Weirdest specialties?

[Guido]

Most INTJs apparently tend to specialize in certain things, and I've got my list of some interesting ones:

- Rubik's cube - I taught myself this while in the back of my high school classes because they were pretty boring.
- Foosball - I taught myself this during cegep (between high school and university) while skipping class because a lot of them were pretty boring.
- Piano - I'm not the biggest music fan, but I taught myself how to play some pretty complex stuff. I know a couple neat ragtime and classical pieces. People don't really understand how I don't listen to music yet I've learned to play so well. I find that this will actually really bother certain people, because they refuse to believe that their precious music can be generated by a 'robot'. I get the impression that I somehow ruin the music for them when they know I don't emotionally connect with it. I'm interested in it solely for the technical aspects. I like reproducing what I hear, and it takes a lot of skill to do it properly.
- Psychology - Not sure what else to call this, but I don't mean it in the researching sense. I've spent a lot of time figuring out the way people work and more importantly predicting them.

I'm sure there are a couple more, but I can't think of them and I'm about to leave work.

I'm wondering what other people have spent their time doing.

[qwerty]

Like you very interested in the psychology of people, I spent 4 years as a bouncer perfecting the skill and became extremely proficient in disarming aggressive people with my silver tongue :).


Apart from that I'm pure a computer scientist, specializing in the topics that entertain me completely: Artificial Intelligence and Abstraction of knowledge. My friends who are into normal things are afraid when I come up with a new idea as I will convert everything into it and try to explain it to them (though they won't ever understand) and this unfortunately gets me into trouble with my supervising professor and he tries to suppress the ideas, his words once "Lets not focus on this idea of yours as nobody will understand it without a huge investment of time to grasp the concept. People will say who is this guy and what has he done before this? Why should we listen to his outlandish ideas. You can work on this in the future (non specified future but my guess is never) but first establish some credibility in your name". Then he swamps me with his own research work to focus on, crushing all of the time I have for my own stuff.

[The Rose]

My specialties are
research
genealogy
Creation-Science
Meyers-Briggs types
Bible knowledge
sign making
understanding my kids
laundry stain removal

[Firelie]

lol...weirdest specialties, eh?

Here's one for you:

I have this fascination with less-than-usual names. If I see one in text form, I can generally remember that name, when I saw it, what I did with it, and what the situation was. Great for locating files (which is what I do at work)...not so great for anything else.

[The Rose]

My specialties are
research
genealogy
Creation-Science
Meyers-Briggs types
Bible knowledge
sign making
understanding my kids
laundry stain removal


I also have a great memory for phone numbers and can remember some from 35 years ago!

[Guido]

I've always made some pretty ridiculous patterns with phones numbers. I explain them to my friends and they think I'm nuts :D

[polenka]

Psychology--very much in the research sense, and especially in the forensic sense, where prediction of people's behavior is of much importance (imagine a formula that could predict which criminals will engage in crime after being released and which will not)

Statistics--especially latent variables, to test theories applicable to the above

Figure skating--my attempt to analyze art and put it into practice

Sewing--associated with the above, I taught myself when I became tired of waiting for my mom to sew my competition dresses...has emerged as a very useful source of income...I tend to figure out how to put everything together in my mind and used a system of proportions to create standardized patterns (which I subsequently chop up on the fly to make each dress unique).

Giving my car a tune up--my car specific, don't ask me to tune up your car...

Figuring out how a tv show/movie ends before it actually does


Many of these crazy specialties emerged through necessity/impatience with having others do them.

[The Rose]

I'm a great whistler.
I can whistle just like Andy Griffith and Otis Redding.
I whistle a lot.
In the past 30 years I have only seen two other whistlers.

[lollercancer]

I like video games, but only well balanced ones. I usually play them at a level of skill that would be found in professional leagues. My moves in Super Smash Brothers and Team Fortress 2, especially, are dizzying.

I also write and direct movies! I love movies.

I spend most of my time thinking about pyschology and philosophy. Dizzying amounts of time :-X

[The Rose]

Right now I happen to be an "expert" on the subject of Pride & Prejudice, the book by Jane Austen.
I read it twice last winter and studied 3 film versions of it.
As I keep forgetting more and more of the finer details,
I will lose my "expert" standing.

