand that I can quite often see these mistakes as plain as they can see the light of day. I do not think they are stupid; I just understand that for some reason or another they're not paying attention to the same things that I am. Other people seem to have misplaced priorities, while I see the wrecking ball coming this way.

Whenever my emotions are unusually intense, I try to act as if they weren't there. Working often helps; writing helps more. By writing things down in this fashion, I reify my nebulous emotions, and by reifying them I transform them into concrete ideas that can be analyzed and deconstructed. If this is not done, these feelings are likely to just sink down into my subconscious, thereby rendering more psychological harm.

INTJs, I think, are Intellectual Klingons. They're tough guys, born warriors; their minds are sharpened weapons. Laying their own personal weaknesses down in front of others to see is contrary to this warrior outlook; therefore, they probably find confiding in others quite difficult. [However, I wouldn't presume to speak for everyone here.]

I know for certain that I find it almost impossible to confide in others. Why would I risk exposing myself in that way? Especially since I'm so unlike everyone else anyway; they probably couldn't help me. The logic of it just doesn't work out; it's high risk, and I stand little chance of benefitting.

Now, I don't completely distrust these people; I'm just naturally defensive. I've learned from observing humanity that feeling-based life can render untold misery and heartache upon unsuspecting innocents.

[Not emotions, per se: I'm simply referring to decisions that are based greatly on emotional needs. It's difficult for me to imagine 'switching over' to that side. A friend can fall madly in love with some girl he doesn't even know, and I'll just shake my head. The concept that overwhelms me the most, however, is this nagging realization that I don't really belong in the people-driven world. If I'm invited over to someone's house, I'll often turn the invitation down, and give the person a tactful excuse. Really, though, the only true reason is that I just don't belong in their world; this inner world is the world for me. From a very early age their world regarded me with suspicion and contempt, and such things I do not forget.]

Ah, the classic dilemma: the impossible choice. Whenever I come across a decision like this, I usually just throw my hands up in the air and run off to brood. If I've really thought something through, and there just isn't any way to win, I'll let someone else make the decision. Afterwards, in my introspection, I'll try to figure out how I even got into such a predicament. My belief is that once such a decision has to be made, I've already made the wrong decisions long ago, and those miscalculations eventually pushed my back against the wall. All of a sudden the entire course of my life is uprooted; strategies must be reevaluated.

Once I'm against that wall, I've already lost it. The game is over. That is all.

It must be nice to have a family that's heavily rational; I probably would have had a better family life if there wasn't so much emotional drama. My various traits could probably have come from several different members of my family, but no-one in particular.

And I am sorry to hear about your loss. Despite the inherent callousness of my intellect, I am truly saddened at the loss of human life. A long time ago, I attempted to reckon the value of a human being, and I could not. This realization has humbled me with regards to human life.

I'm obsessed with all the values that we never add up during the course of our lives. My invisible world, as I like to call it.

Minerva

03-30-2008, 04:48 AM

To HousesOfApollo

I couldn't quote. The entry was too long.

Personal space seems important to most introverts. For me I really need time alone to my thoughts, and to recharge. It seems that INTXs need lots of room. Your thinking processes need a lot of quite. So you find yourself alone lots of the time... right?

Yep, many people have a way of thinking the worst of others. There always seem to be some impending danger, and the “weirdo” must be the cause of it. Too bad many of the “weirdoes” are introverts who tend to be more sensitive, particularly the INTJs (particularly to rejection).
Actually, you are one of the good guys. However, I think that extroverts sort of set the standard for living life. You see, being outgoing and happy and attending parties etc. is seen as being “normal.” Anything that requires time alone and away from people is looked upon as wrong. Suddenly you’re depressed or reclusive or, as you said, up to no good. I remember when I was in elementary school social workers were brought in because I refused to play with the other children. My teacher thought that I was being abused at home. What utter rubbish!

Well... how strong is your Judging? I have a very strong J and there are times when I cannot stand having things undecided. Perceivers like leaving things loose ended and tend to be more laid back. They also like looking at things from many perspectives. I tend to past judgements fast. Part of my personal development was learning how to let things remain open for a while and take it a little easy. I think the biggest difference between an INTJ and an INTP is that INTPs tend to second guess themselves because they see all sides of the argument and wish to ponder on them. It seems that the INTJ makes their judgements much more swiftly. However, as your J progresses towards the mean of 50% J, 50% P then you learn how to slow down your judgements. Of course, if you are a P, then it goes the other way.

Yes, people need to reflect more. Es act and then reflect, while Is reflect and then act. But introverts seem to be very sorely outnumbered during the run of the mill everyday activities.

The critical thinking is one of the things I loved best about my father. He would always balance out the fear of imminent danger that I felt as a child. Yes, inner conflict does translate into outer resolve, if you are strong enough. The more obstacles you overcome, the tougher you are. So the next hurdle may be a little higher, but we can make it, you know?

I don’t like people to see me vacillating either. In my circle of friends I am seen as the tough one. I don’t like being worried over. In this world, you have to know what you are about. I remember thinking once, “At the end of the day, no matter how many friends, lovers and co-workers you have, you face this world alone, and if you’re lucky you face it with God. And I walk with God.” You know you have to have faith in something- yourself, a deity, something... you know? Do you sort of hide from the people who know you best at these times?

Were you very organized as a child? Always seemed like you knew what you were about? Later down in your post, you said that you started to question things. This sounds INTJ to me. At any rate, although you were young, I imagine that you just sort of instantly sprang into action and barked (no pun intended) out orders, right? The girls obeyed probably because of the conviction of your voice. At the time they forgot the (somewhat erroneous) societal rituals of “being smarter because I am older.” INTJs tend to be natural-born leaders, but as Is you want to be left in the background. It takes way too much energy to de directing people all day long. Think of the life on the ENTJ- the executive. I have a friend who is ENTJ. I love him to death- he is highly intelligent, a wonderful conversationalist, and a great dresser, likes classical music and the list goes on. However, I don’t think I can have someone like that for a significant other. He just wants to be around people all the time! I can’t handle that! I can socialize, but not to the extent he does. No way...

How interesting! I hated elementary and middle school. I had to be forced to go too. I had absolutely no wish to be around my peers. They were so insensitive to me. I agree with your views of school. Now for the doubly interesting. Sometimes when I see some humans interacting, it reminds me of something I saw on animal planet. I know that strictly speaking, humans are part of the animal kingdom, but some people seem to have not evolved at all...

An essay doesn’t sound like a bad idea at all. That must have been awful and then to suddenly find yourself again... Interesting.

INTJs are particularly good at seeming faults in actions and arguments. That is another reason I really enjoy their company. As for someone advocating for you... have you ever had a relationship with anyone? I hope I am not invading your space here. Feel free not to answer. You kinda need someone in your corner, right? What about a best guy friend like an ENTJ. You’re a guy right? He would be a rational thinker, but would have great E-T.

I am glad that you found an outlet for your emotions. Do you keep a journal then? Yes, don’t let your emotions just build up inside you. Very dangerous. Then you may just snap one day and do violent things. You said working helps. Do you have a job that really takes your interest? Are you into science, linguistics, music, philosophy? If at any time you feel like I am invading your space, don’t hesitate to say. OK?

Finding a confidant is VERY difficult. Yes... why expose yourself? Speaking as an I-F who has been betrayed in the past, I am quite defensive too. People readily confide in me though. You know my personality type make me the perfect nun or priest? I used to wonder why people would come up to me and say “You look like a really nice person, can I tell you something?” And then they offload. And sometimes I don’t want to hear what they have to say, because it sometimes takes a gruesome form, but I listen, because when someone needs to talk, they NEED to talk and the best thing you can do for that person is listen. I was always decent with my logic. Get that from my dad, so my advice tends to be quite solid. There is your logic again. Looking at life through the lens of logic doesn’t prepare you for the crazy world of emotions, does it? Here comes the problem again. You are human and so you have something in common with everyone- human nature. Emotion is one of the fundamental building blocks of being human. But emotion seems to be the INTJ’s Achilles heel.

You don’t switch over, I think. You are a T, not an F. Affection for you would probably begin in your brain, not elsewhere. In my opinion, relationships such as these tend to last longer. Although I am rated as an F, if a man cannot handle me mentally, there is absolutely no attraction. It was never about how a guy looked that was important to me. It was always his brain and his mind. But then again, I come from a brainy family and I’m intelligent too.

Many times I feel like I am out of place too. It seems that your inner world is most sacred to you. From my experience, INs and IFs enjoy the company of each other because we like theorizing about how the world should be. But I am also an S, so I am able to get my heads out of the clouds. I know that the world you create in your head is much easier to deal with, but don’t lose sight of reality. I don’t think that any of us can truly forget those things most hurtful to us. We are all scarred by life. But the lessons that are learned the hard way are NEVER forgotten. The world is a very harsh place. Have you ever read Desiderata, a poem by Max Ehrmann?

Go placidly amid the noise and the haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible, without surrender,
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even to the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons;
they are vexatious to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain or bitter,
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs,
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals,
and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love,
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment,
it is as perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be.
And whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life,
keep peace in your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

Hmmm... seems like everything is your fault. You can’t be right ALL the time, you know. No one is perfect. People are fallible, including you. You go off and brood alone, right? You know, it would be helpful if you got another perspective on things. INTJs are notoriously independent. I believe that INTJs and ISFJs begin on opposite sides of the spectrum. So you made miscalculations... So what? It happens to the best of us and it happens to the rest of us too. And yes, in some ways strategies must be re-evaluated. Boy, you sound like an INTJ! Does it seem like you’re having some sort of mental meltdown and then you begin to rebuild your mental framework? Sort of how you think about life? You probably retreat into a quite place to think and sort of rethink your life? The final product is a slight shift in personality or a metamorphosis into a “new” you?

However, “the game is NOT over”. In fact, all it does is herald a new chapter in your life. May I ask at this point, how you would rate your self confidence right now?

Yes and no. Both my father and my brother, especially my brother could be quite insensitive to me. I shudder to think what would have happened to me as a young child, having a hard time at school without the emotional support of my mother. There was still some drama thought. My mother can be overly emotional and controlling. That is one of the reasons I live so far away from the rest of my family. Actually, your traits could be more removed than your immediate family. Or maybe you were just born you.

There is that negativity again- the callousness of your intellect. Just because you seem cold to the unenlightened observer doesn’t mean that you are not really a good person with lots to offer the world. So you’re not all touchy-feely and mushy. Don’t you have dreams and aspirations? Don’t you strive for something better? These are noble traits. I wish more people had more ideal dreams and the drive to put them to work.

But you really need to begin dealing with the world as it is. If you are obsessed with your internal world then you have to begin spending more time outside it. Hang out with an ESTJ or an IS. Start using your 5 senses more. Look around you, listen, touch, smell and practice that extroverted thinking. An ENFP might be a good person to spar with, although it might be a little draining for you at first. Try to be a little more spontaneous, just try not to hurt any ones feelings. Again, take baby steps. You’ll get there.

HousesOfApollo

03-31-2008, 02:56 AM

Minerva, I couldn't quote either. This is one big conversation:

I don't like to be alone as often I actually am; life just seems to turn out like that for me. Were I to spend more time with people who shared my though-processes, I would probably be more social. Not extraverted, but engaged with people who are interested in what I have to say; and say interesting things themselves.

