[…continued from Monday]

As I began to conduct research, I googled something generic such as “personality test” and selected one of the first ones that came up. Specifically, I took this one. (Although, since then, I think I’ve taken every other one available on the web; they all report similarly.) My goal was to be as honest as I could with the questions and actually make an effort to take the test the way it was supposed to be taken. Furthermore, I’m well aware that these very uncontrolled “random website” tests are highly unscientific and prone to errors.

What I expected to get, as I mentioned before, was a series of general statements that could apply to anyone. I also expected to see the same types of general statements regardless of what personality type I was reading, and I expected a fair number of them to be downright incorrect for me personally.

What happened instead was that I got a biography. Fully armed with a shotgun of sarcasm and a contingent of analysis grenades, I found these things useless upon facing pages and pages of exact descriptions of myself. Not general, but totally specific things such as, “you wear conservative—almost boring—clothes in a limited palette of colors and styles.” and “you do not like to be in a position of leadership but will step up if everyone else has exhibited incompetency.”

Double-you Tee Eff? And I don’t say that because it’s wrong, but because it’s so dead on. There were some blanket statements, to be sure, but what I didn’t see were overgeneralizations and paragraphs upon paragraphs of meaningless half-truths.

That’s not to say this would be the same for you if you took the test. It does, as I mentioned, measure things on a gradient, and I suppose it’s possible to score about 50% in each area. But this didn’t happen to me.

I scored as an INTJ. I’m very nearly split between INTJ and INTP. That is, I routinely score around 90% for Introverted, 80% to 90% for iNtuitive, 95% to 100% for Thinking and roughly 60/40 for Judging/Perceiving. I won’t go into what this means here; there’s not enough space. If you’re interested, start with the Wikipedia article on Myers-Briggs Type Indicators.

If you know me personally, you can read the type descriptions for yourself. I’m curious as to what you think, as that could be more accurate in some cases. Self-analysis is always difficult.

What I tend to lean toward:
INTJ

What I share some traits with:
INTP

So, what do I have to offer as a result of this astounding revelation? Not a revelation to you, perhaps, but certainly to me.

I’ll tell you: The biggest thing about all of this was that there are other people like me. Not many, but some. Both INTJs and INTPs comprise only about 1% of the population. For almost as long as I can remember, I’ve always felt like I was an alien that got dropped on Earth and raised as something I’m not. (In a sense I was. Incidentally, this exact idea has been kicking around in my head as a plot for a book for at least two years now. Interesting, but I digress.) I just believed everyone felt like that. Some have, obviously. But I have traditionally spent a great deal of time wondering what the hell is wrong with me. I won’t be doing that anymore.

This is interesting, too: the realization that I really am often the only one in the room faking the whole thing. I’m sure everyone has the “meeting other people” face that they put on when they go out. But not many people do what I do.

I didn’t really know this in high school but looking back, I can see it a little more clearly: I was a jerk. I still am—oft inadvertently—but I like to think I’m taking some of the things I learned while in high school and applying them to real life, to make it easier on others.

The truth is that I don’t understand pleasantries, I don’t get small talk, I can barely do it, and I’d rather not have to deal with it at all. I prefer to be blunt but I’ve learned this is not generally good. Here’s what I did in high school: I spent a great deal of time prodding people with words to see how they reacted. (At the time, I didn’t realize what I was doing was mean. I only know that now.) I would say something, not knowing the least bit about how they would react, and then make a mental note of their response for later. Then I would say progressively nicer things (or meaner things) to see what happened.

The following internal dialogue is based on a true event. The name has been changed because I don’t remember the original one.

Note to self: don’t tell Sally her drawing lacks proper perspective. Better to squint to feign contemplation and say something along the lines of “looks a bit off somehow.” For some reason, if I tell her what’s actually wrong she gets all defensive and angry. Maybe if someone asks me for criticism, I can go into the details as to exactly what is wrong. Otherwise, it seems people don’t want it. Weird.

I still apply this today. I don’t get it, but it works.

This sort of overt manipulation will probably sound atrocious to the 98% of people who aren’t like me, but it was very valuable. By studying people’s reactions to differently worded statements through high school (and to a lesser extent, college), I’ve been able to build up a database, if you will, of things and situations to refer to.

I absolutely am not making this up. When I go to a party or hang out at the bar with more than one or two people, I go into a sort of “conversation mode”. Basically, I have at the ready a large collection of events and responses which I pull from in order to appear to have a decent and appropriate conversation. I use this when doing small talk about dumb subjects, like the weather.

Here’s an example conversation with my thoughts in italics. This is not a joke; this is actually what’s happening behind the scenes. It’s not supposed to be funny, but if you laugh, I guess I understand.

Coworker: “Man, gas is so expensive. It went up three cents from last week.”

Me thinking: Three cents isn’t much. It’s been over $2.75 for like a year now. What’s the big deal? I should—wait. No, I think he’s just killing time. Yeah, we’re waiting for everyone else to gather here in the lobby so we can all drive to lunch together so, uh, just a quick answer. Right.

Me speaking: “I know.”

Me thinking (I always do an immediate analysis of everything I say): Stupid, of course I know. Everybody knows. He probably thinks I’m a moron. No reaction, though. I hate it when they just drop the thread. Was that supposed to be a conversation? Arg, I don’t even get feedback. What’s the point of talking, then?

It generally goes faster than that—but not always. Sometimes you’ll catch me off guard with a joke or something I don’t have much data on, and it’ll take me a few extra seconds to react like everyone else. At least some of those seconds are devoted to running through possible conversation scenarios so I appear personable.

When the conversation ventures off into unknown territory such as sports or TV shows, I just stop talking. I’ve found this is much better than trying to steer the conversation back to some other subject that I know about. People just look at me weird.

Almost all of my interpersonal communication is gilded in multiple layers of scenario, dialogue check, and recheck. I don’t make it a point to offend anyone, but it’s happened so many times in situations that baffle me that I have to maintain this big encyclopedia of unwritten rules. This has actually manifested itself unwittingly in my Not A Blog™. At least a year ago I wrote an article entitled Allowable Topics of Conversation During a Financial Transaction. I played it off as a joke, but I actually think this way.

This is only one thing out of a million that makes me feel weird on a day to day basis. I’m going to run down a list on Friday of the biggest things I think you should know about me—assuming you don’t already. Becuase if you’re reading this on the date it was posted, you’re one of the people who doesn’t really need to read this in the first place.

The most interesting thing of all, however, is that there are actual biological processes behind one’s behavior. I’ve perhaps written this entire series too soon, as I’m still going through a period of self-discovery right now. In any case, this is all heading toward a few main points which I’ll be arriving at, momentarily.

[Continued on Friday…]