[The Rose]

...
- Rubik's cube - I taught myself this while in the back of my high school classes because they were pretty boring.I was good at Rubik's cube for a while.
I had gotten to where I was fast,
but I have forgotten how to do it now.

[Doppelbock]

Rubik's cube? My best time was 29 seconds (about 20 years ago). It's the perfect INTJ passtime.

Other weird specialties:

I can make strange noises and do imitations pretty well. After Jim Neighbors croaks, they can hire me to sing "Back Home Again in Indiana" at the Indy 500 and nobody will be able to tell the difference. Um, except I don't look like him.

Anthropology/archeology. I'm especially interested in pre-Columbus Native American cultures. I've done a huge amount of reading on the Adena (800 B.C. - 100 A.D.) and Hopewell (100 B.C. - 400 A.D.) cultures that were centered in the Ohio valley. Would a (pre-)historical fiction novel set in their culture and time be kewl or what? Hmmm...

I like to write song parodies.

All my other specialties are pretty mainstream so I won't bother listing them here.

DB

[The Rose]

I play expert level backgammon online.
I win more than half the time.
I probably win more than that but it gets confusing because so many times
people will just quit on me because I'm winning.
So it's probably more like 75-80%.

[Rei]

wierd ones...

All I can remember at the moment is that I can whistle and I'm ambidexterous.

And... I see wierd patterns/relationships in numbers too! My mother was like that too. It's the wierdest thing...
I wonder where it comes from... It's like the brain being over logical, and trying to make sense of random numbers :o

[wedekit]

I work out basic arithmetic strangely in my head. An example would be something like 12+19+27; I subtract one from 19, add one to 12, and then add 13+27+18=58 together. I just try to make numbers add up to multiples of 10 when I can. It's more impressive when I do larger and more complex numbers, of course, lol.

I can avoid all cracks on sidewalks without looking at the ground. (Don't want people to notice that's what I'm doing.)

I can read people like a book.

I find parallels/consistencies between two unrelated things often.

[Rei]

I can read people like a book.

I find parallels/consistencies between two unrelated things often.

those two seem to be a commonality around here...

Again, the playing with numbers...
I'm tempted to poll people and see how many of us have wierd thoughts/ideas about numbers...

[Doppelbock]

I work out basic arithmetic strangely in my head. An example would be something like 12+19+27; I subtract one from 19, add one to 12, and then add 13+27+18=58 together. I just try to make numbers add up to multiples of 10 when I can. It's more impressive when I do larger and more complex numbers, of course, lol.

I can avoid all cracks on sidewalks without looking at the ground. (Don't want people to notice that's what I'm doing.)

I can read people like a book.

I find parallels/consistencies between two unrelated things often.

I think it's probably very rare for an INTJ to be able to read people like a book. Does everybody else think so? Usually INTJ's are not "social" enough to be able to apply their strong intuitions towards people.

DB

[The Rose]

I work out basic arithmetic strangely in my head. An example would be something like 12+19+27; I subtract one from 19, add one to 12, and then add 13+27+18=58 together. I just try to make numbers add up to multiples of 10 when I can. It's more impressive when I do larger and more complex numbers, of course, lol.

I can avoid all cracks on sidewalks without looking at the ground. (Don't want people to notice that's what I'm doing.)

I can read people like a book.

I find parallels/consistencies between two unrelated things often.

I think it's probably very rare for an INTJ to be able to read people like a book. Does everybody else think so? Usually INTJ's are not "social" enough to be able to apply their strong intuitions towards people.

DBI understand what you're saying.
I don't think I "read people" like my INFP sister
(who by the way I believe is frequently wrong - but how can you prove it?)
but I can read people's motives, even if they can't see them themselves.

[The Rose]

I can read people like a book.

I find parallels/consistencies between two unrelated things often.

those two seem to be a commonality around here...

Again, the playing with numbers...
I'm tempted to poll people and see how many of us have weird thoughts/ideas about numbers...I have a knack for memorizing phone numbers,
and just recently, I discovered it's easier for me to memorize odd numbers than even ones!