My concept of space is an integral part of my life. I love space because when there is a lack of it there isn't any room to reconsider anything. When in the presence of others, their own preconceptions about life take up thought-space in the discussion. I cannot discuss many things with people. Partly because I am slow and careful to formulate words, and also because I tend to be blunt and aggressive when I debate. Usually I'll just let people talk, then attempt to find weaknesses in their arguments. Even the most innocent of statements is fodder for attack. Whenever I let something I don't agree with go without rebuttal I feel like I'm running contrary to my innermost tendencies; this is why I decided on this personality type other than INTP. It seems as though I've been conditioned to act more passively than I really feel.

In school, people thought that I was dangerous. I am not particularly fond of living in a world that is alien to me. Oftentimes, I wonder what it must be like to act and think like "most people do." Just a few hours ago, I thought it quite odd that I have to imagine what it's like to be a member of my own species.

Not that I think being non-human is a bad thing; it could be good or bad, as humans define good by their own species-based bias. Being non-human is, however, a very unfortunate thing to be on an human dominated planet.

Whenever I need to make a decision, one of the first questions I ask is "how much time do I have?" And if I have a lot of time, I will second guess and ponder for as long as is necessary; even though I value decisiveness, I do not value rash decisions. If on the other hand, I have very little time, it depends on how much I know. Deciding what distribution of Linux I would install on a computer would be a quick decision for me. There are many variables which determine how quickly I'll make any one choice, and ultimately I'd like to be able to spend exactly the right amount of time pondering something; then know exactly when to decide. In recent years I've been working to peel away at the layers of inhibition that have constricted my naturally aggressive tendencies; I like making decisions, and knowing my strengths and weaknesses.

This whole personality type thing has helped me to do this. My theory, as it is now, is that I'm an inhibited INTJ, and I am miserable most of the time because I act contrary to my own personality. This I discovered by a close analysis of my writings from before I was this interested in the MBTI, so as to eliminate any bias I may have towards one particular type.

One the characters from a story I worked on (but never completed because the quality of my writing never lives up to the quality of my ideas) is actually quite interesting. You see, he was this very introverted billionaire who made all his money in technology. He wasn't known for this, though, since he is more famous for being "The Most Rational Man In America" and writing a book that revolutionized how living spaces were designed. Everything about the guy was extremely logical and utilitarian; hell, he even lived inside of a geodesic dome, a highly efficient structure. In the past, he was married, and had a son. To make a long story short, something absolutely horrible happened and he became obsessed with analyzing it. He withdrew and become even more aloof than he already was. He ignored the feelings of all those around him, and was consumed with the absolute senselessness of the catastrophe. His wife, feeling unloved, left him and took his son. Non of this registered then, since there was only the humongous problem. The humongous problem possessed and obsessed him.

Then my character became deeply involved with a scheme to keep the life-forms of the Everglades alive in a gigantic BioSphere-like structure he built on his property, since by that time in the future the Everglades were almost completely destroyed. Did I mention that he also loved arguing?

I identified with this character of mine. His inability to make his family feel loved mirrored my own interpersonal relationships; his subsequent obsession with perfection also mirrors my response to catastrophe. All he had left in life is that tiny recreation of the Everglades--keeping that system in working order is what motivated him. When this story turned into a post-apocalyptic character drama I sort of put it aside; I cannot competently write such serious drama. One day I might write this story as it was meant to be written.

People often think I'm slow because I am careful about everything I do. This I believe stems from the fact that I do reflect quite often, and anything that happens in the future must be foreseen. Another reason why I avoid people like the plague is their tendency to derail my own personal plans. They cannot be easily predicted within short timeframes; therefor, they cannot be factored into anything meaningful that I plan. They are more likely to quit, or to do an inadequate job, than to be of any real help.

After being left alone so often, I learned that everything I do in life, I must be able to do it alone. Trusting others is something that I do not find easy to do. Whenever I've come to a crossroads in my life, and I have no choice but to trust another human being, I have nightmares about that other human betraying me. Because, after all, you can never really trust someone else. As much as I'd like to think that I could, I can never look deep enough to know what's hidden behind another person's eyes.

I don't have faith in other people; I have some faith in myself now. In my world you are born alone and you die alone. The only thing in my life that makes this reality even tolerable is just think it all to death. Once the option of dumbing yourself into bliss has been eliminated, you can only aspire to thinking yourself out of misery. I don't believe in God, or anything like that. But I'm OK with all this because I once had an even bleaker view of reality, if you can believe that. The biggest problem that I have now is that I obsess about death all the time. Everyone else around me is so alive, but I seem dead already because I've thought that far ahead.

In some ways I was organized, and in many ways I was not. When it came to things that I cared about, I was extremely meticulous. I didn't really care about house cleaning, or anything else like that. All that mattered was whatever thing I was exploring at any given moment. One of the pieces of evidence I submitted as a case for INTJ nature was the fact that I was never any good at strait-up action video games. The games that I was good at were strategic games that could be won on the strength of strategy and entailment ability alone. Whenever there was an option to develop my own unique strategy to succeed, I would usually; however, when the rules of the game were more rigid, I struggled. Starcraft was a favorite of mine, even though I was never very good at it because my primary strategy was defense, and that game rewards offense. I played defense as well as anyone can, though.

I figured out this type based on how I think I really act, not who I believe myself to be. The analysis of my past is ongoing even as I type this out.

I think my brother may be an xNTx, since I intuitively sense that he is on my wavelength so-to-speak. We often finish each others' sentences, and when we're really excited about one idea or another we can talk really, really fast and it drives people crazy because no-one can else can follow it.

Elementary school was horrible. Whenever I see a child crying for no apparent reason, I suspect he may be crying because of the painful process of acclimation to the arbitrary rules of society. Whenever your awareness expands, there must be pain. The pain when I emerged from the Drone Years was immense, as I suddenly had a different, confusing yardstick for my own life. Anything that happened before then, doesn't matter now.

But then again, I've only been free of the mental haze for about four years. So even though I feel old, I also feel much younger than I really am. My own life seems so senseless to me, so I back away from it. I just feel like this disembodied brain most of the time, and it's rare for me to relate to someone. Often it is as if I were invisible.

I have a massive journal that has totaled roughly 400,000 words. I began writing it a few months after emerging from the Drone Years. When I read through the entries now, it tells a story that is still ongoing. This is my way of coming to terms with a life that doesn't seem to be optimal. Oftentimes I've lapsed, and forgot about the journal. I always return to it because I need to reify something that I can't deal with any other way.

My own internal reactions that I have to emotional types such as yourself is telling. I used to really fight and conflict with others, and I lost quite a few friends this way. I sense the presence of my own internal censor, though I think that I'll probably make you angry somehow anyway.

I wouldn't say that emotion is my Achilles heel, but I will say that emotional people are quite difficult for me. It took me about twenty posts here for me to get over my habitual mental ducking after posting something on the internet. Usually, the kind of stuff I say and the statements I make will get me flamed--there doesn't seem to be much of a flame war attitude here. That's not to say that I don't disagree with the people here, I'm just more confident that I can handle these guys; that whatever happens, we'll be speaking the same language. Most everywhere else, I get the impression that the discussion is just going to get more and more unstable until it eventually just collapses. Here, there is at least a line of communication. Far too often it all just gets shut down in a conflagration of rage as sensitivities are steam-rolled. However, I rarely comment on threads because usually someone else has said what I was going to say anyway! Perhaps I ought to do what you're doing and go over to the "Dark Side" and engage in discussion with people who are fairly different from myself.

You are very much out-of-place here, it seems. It's wonderful, though. I think if people like myself spend too much time in isolation we tend to become super aloof Machiavellian Macho Nerds who are obsessed with IQ scores. ;). Then again, that's less scary to me than what happens when Feeling-types get caught in feedback loops. You remind me a lot of people I've really disagreed with, but in no way am I holding that against you.

No, I haven't read that poem. I have little understanding of poetry, as I'm always trying to convert it into a more coherent form in my own mind. It is a good poem to remind me of what life is like on the other side. Whenever I see people really taking the sights and sounds of life, smelling the flowers, and breathing the air, there is something that I tell myself to make it clear where I stand. I say to myself, "I don't live there." To others this may seem quite cryptic, though it makes perfect sense to me. The "there" is the world of the senses, and the warmth which comes from connection to the low-level of human reality. Nothing in my life will ever be that simple and warm, and because of this I tend to think of other human beings as happy, ignorant animals.

I'm always thinking ahead. Sometimes I think decades ahead, even centuries. I can't pick out fruit without attempting to project the consequences of my actions up until the energy death of the universe. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to really taste that fruit, and to enjoy the subtle colors of life around me. I will never live there, but perhaps one day I'll be able to visit.

This is where the differences between us become quite stark. Whenever a plan of mine falls apart there is nothing else for me to do. You may have other psychological resources to use, but I do not. The only thing that can solve my misery in such moments are great new ideas and projects to involve myself in.

My self-confidence is entirely dependent on what I'm doing; I'm confident about some things, and significantly guarded about others.

My mother is the most emotional person I know, and my father is probably an INFP. Needless to say, we disagree with each other. Our bond has little to do with our personalities--as we all should actually hate each other--and has everything to do with a deep thread of primal human loyalties.

We don't pick our families, though I do wish we could--at least temporarily--pick our own personalities. Everyone could benefit by looking through a different lens.

Minerva

04-06-2008, 09:09 PM

Houses o Apollo, I like long conversations. I wanted to answer before, but got really busy with work.
That is unfortunate. I remember being the same way when I was younger. There just didn’t seem to be anyone I could connect with on a friend basis. I was quite lonely. Yes, I agree. If there was someone who shared your interests, it would really help. There would be some common ground for discussions. Are you in University? I remember when I was in college, quite a few INTXs and INXJs and INTXs found themselves together. They were very comfortable around each other, because they understood each other and had lots to talk about.

How can you improve your social life? You have to think about how others perceive you. If you are always rushing off somewhere, or always with your nose in a book, or in your room at the computer, then you will be seen as someone who just doesn’t have time for anyone. If you don’t have time for anyone, that translates into you don’t care about anyone. Which, I think, is not true. My sociability improved when I stopped for a while, and engaged in conversations. Laze around a little. Be a little more laid back. It may work. If it feels like acting, then maybe you’re not ready for that yet.

When you say conditioned, what do you mean? You mean that the unspoken rules of society would consider what you really want to say or do as inappropriate? Bluntness can be a major problem. Sometimes I think that the freedom of speech is something of a myth. Some people get so offended so easily that sometimes it seems that you’re not free to give opinions. I have to ask you here, do you take things too literally? I remember when one of my INTJ friends and we were getting to know each other, he was unable to differentiate between playful teasing and me meaning what I said. Maybe some statements are made out of frustration. Sometimes people don’t even mean half of what they say. Isn’t there anyone you can think of, besides your brother who can understand you? Know where you’re coming from?

I am not surprised that people saw you as dangerous. Most people never seem to look beyond the book’s cover. This is so very unfortunate. I was always able to see beyond, even if it wasn’t particularly clear. I always “knew” that there was so much more than just what can be perceived by the 5 senses.

Did you see the movie ET? It is absolutely dreadful being on a planet of aliens! But that’s just it! You are human, although many times, I have felt ashamed to be part of the human race. The things people do to each other! When did we lose our humanity?

