Tag: meyers briggs

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My Manifesto (or, It’s Not You, It’s Me)

No longer will I wear the disguise! No longer will I pretend to be cool or impervious or like everyone else! No longer will I call myself vile names for being weak in body or mind! No longer!

Instead, I will embroider a flag and wave it high. My flag will say:

  • I’m acrophobic and I won’t follow you up that climb with the sheer drop-offs on one or both sides.
  • I wither in the heat and I won’t be joining you for afternoon anything in high summer. In fact, I tend toward Seasonal Affective Disorder in the summer months anyway, so you might as well just leave me out of it.
  • I could drink the beer, wine, or cocktail you offer, but I would probably get a splitting headache shortly thereafter, not sleep well, and feel like crap tomorrow and I want to do things tomorrow. So, sorry but no.
  • I don’t know if I have social anxiety or I’m an introvert or I’m shy or what, but I cannot carry on small talk for very long, especially in crowded or noisy places. It’s not about you, but I’ll be out of there thank you very much.
  • At the end of a long day — or pretty much any day — I need to shut down all the stimulus. I need to be not talked to, not observed, not teased. Just for a while, or maybe for a long time. It’s not you, really, it’s me.
  • I go to bed early. That’s all.
  • I can’t sit in a chair very long. It cramps my body and makes me squirm inside and out. So I might lie on the floor or walk around while we talk. If I can’t do those things, I might leave soon. Same if it’s too hot or stuffy or cluttered. Not because of you, because of me.
  • I don’t enjoy music festivals. Or parties. Or large group dinners. Or receptions. Or airplane seatmates who talk. I just don’t.
  • When I get uncomfortable (from any of the above or anything else), it overtakes me hard and fast and I need to make a change. Quick. It could seem rude, but it’s not you, it’s me.
  • If I seem like a pain in the ass, imagine being me.

*Nothing in this manifesto should be construed to contradict that I love a good laugh, I love my friends deeply and forever, I am mostly brave and strong and often playful, I am multi-faceted, and I do my best. For further reading, consult hsp.com and Meyers Briggs and the Cambridge dictionary.

I’m going to need a big flag.

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Please, step into my personality type

It’s time to visit with the Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator!

Why, you might ask? Because it’s interesting! Who doesn’t love to answer questions about yourself and have your personality and character summed up by someone you’ve never met? Look yourself up, you know you want to!

But seriously, it’s pretty cool stuff. I’ve found it frighteningly accurate and it elucidates–or at least lays bare for the world’s inspection–the myriad things I don’t understand about myself. And, IMHO, for all those who encounter me in any form, it should explain a lot.

If you’re going to spend any time here, you’ll need to know that I’m an INFJ, variously dubbed the “advocate” or the “protector,” which isn’t what I would call it.

I knew being me was a challenge, and Meyers-Briggs makes it official (thanks, Isabel and Katharine!). Here are my personal highlights:

The good:
“INFJs are gentle, caring, complex and highly intuitive individuals.”
“Artistic and creative, they live in a world of hidden meanings and possibilities.”
“They are usually right, and they usually know it.”
“INFJs are concerned for people’s feelings, and try to be gentle to avoid hurting anyone.”
“INFJs have uncanny insight into people and situations”
“The INFJ individual is gifted in ways the other types are not.”

The bad:
“They are deep, complex individuals, who are quite private and typically difficult to understand.”
“Because the INFJ has such strong intuitive capabilities, they trust their own instincts above all else. This may result in an INFJ stubbornness and tendency to ignore other peoples’ opinions.”
“INFJs hold back part of themselves, and can be secretive.”
“Life is not necessarily easy for the INFJ”

The WTF???:
“Only one percent of the population has an INFJ Personality Type, making it the most rare of all types.”
INFJs’ intuitiveness “is the sort of thing that other types may scorn and scoff at.”
“INFJs are rarely at complete peace with themselves – there’s always something else they should be doing to improve themselves and the world around them.”

So, in other words, INFJ is a rare bird, difficult to understand, scoffed at by other types and blessed with the inability to find inner peace. Sweet! But it’s all good because she is also unusually gifted with intuition and insight and is a pretty nice person. When she’s not being stubborn, dismissive and secretive, that is.

Snarking aside, elsewhere I will delve further into the gifts of the serious introvert, and they are legion (h/t to Susan Cain for being our champion).

I’d love to hear from the three other INFJs in the English-speaking world. And to hear what types you all are and what you think of MBTI generally (there is certainly criticism of it out there in the world, e.g., but it works for me).