My mother (ISTJ) has a knack for numbers, too.
She used to run a bar where every member was given a key with a number on it.
There was something like 400-500 members.
I met my husband-to-be there, and when I asked my mom what his name was,
she said, "I don't know his name, but I know his key number."

(She looked up his number and gave me his name.)

[rwyatt365]

OK...weird...

I can tell what size a metric bolt is by looking at it (did you say weird, or useless?)

[The Rose]

OK...weird...

I can tell what size a metric bolt is by looking at it (did you say weird, or useless?)
That can be a time-saver!

[rwyatt365]

OK...weird...

I can tell what size a metric bolt is by looking at it (did you say weird, or useless?)
That can be a time-saver!

yeah...

Oh, and I used to do differential equations for fun (college days)!

[wedekit]

I'm probably a little more social than the average INTJ, but it usually just turns into they talk and I listen and nod.

Maybe I should also mention that my mom is a monster when it comes to reading people! It might just be something I picked up from her.

[aude]

I can read people like a book.

Reading physiology and medical journals for fun.

I was good at that simon says game. My highest was around 130 or so.

I tinker with electronics and computers and figure out how they work.

Researching information for friends.

[Guido]

I think it's probably very rare for an INTJ to be able to read people like a book. *Does everybody else think so? *Usually INTJ's are not "social" enough to be able to apply their strong intuitions towards people.

After I picked up socializing and observing people as a hobby, this now comes very easy for me. I usually have a good feel for the way someone else is thinking, but my true strengths are understanding social structures and how people interact with that structure. I still have no idea why it works the way it does, but the important thing is I have a good sense on how it works. My mom's family is all a bunch of drama queen social engineers (apart from my uncle who's probably an INTJ) so maybe that's why I found it came to me naturally.

If you haven't done so already, you should read this thread: To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

[Rei]

The _N_J in INTJ's should make it easy for us to read people.

I've always been pretty good at it, and also fairly good a judge in character. Sometimes I can see a person's intentions clearer than they see it themselves, which is why - I suspect - people like to come to me(and other INTJs) for advice.

[Jbmontag]

I read people really well
I have a habit of avoiding stepping on any kind of crack or line (glad to know it's not just me)
I see patterns in telephone numbers and use those to dial
I can figure out the ends of movies really quickly
I'm superb at analogies to help explain things

[bikerscars]

my specialty currently is sportbikes(types/differences/modifications/limits/price/etc)

been motorcycles for years now...prior to that it was fishkeeping

and overriding theme with me is a minimalist/frugal outlook

i am very good at seeing through/reading people

[Opti]

I work out basic arithmetic strangely in my head. An example would be something like 12+19+27; I subtract one from 19, add one to 12, and then add 13+27+18=58 together. I just try to make numbers add up to multiples of 10 when I can. It's more impressive when I do larger and more complex numbers, of course, lol.

I can avoid all cracks on sidewalks without looking at the ground. (Don't want people to notice that's what I'm doing.)

I can read people like a book.

I find parallels/consistencies between two unrelated things often.

I think it's probably very rare for an INTJ to be able to read people like a book. *Does everybody else think so? *Usually INTJ's are not "social" enough to be able to apply their strong intuitions towards people.

DB

In the work environment I am able to read people and determine their strengths & weaknesses very quickly. It is just a shame I cannot read myself as well lol

[Zceiv]

Hi I’m new here

Lots of Bible knowledge
Lots of knowledge on lucid dreaming
Some on Psychology (I want to learn more about it if anyone wants to recommend a good site or book)

I like reading on cults and medicine (some on medicine not hardcore) probably the weirdest of mine
I love reading survival handbooks
Like history (not the king-queen type, history on wars)

I’m 16 so I don't have a lot (or to the degree of knowledge id like to have). Also I also want to learn how to solve the Rubix Cube and some piano.

[Firebert]

On the subject of reading people, I find I'm pretty damn good. I have a habit of judging people in depth (social scene, personality, love life...etc.) the first time that I meet them. It's wrong to judge people off the bat, but I'll stop as soon as I start being wrong about it.