Ah, ever the perfectionist! Rashness gets nobody anywhere fast! Except backwards! . Always be aware of your strengths. Utilize them, polish them and make them SHINE! Find that which you are good at. It may become your passion for the rest of your life. Yes, and be aware of your weaknesses. Work on them too. I congratulate you on working on your inhibitions. I constantly work on mine too. This is what I call personal growth. I wish more people would do this. It would really help them. But people need to see the reason for change first. And to do this, he or she has to come to terms with his or her personal flaws.

Yep, knowledge is power. Reading up on the MBTI and getting really interested in psychology helped me too! Inhibited INTJ… maybe. Time to find something fitting for you. This is kinda exciting, don’t you think? It is like being on the brink of some sort of self discovery. Derailing I know, but sorry to say, life is going to be like that sometimes. Have you thought about seeing a counselor. (Please don’t shoot). They are required by law not to divulge anything.

Thank you for sharing a little of your story! When I was particularly low in my life, I began a story. I will finish it one day. I identified with my heroine. She was visited one night aliens. They needed something from her to save their dying race. The wonderful thing about the story was that although the aliens needed her, she needed them just as badly because she needed to be rescued from her circumstances. Back then, I wished someone would rescue me from my misery. But alas, no one came, and I had to do it on my own. I didn’t do such a bad job! :p

It is rather funny how people seem to misread everything. Because you’re not a fast talker and a bragger, you’re slow. Yes, some people have a way of mucking everything up, especially after some careful planning. Seems that people need to be more disciplined and lean to follow through with plans. Sometimes people are the plague!

The future cannot always be foreseen. In a way, that keeps life interesting, though. Can one ever really be prepared for life? Completely prepared? The answer is no, because sometimes things come from seemingly nowhere. Yes, the world of people is rather unpredictable. You enjoy strategy and planning. But you can’t move others like pieces on a chess board. All you need to do is find one person that may fit into your master plan. I know… easier said than done. I am well into my 20’s and I haven’t found a man who could win me over yet. There was one, some time ago, but it didn’t work out. Funny… he was INTJ. Sometimes I think anything else won’t satisfy me. Besides coming from a brilliant, rational family, I guess I am a hopeless romantic and a dreamer too!
Well, nothing is wrong with being selective. I want something special, because I know that I am special, in my own way, and so are you.

Words of truth! You can never really know what lies beneath. Do you even know what lies within you? I have found that I sometimes surprise myself. There have been times in my life when I pushed myself beyond what I thought I could take, and still landed on my feet. Sometimes you have to take a chance. You know, as well as I that life is already too short. But fear not. There will come a time when you will learn to be a little more carefree. Seems to me that you are not ready yet. But that’s ok.

People do have a knack for letting you down. From your words I gather that you feel dead because you are dead inside. Do you mean that your emotions are suppressed, or are you depressed? Death is the final chapter of life. It is part of life, but it is the last page. I don’t know how many pages you have left, but you have to fill them with something. Maybe dumbing yourself to bliss isn’t that bad, you know? Ask yourself, what is it that these people see that makes them alive that I don’t? There is so much beauty in this world. There was a time when I couldn’t see it. But I tell you that when you get out of that dark place, you know reside in, the world would be a much brighter place. I speak from experience, not just because of some cliché. What do you think would make you more “alive”?

My brother who is INTJ loves games of strategy. This is one of your special strengths. Being able to see ahead and not being obsessive about right-this-moment. Sensing people are more aware of the now, like me. I liked things ordered, my brother couldn’t care less about the house.
Although we take this test, it isn’t fool proof. You are the final judge of your personality. After all, you have spent the most time with yourself. You are the best judge, by far.  I am going through my past too, as I try to answer your questions.

I think getting a sense of purpose would really help you out. You need to concentrate your mental energies on something constructive. Do something that utilizes your particular strengths. I think that when you see that you can put yourself to good use; it will make you feel better. Now, don’t be afraid to fail. NO one like failure, but that is how we learn. We cannot learn without making mistakes. You’ve been out of the haze for 4 years. How has this time been for you? Now I know that I may be beating a dead horse here, but I really think college or university would be a good place for you to meet some people on your wavelength.

Your internal reaction? Hmmm… interesting that your reaction to an F is to tell. I really enjoy taking to Ts. Maybe we instinctively know what we lack, so we instinctively want to know what’s it is like on the other side. Curiosity, you know?

Is that what you really think? That I would get angry with you? I am far away, and I don’t even really know you. I cannot, or rather should not, judge you just by our conversation you. I don’t have enough data. True, I am thinking and judging what to say, but I am judging your words, tiny facets of you, not you entirely. Not everyone is blind, you know. Just 99% of the population. ;)

I am an F by default, so emotional people are not difficult for me to figure out at all. You have to remember that your brain functions under the auspices of a Thinking not Feeling. No flame war, because it is a bunch of Ts. Flame wars happen when too much emotion is flying around. Funny how confidence comes with a sort of charm. You’re comfortable here, so you can speak your mind. So you have to learn how to be comfortable in the rest of the world. Scary, I know. Well, maybe not the whole world, it is a rather big place. But you can begin mastering small pieces if it. Here in the forum, I think it is a very good start.

Habitual ducking… you’ve been ducking too long. So long, that it is a habit. Inhibited INTJ… you may be on to something.

Right again… I am very much out of place here. But like you, I also think it is wonderful. Thanks for not holding my Feeling tendencies against me. . I was born that way. But I have grown a lot since then. I had to. After all, we both know that life isn’t easy, and it’s not fair either. But I made myself into a survivor, and developing my T is one of the best things that I have done for myself. And I didn’t develop it like you would whip up a dish. I learned through experience. You know… that is how life is. When you want to accomplish something, bite the bullet and do it. There is no other way to handle life. Build your confidence. I wish there was some magic recipe, but I don’t know it. You have to face the world alone (you know this). So make yourself strong enough to do it. I know you have the potential. From our, albeit, short conversation I can tell that you want more from life. Go for it! It is there for the taking. Don’t be afraid of life but take your time because fools rush in where angels fair to thread. Somehow I don’t think patience will be your problem.

LOL! In a way we are ignorant animals. We are all ignorant about one thing or the next, and we are part of the animal kingdom, you know!
So you don’t live there. Where do you live then? In your head? Careful not to live there too long. You run the risk of loving being in there too much and then you will get yourself into a bind because you won’t be able to come to terms with reality and see it for what it is. You see, we can make up the most perfect world in our heads, and escape into it any time we feel like it. However, you have to strike a balance. You have to know when to get your head out the clouds and start to live in the world as it is. There are many things worth the time in the world we have currently.

So you move on when the plan falls apart. Moving on is good, but do you learn your lessons though? What has that now broken plan taught you? Do you reflect on it and see when you may have gone wrong? A new project is good, but will you make the same mistake twice?
I think we all have things that we are not comfortable with, and so we are defensive about. These are the things that we must work on in order to improve ourselves.

Hate each other? I am imagining some really bad fights among the members of your family?? Two Fs for parents and you being a TJ. Hmmm… not too ideal.
We can’t pick our family, but we can pick our friends. And we can develop our personalities. I am not the stereotypical ISFJ, I have not been for some time now, because I have worked on my weaknesses, since I have had no choice in the matter. It was learn to survive, or let life get the best of you. The latter was not an option I was willing to explore. A different pair of lenses. My sentiments exactly!

HousesOfApollo

04-14-2008, 02:50 AM

Sorry this took so long; I didn't get a notification and assumed you just dropped the conversation:

I wish that I was in University, as I do believe that I could thrive in an academic environment. However, I have so many issues with others--especially authority--that I tend to act stupidly around others. I always feel as though people are staring at me, laughing at me. I can't tell if they're laughing at me or with me. If they are teasing me, I do not know, because I listen to what people are saying instead of how they are saying it. The tiny nuances of gesture and intonation tend to escape me. After all, I'm living here, and they're living there.

I spend an awful lot of time reading college textbooks. People are always asking me what college I go to, and it's embarrassing to answer truthfully. Whenever I'm asked about what "I do," I usually tell people that I am a student. Then whenever I'm asked a question about what I'm studying, I'll look at the world around me and say, "all this, that's what I'm studying."

Technically speaking, my natural talents trend towards the literary. On the linguistic portion of an IQ test I took years ago I scored as genius (I'm not obsessing over this, though).

Practical considerations aside, I am a writer. Even though I tried to deny being programmed for such an arduous, lonely lifestyle, I couldn't deny who I was. Who else but a writer gets out of bed at 3 A.M. to write down precisely what he's thinking and/or feeling. Yes, I said the F-word. Whenever it's 3 A.M. and I'm stressed, there's definitely some F. I may get ostracized around here for saying this, though.

One of the weird, social things I'll do is I'll sometimes talk to an internet friend in the middle of the night. When I can't sleep past 3 A.M., I just know something is bothering me. So, I'll get on the computer and I'll talk to someone and be nearly completely candid in every way that matters. Who I am on the internet is precisely who I want to be in life; there's no tough guy internet persona. I think this stems from my natural ability to put things into words.

Laid back? What's that? Conversations are difficult for me because I either can think of nothing to say, or I am trying to take it over completely when it wanders into my territory. Oftentimes, people will ignore me because they think that I'm saying whatever I'm saying because of mental illness. I've been marked in life as someone whose brain is defective. Whether it be because of depression, or OCD, or ADHD, somehow whatever I have to say is not as valid as what they have to say.

As a result of this, I often have to build very convincing "cases" for people to do something, or even coerce them into listening to me. "I'll do this for you if you'll hear me out," is something I find myself saying all-too-often.

I've been negatively conditioned. Whenever I felt good and active as a person my behavior became troublesome for others; I would argue with them, question authority. One of the more telling memories of my childhood is the great debate I had over evolution with a Fundamentalist Christian playmate of mine. I was no more than eight or 9 years old, and even then I couldn't resist an argument.

"I believe that God made the world in seven days because it says so in the bible," he once said to me.

"Why should I trust the authority of one book? What makes that one book have any more authority than any other book?" I replied. He could give no answer.

This kid was very inhibited by his strict religious upbringing. He didn't even listen to popular music, since his parents had programmed him to believe that it would put evil thoughts into his head. I vividly remember thinking that I could open up his mind to the world around him. My arguing was incessant, and eventually we had a falling out. To this day I have no regrets; he must now lead a sad, fearful life. I tell myself that I tried to free his mind, and if he couldn't understand what I was trying to do it was his loss.

I wanted him to listen to the music, but he would hear no evil. Then when I tried to show him how big the world really is, he would see no evil. Such a concept was entirely alien to me, as I saw evil everywhere. When you close your eyes to evil, that's when it creeps up on you.

After losing enough friends, I certainly felt like ET. But even ET had advocates, while I was estranged even from my own parents. They do not understand the difference between personality quirks and mental illness. I try not to be too angry at them most of the time, though I cannot say that it is an easy task.

For most of my life I've been desperate to gain their understanding, because I couldn't stand the thought of them pushing me to hating them. If they don't stand with me on this new project of mine, I will probably hate them. The project is called, "This Will Not Be Easy," so that at no point in the future will I fall into the trap of thinking this all will be easy.

Finding my strengths and polishing them are things I'm constantly trying to do. When I first discovered that this MBTI type was probably a good rough map of my psychological tendencies, I decided to experiment to find out if there was anything at all to this. I decided to do things that are supposed to satisfy and fulfill INTJs on a deep level. I focused on those things and found that I am quite comfortable doing them. As strange as it may sound, I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do with my life until a month or so ago. Doing these things just out of pure curiosity energized me out of a depressed state.