Weird habits...I love wordplay. I just play off of alternate meanings and let them roll. I also find that I rearrange words in a sentence subconsciously to see if I can make anything out of it. Along the same line, I think of words backwards all the time. For example if someone told me that their name was Naomi, I'd immediately think "I moan" and crack up.

[Rei]

I think we have it set that pretty much all INTJs have a good grasp on reading people.

We also seem to enjoy taking things (like numbers and words) and rearranging them and giving them a meaning that people don't generally associate with.

This last thing sometimes made me feel like I'm slightly dyslexic. I used to make mistakes on simple math problems all the time becase I skip the first digit in the number, or I switch the two digits around like 42, I'd write down 24. According to my tutor, it was because I was reading too far ahead, and my hand was a beat slower than my thoughts :-[ I got better at it though; now I still miss the first digit sometimes, but I usually go back to write it down right away.

[deicruxified]

weird specialties

1. i always find my way when i am lost (...so far)
2. hit "shot gun" comments at the spur of the moment then someone feels guilty and admits something related to what i've said
3. magically organizes an event in a span of a month (...if i see it feasible if not reject... most of the time when they throw such stuff on me, people can't fix em anymore coz they weren't listening from day 1... often in such tasks, when everything's already a pile of crap my lines have always been, "i knew it"..."i saw this coming"..."you failed to heed my warning")
4. since we do more of listening when someone approaches and talks to us, we already know his/her whole personality in just one sitting -- i share this weird specialty as well so whenever i hit on someone, it's always a psychological attack
5. in line with number 4, i'm a stranger magnet... i just sit in one corner and someone talks to me about his/her love life, problems... etc...
6. a lot of people think i'm a guy over the net and people actually enjoy the "guess the gender" game

:edit:

7. i detect pheromones quickly... in a working area or whereever i am present. i know who has a crush on who... etc...
8. misleading people so as for them not to know what my real motives are (only happens when i want to catch someone... they're usually the gossipy people spreading rumors)
9. i'm an inquisitor... kinda enjoyed this when i signed up as a paralegal volunteer

mostly it's n related... i do think our t's help us a lot in solving a lot of stuff

[Tarrick]

List of my specialties?

-Video Media
-Graphic Media
-Animal knowledge
-Random pieces of irrelevant knowledge
-Reading people
-Cognitive psychology
-Internet scouring
-Implacability

[biased]

acquiring the "impossible"/rarity/what people say you won't get because it "doesn't exist"
networking with influential/useful people

[ciphersort]

Time travel. However, I can only move toward the future one moment at a time.

[phoenix]

I have never been a good judge of character...and have never been able to read people. My biggest problem is that my default opinion of people is that they are good and trustworthy and truthful. As a result, I trust people right off the bat without making an assessment of them. This trait has led me into several bad relationships....but also into one that is irreplacable.

[Ijz]

To answer the original question:

- Software development (specialties: architecture/design, general programming, debugging and profiling)
- Self exploration / psychology
- Table tennis
- Gaming (fast paces FPS)
- Watching SCIFI series ;)
- Trying to figure out how to get my development team to work as one harmonious unit, since each of them has a different personality type)

As for table-tennis and gaming, I primarily play these because of the skill involved (I play both at an reasonable level).

[Rei]

List of my specialties?

-Video Media
-Graphic Media
-Animal knowledge
-Random pieces of irrelevant knowledge
-Reading people
-Cognitive psychology
-Internet scouring
-Implacability

what exactly do you mean by "animal knowledge"

[hopscotch]

1. Discerning spelling and grammatical errors. I believe this is a product of N's ability to see and interpret patterns. Language is a pattern in my mind, and errors are inconsistencies in said pattern.

2. Maintaining a perfectly impassive countenance.

3. Increasing my impressive storehouse of trivia. No one challenges me to Trivial Pursuit.

4. Scrambled eggs. They're always fluffy, never slimy or rubbery.

5. Without fail, the most expensive item in a store will appeal to my sense of style. My credit card protests vehemently against this special ability.

6. Spending an astonishing amount of time gleaning seemingly useless information from the Internet. So many links, so many tangents...if I could find a way to survive without sleep or an income, I'd always be nerding it up online.