Now that I have differentiated who I really am from what I was taught to be, the path seems incredibly strait-forward. What pains me now is that, for years, I could not see how obvious it all was, and that I wasted a great portion of my life on apathy and defeatism. Now I will always feel like a shadow of the person I could have been. I really hate the "could have beens."

When I was young, my parents would take me to many different counselors. Every time they tried to pry open the inner workings of my mind, I'd close up and resist their probing. They were part of the world that had tried to destroy me. Everything outside of myself was the enemy. Sometimes I still get this feeling when I'm talking to someone else. You have brought some of these buried thoughts and sensations out, since you word things very much like some of the counselors I had. I do not hold it against you.

If I went to a counselor now, I would probably benefit just by talking to someone who is intelligent and listens to me. Counselors are paid to listen, though, and that undermines the connection, I think. I still believe that perhaps there are intelligent people out there who will listen to me for free.

A man to win you over? Now I have some potential advice for you: what about trying to win over the man? I know it's backwards, but if we're talking about someone who you would consider, he's not likely to be a pig. I never understood why it's men who have to seek out significant others. If women do not desire to spend their lives with chauvinistic pigs, then they should go out and actively seek men who aren't. You can't expect people who are naturally somewhat guarded to actively court a potential source of pain. Just a thought, of course. I might be taking your statement a little too literally.

My heart, I know, would have to be won over. It would have to be a persuasive argument where the conclusion follows directly from the premises. I'd have to know for certain that I wasn't being manipulated. See, I'm somewhat of a romantic too.

The people around me seem so alive to me because they're living right now. Within my mind, I've projected to the moment of death: my own death, and the energy death of the universe. Because I envision so much death and decay, I am less aware of life. This is isn't something I'm proud of. I treat it as a side-effect of my own thought processes.

I absolutely detest housework. For one thing, it never amounts to anything. When you clean house the result of your effort soon dissipates. I would much rather work on projects with greater long-term rewards. One day, I hope, we'll have robots to do all our household chores. This is a childhood dream I'm never going to let go of.

Waking up from my drug-induced haze was one of the defining moments of my life. It's difficult to explain to someone who doesn't understand how much better I felt thinking horrible thoughts again, and to be overcome with pain and despair. I think that because I was completely repressed for much of my life that now I may be more emotional than if I had never gone through such a psychologically bizarre experience. When the repressed psychological contents resurfaced, it was very, very traumatic. Here is an excerpt from my journal during this time period:
[I]I haven't taken any Paxil for the past few days, and I'm feeling the effects of this. But I tell myself, I am not feeling it now nearly as bad as I'd feel it coming down from this stuff one, two or five years hence; I tell myself, "I'm stronger than that." It's hypocritical of me to have been taking them, but the happiness was real. I wasn't taking near enough to be 'helpful', so those feelings were natural. What I am in the act of doing right now is the only 'art' therapy I can do, for I cannot draw or doodle for my own well being. I've tried that, and the effect is far from desired. No, I must develop natural means of dealing with these debilitating feelings that overcome me, as a man must learn to run on metal feet. Some would say it's an 'imbalance' that must be corrected, but stinking chemicals are never going to fix the things that are wrong with me. Oh, they might lull me into complacency, and rob me of all impetus for self-edification, but they wont genuinely improve my life. It's an object, placed into the realm of consciousness. Whenever I was happy, I thought about it, and I knew that it was false happiness. And whenever something bad would happen that I should be ashamed of, I would feel nothing. It robbed me of full Humanity, and I could no longer abide it. This is why I say, "I must improve."
I still very much feel like a man learning how to run on metal feet. This is the most honest description of the last four years of my life that I could ever give. Now I know that I can run, I only need to stop ducking and trust my inner self. I've always been right, but I've been too afraid to show it because as a child I learned--quite painfully--that if I stick my neck out at all, my head just might be sliced off.

Why should I hold your feeling tendencies against you? Unless, of course, you were rubbing them in my face and trying to justify some sense of superiority because, of course, I'm a supposedly heartless person. You're trying to be fair, just like I am. To your credit, I'm terrified of trying to talk to the F-types (sounds like a car model).

Joining this forum is actually part of a new strategy I'm implementing in my life. I decided that I was a complete underachiever when it came to talking to other people. For example, I would spend hours arguing with twelve-year-olds about music. I just decided that maybe I ought to push myself a little harder.

The members of this forum are challenging people, of course, but I'm speaking their language. I'd rather a challenging person who can understand me than an easy one who doesn't get a word I'm saying.

And yes, I often disagree with my parents. Sometimes this erupts into a passionate disagreement, but I know how far I can go most of the time. I think they resent the fact that there's no real justification for their anger--that I'm just rubbing them wrong.

Jane

04-14-2008, 10:38 AM

I was reading the conversation but could not finish, I have to leave soon. I’m a diet coke INTJ, I’m a diet coke of everything actually.

I’m 15 this year and speaking martyr-complex free, I had anorexia when I was 12 and a half, that’s the first time I almost killed myself--- no one knew I was anorexic, no one knew about that suicide attempt, I recovered by myself when I was in my early 13s, it took a lot for me to recover. I was okay for a while until the depression came back and lasted around the end of last year. At that same time, I had a confusing internet relationship which left me more messed up than I was. Shall not attempt to cramp that heavy load into this short space of time.

Arts matter a lot to me. (I used to be a major science freak though) As I’ve said in the ‘Weird habits’ thread, when I was 13, I was obsessed with philosophy, I was an INTJ then and when I was close to 14, I was into writing plays, I dropped that in my early 14s for poetry, I was an INFJ. Then I went on to photography (last august) and in between, I became an INFP which I dropped this feb/march for short stories. Around a few weeks ago, I’m an INTP. (And actually along with all these, there’s 3 confusing internet relationships going on). Now, I’m an INTJ, although all of them are rather pronounced except for the P/J, I can never be sure if it were to change again. But something about it tells me that I’m staying INTJ and staying at writing.

People suggest that I’m mistyped, but even in other facets of my life, change is the constant (that’s the diet coke ‘P’ part of me). For example, I can never listen to the same song for 2 days, I listen to everything from bubblegum pop to (real old) country to death metal and also, even though we move house on an average of once per 3 years, I feel restless after a few months and I normally change rooms and I even change back into my original room if there’s no other spare rooms for me to change to.

“Just a few hours ago, I thought it quite odd that I have to imagine what it's like to be a member of my own species.”

I relate to this a lot. I often scorn the human race, criticizing the way ‘they’ are heading. I have a blog post on this To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. its written by the 'I' 10 days ago. Before I was an INTJ, I’m often ashamed of who I am the day before--- I change this lot.

Parents-wise, its the opposite, its my parents who converted the FP (I believe I was a FP when I was young) into the TJ. My mother, I believe is an ISTJ and my dad, INTJ. Despite the fact that we’re the same type (now), I can never disagree more with anyone than him, no matter which type I am.

Before I was an INTJ, I seemed to live in a fantasy, bombarded by thoughts, thoughts, nothing but thoughts. I converse to myself in my mind--- an almost 24/7 non-stop talking because I sleep when I want to and I don’t normally prefer sleep. My parents care a lot about my sleep habits, its from 11 to 7, or else I’ll die. So I normally use my cell phone light to read or write on bed. Coming to think of it, I always do these things to dodge from my parents. My parents object to almost everything I like doing. I was once banned from reading/buying/borrowing books, then I was banned from using the camera, I was devastated (though I don’t understand how I would want to suicide because my camera was confiscated. Change of personality perhaps). My parents are control freaks, really bad ones, but I don’t mind them now, can’t do nothing.

My life in the last 3 years is about conquering, conquering and conquering. And around a month or 2 ago when everything is over, I feel that I have no feelings at all left--- not the ‘F’ we’re talking about. I took the depression test and got a 92%, because the only checkbox I didn’t check is ‘I am feeling depressed/sad’. I don’t feel it. I wanted to end my life but I don’t feel the frustration and desperation. Its this flat, flat feeling.

Its quite weird talking like this on the internet once again, I used to repeat and repeat my misfortunes over and over again to people--- until I got sick. Perhaps that’s one reason that got me straightened up.

When I’m with Fs, I get a little frustrated with them deep down but I switch my personality to an F temporarily and fit in perfectly. I get along with everyone, I’m this ‘middleman’ in school, I hang out with everyone but my closest friend is an extreme ISTJ (I’m 92% N and she’s on the exact opposite end of the spectrum) whom I have a lot of arguments with. Seems like we all need the opposite of what we’re getting.
You seem to be bombarded by thoughts, when the thoughts run dry, you’ll be normal, but your thoughs will never run dry, I think. Don’t rely too much on the Internet, but who I am to say this because (I suppose) your reality might not be much better. And I’m way past my F days to say something emotional to you, hahaha.

I still love to analyse myself and love the mbti. I’m ‘feeling’ now, feeling refers to the ability to get angry and hate people. I whooped with joy the first time I got angry a little more than a week ago. Sounds ridiculous but its great getting out of being a borderline sociopath. Now, I’m just going about my daily life (oh yes, I think A LOT about the future, though not displaced from reality).

Speaking of writing, is there any way I could see the unfinished story of the Everglades introverted billionaire? (And, any book you published?)

Are you planning to get out of this ‘state’ of yours or remain or are not planning to do anything yet? Or am I mistaken that there was ever a ‘state’?

True Rune

04-14-2008, 07:37 PM

As an INTJ yes, as I try not to go off by myself or cannot go off by myself in social situations..

HousesOfApollo

04-14-2008, 09:33 PM

II’m 15 this year and speaking martyr-complex free, I had anorexia when I was 12 and a half, that’s the first time I almost killed myself--- no one knew I was anorexic, no one knew about that suicide attempt, I recovered by myself when I was in my early 13s, it took a lot for me to recover. I was okay for a while until the depression came back and lasted around the end of last year. At that same time, I had a confusing internet relationship which left me more messed up than I was. Shall not attempt to cramp that heavy load into this short space of time.

When you mentioned your "early 13's," that made you seem pretty young. A confusing internet relationship? What other kind is there? I suppose that the relationships I have over the internet tend to take on a coworker-type dynamic. The people whom I know over the internet are involved in endeavors that tend to be similar to my own. I enjoy collaboration and brainstorming over the internet since people who think as I do are very rare; therefore, I must avail myself of this vast resource if I'm to have any hope of working with someone who understands what I'm talking about.

I've always thought that the internet could be used for something really profound, and I tend to take my internet communications more seriously than I think other people do. This is probably because I take ideas very seriously. All this stuff is important to me, as silly as that is.

Arts matter a lot to me. (I used to be a major science freak though) As I’ve said in the ‘Weird habits’ thread, when I was 13, I was obsessed with philosophy, I was an INTJ then and when I was close to 14, I was into writing plays, I dropped that in my early 14s for poetry, I was an INFJ. Then I went on to photography (last august) and in between, I became an INFP which I dropped this feb/march for short stories. Around a few weeks ago, I’m an INTP. (And actually along with all these, there’s 3 confusing internet relationships going on). Now, I’m an INTJ, although all of them are rather pronounced except for the P/J, I can never be sure if it were to change again. But something about it tells me that I’m staying INTJ and staying at writing.

You're all over the place!

I would attribute this to the fact that you're at a stage in your life when you're going to learn and change an awful lot. At your age, the brain still has a great deal of plasticity, so it would follow that you naturally go through these phases. This should be embraced; by not knowing exactly who you are, you don't have to worry about liking who you are just yet. Just don't try to be someone you're not.

I People suggest that I’m mistyped, but even in other facets of my life, change is the constant (that’s the diet coke ‘P’ part of me). For example, I can never listen to the same song for 2 days, I listen to everything from bubblegum pop to (real old) country to death metal and also, even though we move house on an average of once per 3 years, I feel restless after a few months and I normally change rooms and I even change back into my original room if there’s no other spare rooms for me to change to.

I tend to play albums to death. Sometimes, if I particularly like an album, I'll listen to it several times in one day and analyze every nuance within my understand of music. I listen to any kind of music that I think has merit, and ascertain that merit by objective inquiry.

Up until a week or so ago I used to occasionally change the orientation of my bed. Now that I've moved a desk into my room, I no longer have any free space.

II relate to this a lot. I often scorn the human race, criticizing the way ‘they’ are heading. I have a blog post on this To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. its written by the 'I' 10 days ago. Before I was an INTJ, I’m often ashamed of who I am the day before--- I change this lot.

Reading that blog entry was eerie for me, as I wrote a journal entry that was similar to it about two years ago. I'd quote the entire text, but that would be violating the profanity regulations here (it was sort of an angry rant). Here is an excerpt from it, however: And, friend, if you were genuinely happy and pleased, I wouldn’t be asking so many of these questions. But I’ve seen how you are late at night. Watching the late shows, bags under your eyes. And as you shuffle to your computer, take a pill from your bottle of false-contentment, then swallow it, I throw my arms up in the air. And as you move from one pointless YouTube video to the next, chatting up a storm of useless words on MySpace, I try to understand why you ignore me. Why my voice must be so viciously squelched, I cannot understand.

You’re sleeping now, I see you in your oversized bed. It’s supposed to sleep two, and now it only sleeps one. Your mind is in the place where I exist, and that is why I am speaking to you now. When you wake, you’ll vaguely remember me. Yet when you hear about the family of 12 falling into a river and drowning, and what Brad Pitt is doing right now, you will forget having ever known me, so there’s no point in even telling you.

I’ll never forget about you, however. Never stop waiting for you to see Game Over. Maybe then I’ll have a meaningful conversation with you, and we can be the friends we once were. Until then, listen closely to the silence. Then, maybe one day, you’ll hear my sullen sigh...
The vast majority of my writing is over on deviantArt (which I loathe), and you can find me if you want because I have the same username there. I'm not published, though, because I'm not perfect. I had stopped writing for a while, but now I'm back to my old ways. The quality of my work in the future will be much higher than it has been in the past. Most of the writing is in the journal, of course. Now I'm quite serious about creative writing.

IMy life in the last 3 years is about conquering, conquering and conquering. And around a month or 2 ago when everything is over, I feel that I have no feelings at all left--- not the ‘F’ we’re talking about. I took the depression test and got a 92%, because the only checkbox I didn’t check is ‘I am feeling depressed/sad’. I don’t feel it. I wanted to end my life but I don’t feel the frustration and desperation. Its this flat, flat feeling.

For awhile there, I lost all feeling completely. This I attributed to the fact that I had felt more than I could probably tolerate. Whenever I attempt to look really deep inside myself, I usually find a great deal of repressed rage and sadness. If I didn't have that wall of thinking between me and the darkness deep inside, I would probably be a very out-of-control person.

I was once concerned about my own flatness, but I'm not anymore; because now I'm absolutely certain that I can still care and feel, but it just has to be for something that really, really matters. Day-to-day existence doesn't feel like much of anything to me. If something truly big and profound were to happen, then I know that I'll have the appropriate response. Most everything else is too trivial to get worked up over.

IIts quite weird talking like this on the internet once again, I used to repeat and repeat my misfortunes over and over again to people--- until I got sick. Perhaps that’s one reason that got me straightened up.

I used to whine a lot, but then I learned that whining didn't move my life forward at all. Now I just take my problems and analyze them; use them to try and come to an understanding. Sometimes people think that I'm whining, or venting, but I'm not--I'm just reifying something I can't understand on an emotional level.

And I’m way past my F days to say something emotional to you, hahaha.

I'm not known for saying emotional things, yet that doesn't prevent me from being a confidant; sometimes emotional people will cling to me because I can make sense of situations that are cloudy and difficult to understand. Most problematic situations in life do not require emotional support--they require vision and understanding.

Grief is the only circumstance that seems to require a catharsis. Though I may be wrong.

II still love to analyse myself and love the mbti. I’m ‘feeling’ now, feeling refers to the ability to get angry and hate people. I whooped with joy the first time I got angry a little more than a week ago. Sounds ridiculous but its great getting out of being a borderline sociopath. Now, I’m just going about my daily life (oh yes, I think A LOT about the future, though not displaced from reality).

I used to be able to write these long-winded angry rants every single day. Then I eventually exhausted my source of rage, and now when I do get angry it's buried under a great deal of analysis.

IAre you planning to get out of this ‘state’ of yours or remain or are not planning to do anything yet? Or am I mistaken that there was ever a ‘state’?

I think that I might be getting out of this "state" now. For a good few years, I was morbidly discouraged; technically I was depressed, though I didn't really feel depressed. It was as if something essential to my being just did not exist, and now it does. All that I need to do now is overcome my deepest phobias and improve my self-control.

Blacklustre King

04-15-2008, 10:54 AM

HousesOfApollo

04-15-2008, 02:41 PM

My eyes hurt from reading all of that...

I agree, however, though emotional people do tend to excite my anger I rarely lose my cool. I'll calmly pick apart and destroy their whole perception of reality, nothing pisses me off more then drama queens.

It is a pretty big conversation, though I've had even larger ones. We're lucky to have that Procrustean 2,000 word limit; otherwise we'd chat ourselves to death. Sometimes I even count the words, just to see when I'm right at 2,000.

Or what about drama kings? They're even worse. I especially cannot stand the fake suicidal people. Or those who just fake deep mental disturbances just to draw attention to themselves; I detest attention mongers. Those would do anything just to get people looking at them. Those punks who get a new lip or nose piercing every week because having ten rings in your nose makes you more "yourself" than having only nine.

Minerva

04-26-2008, 06:53 PM

Nope, didn’t drop the conversation. Now, I must apologize. I got really busy with work. I’m sorry for taking so long.

You said that you feel embarrassed when people ask you about your academics. Fix that! You KNOW that you have to potential, but the onus is on you to do something about it. The only advice I will give to you is this: Go to college. Try a very small, highly selective college. Will your high school grades allow you into a selective school? I say small because there would be less people to interact with, and selective because you want to be with some progressive thinkers. However, at a small school, gossip is that much worse and it is hard to become invisible if need be. So maybe a large school, where you’re more of a statistic than a person may even be better. I don’t know… you will have to judge for yourself. Bear in mind that the only people who really understood me were people in my upper level college courses, and my VERY few close friends, three of them INTJ.

No one else but a writer does that. You’re right! So you found your passion! Go with it… This may very well be what you are on this planet for. So you said the F word. So you have feelings… WOW! Don’t worry; I don’t think you’ll be ostracized. I haven’t been. You said that when you are stressed “there's definitely some F”. Interesting… So your shadow comes out when you’re stressed. I’m not surprised... my T comes out with full force when I am stressed. I guess it’s the mind trying to cope with whatever stimulus caused the stress. For example, in times when my feelings are very low, or when I am depressed about a situation and I find it hard to function, I go into Thinking mode because I have work to do, and I simply don’t have the time to stay in bed and mope.

Yes, talking about what you’re feeling, or rather typing what you’re thinking (in your case) is always a good idea. You must have an outlet for things that are bothering you. Having the internet friend means that you don’t have to carry the whole burden of your problems alone. When you share your thoughts with someone is very therapeutic. Isn't it good to know, in the back of your mind, that there is someone out there who is willing to chat with you at 3 in the morning, and maybe offer advice?? :)

Laid back is used to describe someone who has a relaxed or mild personality. So when I said “Be a little more laid back” I meant take your time, relax a bit. Don’t be rushing all the time. How about taking a lazy walk through a park and look at the things around you? Start paying attention to details. For example, pick a flower and look at it. Really LOOK at it. Try to imagine what others see in it, or why it appeals to them.

Do you have a friend in the flesh? Do you have someone that you can talk to in person, who is truly your friend? There is no other way to improve interpersonal skills that to practice with real people. Being INTJ means that you will be socially distant by default, but you have to find some way of improving, and you cannot do that by yourself. You also have to find someone on your wavelength. You mentioned your brother. Has he moved away? You’re at home right? Is there anyone else like him, who you can converse with? I have not found you to be brain-defected. You are lonely, but not crazy. At least that is my opinion from this conversation.

I understand that you were trying to help that 9 year old kid out. You were trying to make him into a better person by trying to open his mind up to more ideas. Evidently, he was not in a position to accept what you were saying, so he stayed away from you. Your arguments challenged and so threatened everything he believed in. What you said to him made him very uncomfortable. So he stayed away from you and you lost a friend. You were NOT wrong to try to help him, but he did NOT want your kind of help. It is a case of knowing when to hold back. If you say something and the listener is NOT willing to entertain your ideas, then it is time to move on to some other topic. Trying harder to offer advice, will lead to this person becoming offended and he or she may cut the relationship off. That said, if you can’t be yourself around someone, then that someone is NOT a friend. He or she may be an acquaintance, but not a friend. However, it will make your life run more smoothly where others are concerned. You have to learn when to STOP trying to liberate people from their own darkness or ignorance. Do you understand what I mean?

Yes, ET had advocates because he found some people who were willing to make his plight and fight their own. That is exactly what you need. Humans are social creatures. There are many times when I am willingly alone. But we were not designed to be ALWAYS alone.

I don’t find it strange that you didn’t know what you wanted to do until a month ago. I am glad that you found a purpose. Yes, it is that way for me too. My work energizes me. I think people like us all take the journey of “What is my purpose. Why am I here? How can I best contribute to the world around me?” If you’re lucky, you find your purpose in your early adulthood. So now you have work to do. Doesn’t it make you feel (or in your case, think :)) wonderful!

Consider these words that I wrote some time ago when I was leaving for college: “Here I stand ready to do something with my life. I know what I want to do and I have all the potential I need. It is wondrous, but at the same time frightening, because although I know what I want, I know not what life has in store for me. Although I make plans, life has a way of just happening. Since I know that I will die one day, and I know not when, I intend to life each day to the fullest, towards my goal. A goal that I have set for me. A goal that is truly my own.”

If you hate the “could have beens” then don’t think about them! I have some “could have beens” too. But I let them fall away, and I concentrate on what WILL be. It is up to you to make your dreams come true. I guarantee that at least some dreams DO come true. But only when you put in the work. I am living proof that dreams come true. I am not theorizing here. There was a time in my life when I didn’t think I could or would make it. There was a time when I wanted to end it all by taking my own life, but I decided to fight instead. I am REALLY happy I did. At that time in my life, I had reached the bottom, and there was only one direction to go. And that direction was up. My work rescued me. If I didn’t have my academics, I don’t know if I would be here today writing this message.

You are not the first person to tell me that I sound like a counselor. I seem to have the ability to reach deep within people. That is why I think so many people have confided in me throughout my life. I have lost count. I don’t mind listening (well reading) what you have to say. If it's any consolation, I sometimes feel paranoid about the world. Sometimes I feel like everyone and everything is the enemy. But sometimes is it my mind playing tricks on me. I have made situations into monstrous things, in my mind. Creating problems where there was none. Sometimes you have to step out and step back from a situation to really evaluate it.