7. Completing tasks at the last minute with minimal effort while still producing better work than my peers. Efficiency is a wonderful thing.

[Tarrick]

List of my specialties?

-Video Media
-Graphic Media
-Animal knowledge
-Random pieces of irrelevant knowledge
-Reading people
-Cognitive psychology
-Internet scouring
-Implacability

what exactly do you mean by "animal knowledge"

When I was young (8-10ish) I read every single book in the library about animals.

[Evalind]

I'm not sure what my current weirdest specialty is, but as a child it was making friendship bracelets. In 4th grade we were allowed to make them during post-lunch story time (and everyone did because it was 1988 and friendship bracelets were cool). There was a "contest" between the three or four of us who were the best, and I won.

[jeffersonian]

I'm also good at reading people, but mostly when I'm not involved with the person in a direct way. So, when it comes to friends or family, I don't get it. Random stranger on the street, I'll have a whole description of their life and times in mind.

I also do weird things with phone numbers and the numbers for addresses. I figure out how I can make them mathematically related. So, if the last four digits are 5427, I see that as a pattern because 5-3=2 and 7-3=4. All the numbers are there in an "every other" order, and I'll remember that. How that's easier to remember than just the numbers, I don't know. It just is.

I'm also interested in philosophy, law and government, and chemistry. As a political science major in college, I had just over 24 credits in chemistry as electives, including independent research on the structure of an amino acid. Apparently, I only needed 6 credits. My advisor didn't like working with me, much.

[rwyatt365]

I also do weird things with phone numbers and the numbers for addresses. I figure out how I can make them mathematically related. So, if the last four digits are 5427, I see that as a pattern because 5-3=2 and 7-3=4. All the numbers are there in an "every other" order, and I'll remember that. How that's easier to remember than just the numbers, I don't know. It just is.

That's a game that my father used to keep us kids quiet on long road trips - find the sequence of numbers in a license plate and then give the next number in the sequence. My older sister and I always battled to be first to come up with the number and give the logic for that choice.

[thegnat]

I've always wanted a Rubik's cube as nerdy as that sounds and I still haven't gotten one! I just need to break down and get it myself, I guess!

Anywho,
-horse knowledge - I read all the books that I possibly could about horses when I was younger.
-Tennis knowledge I suppose. I can tell you everything technically and strategically and all the stats in a match....
-numeric memory - I chunk up if I'm familiar with the chunks or else I'll do some mathematical relation or pattern
-chemistry - with a little political science interest on the side and a little astronomy/astrophysics interest, too...
-Good at reading people - not really their emotions per se but what they're about to do, their intent. In tennis I'm good at it too, it comes in handy.
-used to be awesome at video gaming. Now I probably stink up the place...haven't played in so long...
-googling stuff I don't know quickly - I've helped people with this.
-maintaining a complete poker face while being sarcastic - people are often impressed at my poker face.
-I might as well say a LOT of random animal knowledge as I was a HUGE national geographic nerd when I was younger and read all I could about other animals as well as horses. Probably not terribly extensive on all the animals, but I know quite a lot.

[More Tea]

Weird specialties:

-Cooking gourmet meals without any training in it, and having had read very few recipes in my life.

-Playing piano by ear, though I can not read music. I also write songs, most of them of a cynically-humorous bent.

-I used to understand how the Internet works (routing protocols, etc.) until law school drove out most of that knowledge.

-Psychology, of course!

-I get strong instincts about people, but can not necessarily read them well. However, I can read the *silences* in a conversation and figure out what a person is really getting at even if they never articulate what they are after.

[Vayate]

This last thing sometimes made me feel like I'm slightly dyslexic. I used to make mistakes on simple math problems all the time becase I skip the first digit in the number, or I switch the two digits around like 42, I'd write down 24.
I thought I was the only person who did that sort of thing, although I more often do it with words and letters. It happens both with writing and occasionally in speech, which ha always been a source of embarrassment; I'm still trying to learn to speak more deliberately so it doesn't occur.

As for odd specialties, I know a good bit about military strategy, both on the ground and on the battlefield as a whole, despite not being associated with the military in any way whatsoever.

My ability to read people is also very good.