The INTJ I mentioned to you, did win me over, and he did it effortlessly. He didn’t do anything, but be himself. I am not one to be in and out of love, but there was something quite special about him. I did go after him. Sadly, he closed himself off to me. We no longer speak. I frightened him with my honesty. I told him that I found him attractive, and he could not handle that. He had been rejected many times by women he saw as perfect.He found himself being manipulated by the last woman. Again, I was not aware of these things until it was too late. I lost him. Too bad, huh? He was (and I guess still is) deeply romantic too, he just couldn’t trust me enough. After having so many women reject him, can you blame the man?

Just find an honest, upfront woman, who likes you for you. Very difficult to find, I know. But there are some.

Detest housework? Don’t tell me you live in a sty? Yes, a house will never keep itself clean, but don’t tell me you are content to live in a dirty house. That is really unhealthy.

Always trying to improve: Yep! That is the idea. That is what I believe in too. The worst thing is to become stagnant and too comfortable. You must push past your comfort zone, you know. Always challenge yourself. How else are we to learn?

College is a great place to get away from your parents. But it can also be a scary place. Consider college carefully. You learn so much there. It’s not just about academics, you know. You learn about life in the Big Bad World! ;)

changos

04-26-2008, 08:45 PM

We are well defined but versatile if we want to or feel like to. We can open up sometimes and just bee deep E, or F's with our trusted loved ones perhaps. Also it is known, mentioned and acknowledged that we INTJS can mimic others becoming almost any type. Ive came across this matter on other discussions, also in my personal experience, we might blend, mix and adapt to the social situation if we (by some strange force) see it is worth or fun doing it so.

Per example, Im INTJ pure blood but at some social situations I can be the most extravert guy taking over the action... and then hiding and dissappearing :)

fonmaneal

04-29-2008, 05:22 PM

You can tell INTJs, they are short, sweet, and to the point. Not making each and every post a book full of nothing!

Parallel

04-29-2008, 05:54 PM

HousesOfApollo

05-05-2008, 12:32 AM

You said that you feel embarrassed when people ask you about your academics. Fix that! You KNOW that you have to potential, but the onus is on you to do something about it. The only advice I will give to you is this: Go to college. Try a very small, highly selective college. Will your high school grades allow you into a selective school? I say small because there would be less people to interact with, and selective because you want to be with some progressive thinkers. However, at a small school, gossip is that much worse and it is hard to become invisible if need be. So maybe a large school, where you’re more of a statistic than a person may even be better. I don’t know… you will have to judge for yourself. Bear in mind that the only people who really understood me were people in my upper level college courses, and my VERY few close friends, three of them INTJ.

I'd say the single greatest personality hurdle to overcome is the fact that I can't think at all when people are around me--it has always been this way. When something needs to be figured out I'll tell people that I'll be "doing research." Sometimes I get a lot of crap for it, but I know that my way is better; even if people don't like being left out of the decision-making process.

Research is the primary reason why I've been away for almost three weeks. Obsessive research, I might add. As of right now, I'm obsessed with Paranoid Personality Disorder. The paranoids are out to get me, I swear.

No one else but a writer does that. You’re right! So you found your passion! Go with it… This may very well be what you are on this planet for. So you said the F word. So you have feelings… WOW! Don’t worry; I don’t think you’ll be ostracized. I haven’t been. You said that when you are stressed “there's definitely some F”. Interesting… So your shadow comes out when you’re stressed. I’m not surprised... my T comes out with full force when I am stressed. I guess it’s the mind trying to cope with whatever stimulus caused the stress. For example, in times when my feelings are very low, or when I am depressed about a situation and I find it hard to function, I go into Thinking mode because I have work to do, and I simply don’t have the time to stay in bed and mope.

Well, you don't have "xNTx" in your name, so we're probably just all assuming that you're going to spout unbelievably irrational crap--and then we're shocked by our own low expectations of F-types. :P. [Kidding!] In fact, I know another ISFJ here on the internet (I found out after obsessively making everyone I know take the MBTi test) and she's one of the most insightful people I know. I think that we like to talk because we both have the same interests but we don't have the same motivations; she's interested in people because of her emotional needs, and I'm interested in people because I'm trying to make sense of something that is quite alien to me.

Generally speaking, ISFJ's bring out my my most loquacious tendencies; even more than other INT types do. With INT's there seems to be a combination of shorthand use of language and a strong desire to communicate. With ISFJ's I sense a deep desire to communicate, and I reciprocate that.

Yes, talking about what you’re feeling, or rather typing what you’re thinking (in your case) is always a good idea. You must have an outlet for things that are bothering you. Having the internet friend means that you don’t have to carry the whole burden of your problems alone. When you share your thoughts with someone is very therapeutic. Isn't it good to know, in the back of your mind, that there is someone out there who is willing to chat with you at 3 in the morning, and maybe offer advice??

Indeed. As a matter of fact, during my extended absence I came up with a plan to provide many of my friends with that same 3 A.M. outlet. Think of it as sort of a secret writer's club that communicates directly over e-mail. [Though it's much more complicated than that.]

The main purpose behind it is to challenge these people as well. Think of it as a little like these long conversations but with set rules to sort of keep things focused.

Laid back is used to describe someone who has a relaxed or mild personality. So when I said “Be a little more laid back” I meant take your time, relax a bit. Don’t be rushing all the time. How about taking a lazy walk through a park and look at the things around you? Start paying attention to details. For example, pick a flower and look at it. Really LOOK at it. Try to imagine what others see in it, or why it appeals to them.

I thought of something similar to this after sort of crashing from a minor hypomanic state a few weeks ago. I said to myself, "It's time to keep an even keel."

Do you have a friend in the flesh? Do you have someone that you can talk to in person, who is truly your friend? There is no other way to improve interpersonal skills that to practice with real people. Being INTJ means that you will be socially distant by default, but you have to find some way of improving, and you cannot do that by yourself. You also have to find someone on your wavelength. You mentioned your brother. Has he moved away? You’re at home right? Is there anyone else like him, who you can converse with? I have not found you to be brain-defected. You are lonely, but not crazy. At least that is my opinion from this conversation.

I dislike being lonely--it sort of tarnishes my reputation as an introvert, and calls my entire personality into question. Sometimes, I'll worry about actually being a tortured, rejected extrovert; though that's only when I'm lonely.

And no, I don't have any friends that I can talk to in this manner. I don't even really talk about this stuff with my family--they have no idea how advanced my personal explanation of my own weirdness is now. In fact, I actively try and prevent them from discovering my "type."

I don't want anyone in the real world to know my MBTi type because I do believe that this system can be misused to grossly oversimplify and stereotype people. Some less-nuanced thinkers may try to attribute every flaw and positive to your type, and dismiss or accept you on that basis alone. The INTJ type in particular seems to suffer a lot from over-simplification. I do, however, explain the type when I am trying to explain myself--I just don't tell anyone where I'm getting these concepts. So instead of applying the label first, I expound on the deeper underlying meaning of these things.

Which is as it should be.

I just think of it as the kind of lens I'm looking through, that's all. If sometimes I seem a little harsh it isn't because of those four letters; it is because I'm a truth-seeker by nature, and the truth is not for pansies. I find the labels and then I reject them to explain a deeper truth.

I understand that you were trying to help that 9 year old kid out. You were trying to make him into a better person by trying to open his mind up to more ideas. Evidently, he was not in a position to accept what you were saying, so he stayed away from you. Your arguments challenged and so threatened everything he believed in. What you said to him made him very uncomfortable. So he stayed away from you and you lost a friend. You were NOT wrong to try to help him, but he did NOT want your kind of help. It is a case of knowing when to hold back. If you say something and the listener is NOT willing to entertain your ideas, then it is time to move on to some other topic.

That's difficult for me to do. What kind of person would I be if I let ignorance slip by? I hate it when people just lock up and refuse to even listen to me. All to often I end up having to manipulate them into listening to my ideas. Needless to say, they don't like me very much for it, but the alternative is me not liking myself at all for my own apathy.

Hating myself is how I overcome apathy--it is pure poison to my innermost nature. I used to always worry about "slipping into apathy," but not anymore. It makes me nauseous.

Yes, ET had advocates because he found some people who were willing to make his plight and fight their own. That is exactly what you need. Humans are social creatures. There are many times when I am willingly alone. But we were not designed to be ALWAYS alone.

As of right now, I am alone nearly 23 hours a day. When I am not alone I just deal with others in a perfunctory, completely rote manner so that even then it's like I'm alone. The best argument I have against secret extroversion on my part is that I would have probably lost my mind by now.

I actually like to be around others when I'm going through a particularly neurotic phase; like the time I utterly panicked when I profoundly realized that we know neither the past, the future or the present. The past is what we imagine through our inaccurate memory processes. The future is unpredictable. The current moment is dead by the time we observe it.

When I was pacing around my room frantically trying to perceive the very exact nanosecond we all exist in, I would have really liked to have had someone around to slap some sense into me.

So now you have work to do. Doesn’t it make you feel (or in your case, think ) wonderful!

It kind of makes me feel overwhelmed. When I have work to do I need to basically snub everyone on Earth. I tell them, "I'm going to be gone for a long, long time, and then when I come back I'm going to be very awful and rude because my ability to talk to other people will have shut down."

Having practically entire weeks all to myself is very useful, despite the fact that it does tend to magnify my own negatives. They don't understand, though, and I'd rather not alienate everyone if I don't have to.

My social skills are on life support now. I think I need to do some more research. For now I make sure to talk to someone who is an F-type for certain at least 30 minutes a day--I'm sort of getting that in now.

The INTJ I mentioned to you, did win me over, and he did it effortlessly. He didn’t do anything, but be himself. I am not one to be in and out of love, but there was something quite special about him. I did go after him. Sadly, he closed himself off to me. We no longer speak. I frightened him with my honesty. I told him that I found him attractive, and he could not handle that. He had been rejected many times by women he saw as perfect.He found himself being manipulated by the last woman. Again, I was not aware of these things until it was too late. I lost him. Too bad, huh? He was (and I guess still is) deeply romantic too, he just couldn’t trust me enough. After having so many women reject him, can you blame the man?

Women seem to think that I'm cute, and I'm usually offended. Cute is something that connotes childishness; cute is something that isn't taken seriously. I can't say that I shut down quite to that extent, but I sort of give up on interacting with the other person. What could I possibly have in common with someone who attributes a quality to me that is also attributed to Hello Kitty? It's just so demeaning.

I probably would have ran away in his situation, too. I wouldn't, however, just cut off communication like that. More likely, I would have just written an e-mail stating my intentions, as wrenching as that would be, and keep a line of communication open. Because if someone ever came that close to my inner world, I might be motivated to push them away because it is when this inner world is threatened that I am at my nastiest and most defensive. There are many people who I like very much and respect, yet I don't open up to them because for one reason or another I believe that they'll set off that defensiveness. They take it personally, though, even though I do it for their own good. When I learned how to defend and protect this inner world through misinformation and silence I became a much friendlier person, I think.

Once, I was extremely bitter, cynical and hateful. Then I discovered that these things were not really a part of who I intend to be; I have bigger dreams. There are few things that motivate me more than overcoming a negative stereotype. In finding my type I just found another stereotype for me to debunk. ;).

We are well defined but versatile if we want to or feel like to. We can open up sometimes and just bee deep E, or F's with our trusted loved ones perhaps. Also it is known, mentioned and acknowledged that we INTJS can mimic others becoming almost any type. Ive came across this matter on other discussions, also in my personal experience, we might blend, mix and adapt to the social situation if we (by some strange force) see it is worth or fun doing it so.

Per example, Im INTJ pure blood but at some social situations I can be the most extravert guy taking over the action... and then hiding and dissappearing

I've found that I relate to some types better than others. For example, I tend to fight with ISTJ-types quite often because the intuitive difference causes problems with communication. ISFJ's are easier for me to deal with because we're less likely to get into an intellectual argument. Extroverts of all kinds are difficult because they tend to talk non-stop, and I can't say anything without being rude. This is perhaps because I'm a bit more introverted than usual, thereby having slower reaction times in conversation. By the time I get to talking the conversation is usually over, and then everything I had intended to say gets turned into a rant or an essay when I get on my computer. Introverts are actually easier to talk to when they actually decide to speak.

When I actually get to talk to an extrovert it's like catching a mosquito with my bare hands. I didn't even know it was possible until about a month or so ago.

They're so damned hyper...

You can tell INTJs, they are short, sweet, and to the point. Not making each and every post a book full of nothing!

See: To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

INTJ's are whatever they damn well choose to be.

Wow, you basically said everything I'd say to describe myself.

I tend to have a default coldish, typical INTJ setting; however if I come across someone who is much more extreme in being unemotional, some hidden empathic side comes out and tries to make them see how one dimensional they are looking at things. And I try to make them see the emotional or romantic side of it.

And vice versa. For example when my INFJ boyfriend and I got into a fight about how clingy and emotionally needy he was being (although if he was in a relationship with any other type his behavior would be considered sweet and perfect bf materialish), I couldn't help but mouth off about how I could never understand why he was like that and proceded to analyze the chemistry between us as if I was in a laboratory.

And yes, it bothers me when I get too cold or too emotional so I always try to find a balance between them. I would say that I'm both a complete dreamer and a complete pragmatist. When dealing with social settings, I always put on more of an ENTP front as I've learned that socializing/meeting new people can be fun as long as one is open and from the observation that cold introverts are just a turn off to approach and befriend in general; so it does absolutely no good to make no effort to be friendly even if it doesn't come naturally.

My biggest problem is that I can't tell when I'm coming off as cold or not. It's not as if I feel chilly or anything. When I finally found out that I was kind of cold it came as a surprise to me. I'm still having trouble understanding all this, but I don't think I can deny it because it explains too many things for it to be entirely untrue.

I don't usually try to put on too friendly of a front for fear of attracting too many interrogative-types. Being friendly is one thing, but if I act too open I'll attract attention; and then people will try to probe into me and I'll end up coming off even more hostile than if I hadn't tried to put on a front in the first place.

The best that I can do is just try and tell as many jokes as possible. Humor seems to be the only thing that helps. I'm getting better at it, though.

Retz

05-05-2008, 05:12 AM

HousesOfApollo

05-05-2008, 10:22 PM

I am similar in that I find myself having a lot of all the types. However my beliefs are determined by logic my interests seem determined by a combination of logic and abstract thought and I find myself feeling very sentimental sometimes but however I feel logic still is the overruling factor.

To some degree I create my personality to suit my situation. I think of myself as a way of thinking with a personality attached to it most of the time and I try to develop my personality to suit who I'm talking to/what I'm doing.

However this is stifled by my self conscious attitude, once it has been conquered by my logic it should be smooth sailing.

There isn't much that doesn't interest me it's just that my thought processes do seem to be INTJ however most of the traits don't seem to be that accurate. Finding it hard to value people is one that really does stick out but instead I have a craving to understand and manipulate people not for my own benefit necessarily but more to know that I have the power and the control.

It's why I find things like Hypnosis and NLP such fascinating subjects.

I naturally have strong empathy but I don't really care it's more that I feel but it doesn't matter much couple that with being able to read most people like books and I find it hard to bother with anyone.

"Most people" technically make themselves into books with their extraversion--their obviousness is inherent since they're living "on the outside" so-to-speak. I think that this seems like a very dangerous way to live for an introvert. I am only marginally aware that most people actually exist, and I prefer this to just loathing them.

My intentions so far as manipulating people depends entirely upon who I'm dealing with. People who I admire and respect will be manipulated towards fulfilling their own potential; that's why I tend to push people into doing new things. Sometimes I get myself into trouble by treating other people like projects.

If I don't admire or respect someone, then the gloves kind of come off and I tend to manipulate them in all the usual ways. This is mostly subconscious, I think, as I've sort of lived in denial of who I really am. While I admire the positive things that I've discovered about myself, I still find it a little difficult to accept the negatives--or at least what I thought were negatives.

It has been therapeutic, though, to just openly accept everything I like and dislike about myself.

Minerva

06-03-2008, 03:49 PM

Not being unable to think when people are around… You and I both know that you will have to work on that, for we live in a world of people. Take a look at this webpage, if you haven’t already. To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

You do sound paranoid. It must be so hard on your brain! I think you should finish that story of yours. Channel some of your energy into a project. I know you like new things, but how about finishing something that you started? It will give you a feeling of achievement. That would help you with your self-esteem.

Ha ha! Yep, sometimes people are surprised at how cold and logical I can be. It has gotten me through some tough times. I am so happy that my father is INTJ!

Yes, ISFJs, have a strong desire to communicate. We seem to be able to bring out the best in people by believing the best and helping them see the beauty we (think) we perceive in them. It is like giving you a glimpse into your self by translating the bright hope we have for the future (for ourselves and you).

I’d like to hear more about your writing club. Feel free to PM me about it, if you wish.

So… have you had time to look at a flower or something? How about we look at an object and tell each other what we see. You pick the object.

Why is feeling lonely making you feel tarnished? I feel lonely sometimes. In case you didn’t know, you are human and part of being human is procreating. You need a female for that right? So you feel incomplete by yourself. We’re prewired to feel like that. Its in our subconscious. Feeling lonely is proof that you are human and not a robot.

Yes, maybe it is best that you keep your MBT to yourself. You don’t want people close to you thinking that they can predict you and maybe manipulate you. You have to learn to be comfortable with yourself first. There is no need to tell anyone about your personality type.

Yes, I hate the over-simplification too. I am not what my MBT is “supposed” to be. Far from it though, but there are times when I am glad that I know my type because it have given me insight into myself and has helped me work on things that I want to improve on. It has also helped me accept things about myself.

That’s one of the things I love best about INTJs. Ruthless truth-seekers. I want the truth, not some belief to hide behind.

Manipulation is a dirty and dangerous game. I am naturally diplomatic by nature, so I have few problems with people. It will be in your best interest to learn how to let go of your argument. With a friend, I have to say what is on my mind. I have to give them my honesty. But that is with an established friend. If it is an acquaintance, I let it go. I can’t change everybody, but I can help the ones that I care about. I know the kid was a friend, but can you really keep a friend like him anyway? I guess loosing him was for the best. You need someone who accepts you and who will value your thoughts, opinions and insights. Hey, doesn't anyone you talk to live near to you?

Hating yourself??? Now I am worried. Hate, in any form, is eroding to a person’s nature. Hate is not the right solution for apathy. You have to find something else.

Using the word cute was the woman’s way of saying that she found you attractive. You should not take it as an insult. She was trying to compliment you. It wasn’t demeaning. You will have to learn how to take compliments. Maybe you are cute! :laugh: BTW, some of the best romance novels that I read as a teenager seemed to have INTJ heroes. There is something quite alluring, to many females, when a man is a puzzle to be solved. You guys are deep complex puzzles.

Yes, that is exactly what he did. He pushed me away, and he pushed hard. He broke my heart, actually. But I hope that in a year or so we could see each other or write to each other. I still have feelings for this guy. He was, to me, quite special. I even thought that he was my compliment, the one I have been hoping to find. Time heals all wounds. Let's wait and see what happens. We need time and space from each other. He knows that he hurt me, but I don't know if he will ever have the courage to apologize to me. I apologized for invading his space, but he has yet to tell me he is sorry that he hurt my feelings.

That’s how I feel about stereotypes too. I hate them and I certainly don’t want to be placed in a box. Categorized and labeled!

That’s exactly why I don’t think I will be happy with an Extrovert. They are always up to something. Hyper, like you said.

I take it your tall, and sour? LOL! Hey this is interesting... What do you look like? Sorry, that's my sensing preference coming out! ;)

You will have to train your Intuition to know when you are being “cold”. You will have to look for signs from the person you are talking to. An expression, a change in tone of voice. This will also help your Sensing to develop, and would make you more comfortable around people. BTW, Introverted Sensors like me are very difficult for you guys to read.

Humor is a good strategy!

HousesOfApollo

06-12-2008, 12:13 AM

Not being unable to think when people are around… You and I both know that you will have to work on that, for we live in a world of people.

World of people... oh man. It makes me sick even thinking about overcoming these phobias. Not just the social phobia, mind you, but all the phobias that directly relate to people. I could perhaps construct a list of everything that I'm afraid of, although it would probably be easier to just list all the things that I'm not afraid of.

You do sound paranoid. It must be so hard on your brain! I think you should finish that story of yours. Channel some of your energy into a project. I know you like new things, but how about finishing something that you started? It will give you a feeling of achievement. That would help you with your self-esteem.

I often think about finishing all of my old writing projects, but I always decide against it. The thrill is gone, and the inspiration is weak. Any prospect of writing a fiction that is up to my own high standards has disappeared, and at this point I'd just be writing for no-one. Not for anyone to read, and not even for myself to appreciate for I only see the flaws in my own writing. Maybe I've just given up. Now I just write for Write Club (you can e-mail me about that) where I know at least one person will read my words and something will be communicated.

Yes, ISFJs, have a strong desire to communicate. We seem to be able to bring out the best in people by believing the best and helping them see the beauty we (think) we perceive in them. It is like giving you a glimpse into your self by translating the bright hope we have for the future (for ourselves and you).

I don't really see beauty in much of anything. One of the recurrent themes of my life is giving up. I keep quitting because I know that everything will just eventually die and fade away. I've given up on ever really attaching myself to anything more than what I've already attached myself to.

It's a bizarre kind of indifference born out of caring too much for those things that I've dared to invest myself in. Well-adjusted people carefully dole out their caring. As a result of this they'll only go so far, and only try so hard. Beyond this very limited tolerance they preserve their own well-being. For this reason they're quite happy, but I don't value them very much. I stop talking to them, and they forget my name just like everyone does. Oftentimes I wish I could forget my own name, as if that were the source of all the worlds misery; my stupid name.

Some people make their own hell by deciding that anything at all really matters. Once it matters then you have to come to grips with its death and the death of everything. There's no real rational argument against apathy for there is no value left to leverage. You can't make sense of a world without values of quality and quantity.

This is what my life is like right now while I'm cut off from my better self; a person I do not often have the privilege of being. What little time I have as this person makes all this tolerable because I can be proud of myself at least some of the time. That's one of the things I really care about: the better part of myself.

So… have you had time to look at a flower or something? How about we look at an object and tell each other what we see. You pick the object.

I've planted flowers over my dead fish. Then it snowed, in June, killing these flowers. But if you want to look at an object, then I choose this one: To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

I see a Raleigh mountain bike circa 1998-2002 with street tires, mud flaps and climbing horns. The pedals on this bike are stock, and that's alright with the owner because he's made it into his own rugged street bike. The body shows no sign of rust, so it would seem that the owner is a meticulous person--that is assuming that the body is made of steel instead of anodized aluminum (like my own bike). Still, I stick by my original assumption of this person's meticulousness; the paint job is relatively intact and the mud flaps were installed to offer an extra degree of protection. The rims around the bike are clean to ensure effective braking.

He isn't as meticulous as I would be, though, since he didn't feed the lock through the wheels of the bike; someone could easily steal the wheels. Since he took the time to lock it this fashion, I would still say that he's more meticulous than the average person. Also, he's taller than average since he had to jack up the seat. I'd say he's between 5' 10" and 6'.

I'd put the owner's age between 25-45 years of age. Older folks usually commute with road or street bikes because they prefer the older types. Now I'm just speculating. You're probably going to try to zen me out or something by commenting about the tree behind the bike :P.

But back to Longshanks (as we're going to call him now). There is an inner voice that is arguing against these assumptions of mine, but I've managed to quell it by bringing the rear bag to attention. Notice how it's almost perfectly centered and how neatly it's all zippered up? This guy is no slob; he pays attention to the details of life and takes care of his things. Before I move on, I'll venture to say that Longshanks is college educated. He probably went to a modest state college where he developed a love for knowledge (it is parked in front of the library, after all).

The bike is neither too old nor too new. It isn't too expensive or too cheap for the utilitarian task it has been assigned. There is parsimony and neatness to this object. As far as personality goes, I'd only speculate that he's a Thinker. Feel free to speculate further. [I guess I can 'see' a lot in one object.]

Why is feeling lonely making you feel tarnished?

It doesn't make me feel tarnished; it tarnishes me. It's a problem for which there can be no real solution. Whatever barriers that introverts may have pale in comparison to the struggles that OCD (never say 'sufferers') people such as myself have on a daily basis. Like most other Obsessive/Compulsives I have a list of crazy things that I absolutely have to do without explanation.

Then again, I'm also lonely because I am--in my own weird way--like the last man on Earth. I will probably elaborate on this idea in my next Write Club essay but for now I'll just say that it's the sense I get from being the only person I really know who is aware enough about the world to notice little things like a balanced bike bag. It's like being very old--a lost relic from a bygone era when people weren't too afraid to live a life that mattered.

Skyscapers...airplanes... and vaccines to rid us of all disease. The old dreams of the western world tempered by rationality and humility. What a weird thing to have... dreams. They don't seem very rational to most people; which is funny because I don't find a meaningless life devoted to petty distraction to be very rational. If you can't imagine any other world than the one we have, then that's all you'll ever know; that's just not good enough for me. It is for everyone else, it seems.

Except for Longshanks, perhaps. Maybe he's out there fitting all this together 1000 times better than I ever could. On that day three years ago when I just moped and considered the uselessness of one human life (especially my own) he was in the library developing a 512 step plan to save the world and he's already on step 63. Being a fellow last man on Earth isn't stopping him, I'm sure.

But he's forgetting the wheels, dammit! He's doomed without pathological perfectionism! He can forget about getting to step 120 if someone steals his wheels.

You need someone who accepts you and who will value your thoughts, opinions and insights. Hey, doesn't anyone you talk to live near to you?

I felt a certain inner arrogance flare up as I read that; I don't need to be accepted. At most all I would say about this is that it would preferable to be appreciated, though I can't change any part of myself for the sake of others.

Nobody every talks to me anymore. I'm too weird for them, and they're never good enough for me. There's always two barriers that I contend with whenever I deal with other people: Their own innate fear of my general neurotic weirdness, and my own inability to allow anyone to harm me. Isn't that what friendship really is in the end? People who are really good, close friends are always capable of hurting one another a great deal. Perhaps this is why war buddies are so close; the amount of harm that can be inflicted upon one another in a wartime situation is incredible.

Friendship to me is like an unspoken agreement between two people: "I can absolutely hurt you, but I won't."

I think that's kind of beautiful.

The last man on Earth lived in such a time, but now he has no friends because those values are long dead. He is the last person that can be trusted, so he tries to trust himself. He does the best he can with this reality. There's only so far you can go without trusting anyone or anyone trusting you.

Yea, it's kind of an arrogant way of thinking, but that's how I live my life.

Hating yourself??? Now I am worried. Hate, in any form, is eroding to a person’s nature. Hate is not the right solution for apathy. You have to find something else.

It seems as though I'm the last man on Earth who pays attention to the nuances of life, and in perceiving these nuances (which are ever-so-important) I create a world in my own mind using all resources of the world. Because I do this I know how everything could be better, pretty much. I am not exempt from my own judgement of the world, and this is perhaps why I have such a poor image of myself.

I've spent a lot of time thinking about the kind of life I would be living right now if I wasn't a total nervous wreck. I concluded that I would have probably ended up being a doctor, and a good one at that--perhaps the last doctor on Earth. Everything about disease, sickness and general human brokenness I detest.

If I exempted myself from my judgement of all the world then I would really hate myself. As it is, I'm only inadequate, but that's better than being totally loathsome I suppose.

Now my life is just like those stories I never finish; for whose sake would I be finishing them? No-one would read them, and they wouldn't give me any satisfaction. All that moves me are those few things left that matter to me, and when those things fade from this Earth I shall fade as well. It's alright though, because I'm the only one who's going to care.

But then again there might be something broken right in front of me for me to fix well into my old age. Something to cling to in my obsessive fashion.

Damn I can be depressing at times. This comes from many, many hours of my life wasted trying to decide whether it's all really worthwhile. Sure it's kind of EMO and pathetic--just the kind of things you talk about with therapists. What else am I going to talk about on a psychology forum?

To tell you the truth, one of my primary OCD obsessions is Death. Mentally speaking, I'm very close to mortality. So if you need an explanation for why I'm so pessimistic right now I guess you could say that I'm just ground down the core of pathetic humanity by the insane repetition of it all.

Maybe I'll get off this horrible track tomorrow and I'll be a completely different person... for awhile. I must summon my better self to take care of a few things for me.

I take it your tall, and sour? LOL! Hey this is interesting... What do you look like? Sorry, that's my sensing preference coming out!

You can see pictures of me from a few years ago on the Flickr site I linked to. I think of myself as a hideous monster that should never see the light of day, but you should probably make up your own mind. Heh.

You will have to train your Intuition to know when you are being “cold”. You will have to look for signs from the person you are talking to. An expression, a change in tone of voice. This will also help your Sensing to develop, and would make you more comfortable around people. BTW, Introverted Sensors like me are very difficult for you guys to read.

I've been trying to develop my sense of perfection in the physical world. I spend a lot of time arranging objects so that they're equidistant from each other and face away from each other at right angles. When I need to clean up this is usually what I do after disinfecting everything I can. Then someone or something comes along and disrupts my delicate order and I'm frustrated. It's sad, really. Is this sort of an expression of my minor Sensing side? I know my mother is very, very Sensing and she has the OCD cleaning obsession and she constantly rearranges things.

My obsessions are more about implicit order whereas she's concerned with explicit neatness. Functional versus visible. But I digress, as always.

Blacklustre King

07-27-2008, 06:24 PM

MY EYES ARE BLEEDING!

Yes, emo "I'll take you with me in suicide." cutter type emotional people are by far the worst and most infuriating type of people. Drama Kings, if you will.

NephilimAzrael

07-28-2008, 04:53 PM

Yup, happens. That ESFP background noise.

Evil Eye

08-09-2008, 09:15 AM

I vary between myself, which is typical INTJ, to ultra reserved, often not saying a thing.

JustMel

08-09-2008, 04:51 PM

For me it depends on the situation. If I am in a situation where the other person is crying about something that I deem an annoyance and I'm already short due to being tired or emotionally drained my reaction is harsh and blunt and I tend to use something I know to cut them off at the knees. Example: I was staying at the hospital with my grandma who raised me and called my now husband, then friend, to see if I could take a shower and change at his house and he sent his wife to get me from the hosptial. I already don't like his wife, I already know she's cheating and she starts in with "We're having problems and I just don't understand why he's not the loving husband he used to be. He is just a jerk to me blah blah" and after about 15 minutes of this with my ignoring her and staying in my own head her incessant yapping hit a nerve and I just wanted her to shut up so I said, "If you were having sex and I had caught you with 3 of my friends I wouldn't be your "good" husband either. In fact I'd probably have thrown you and him out with the clothes on your back---oh wait, you weren't wearing any so I would have thrown you out naked and wished you well. Perhaps if you'd close your legs and open your eyes you might save your marriage" That was a bad scene. No empathy.

If it's a situation where empathy has reared its ugly head I tend to try and talk them around to a way to deal with things if they continue to resist and remain emotional I eventually turn the empathy off and tell them to grow up and deal with it.

When I am in the situation that requires diplomacy I can maintain calm until blood runs freely down my forehead for continually beating my head against the proverbial brick wall. This is the case with my sister in law hating her step children. I have sat hours in her living room smoothing things out between her and her husband when it comes to the way she treats his children. I tell them both---you were wrong and this is why or he/she was right and here is why. I tend to take step parenting books, online information regarding PAS, etc with me and refer to it and personal experience and will stay very calm and rational even with her screaming and yelling at him. Of course I have given him the number for a really good divorce attorney a time or two as well.

I have over the years developed the skills to know when I am hitting "cold" mode and whether it's time for me to leave the situation or flip my emotions off. My husband says I can turn my emotions off and on at will, he hates this aspect of my personality but also uses it to his advantage because if someone is annoying us at home--I'm usually the one he tells to handle it because he is gregarious and hates to hurt people's feelings. I can be very devious though it takes a lot of energy and there has to be a relatively large prize at the end of the tunnel for me to expend the energy to be devious. Instead I perfer to just be me and if I'm in *itch mode that day--that's who you deal with. I don't make idle threats.

I can and have had to don the little black dress, heels, makeup and all that drivel and be dragged away to a social engagement and make the dreaded small talk until I find the group of people that can actually have a conversation with sound ideas and then we tend to huddle in a corner and ignore others.

I think that when dealing with emotional people the INTJs "fix it" personality trait is comforting to some though because at my grandma's funeral I moved one of the wing back chairs to the end of the casket in the viewing room. When my aunt, the queen of drama, showed up I gently nudged the chair forward and as she started to swoon and do her fall to the floor drama scene she ended up in the chair and I told me neice to hand me the baby's bottle of juice she was holding and as I was asking for it my aunt said, "i need something, my blood sugar just dropped" and I was right there handing her a baby bottle minus the top with juice. Her husband pulled me to the side and said, "you have to teach me how to head off those tantrums that way" My aunt then tried to make a scene in the hall and say who was going to sit where and I just grabbed her arm and placed her in the front pew right between the older sister she despises and her husband whom she adores albeit in a weird way and left her there. Effectively cutting off her tantrum, upsetting the other person that said her husband shouldn't sit with the family and preventing myself from having to knock her out during the ceremony.

JustMel added to this post, 3 minutes and 39 seconds later...

MY EYES ARE BLEEDING!

Yes, emo "I'll take you with me in suicide." cutter type emotional people are by far the worst and most infuriating type of people. Drama Kings, if you will.

My response is usually, "so kill yourself and allow the rest of to live without your annoying presence"

I'm very much a don't threaten to do it if you aren't going to do it person.