as small as a world and as large as alone, alliecat-person: With all of this Myers-Briggs...

2:10am July 30, 2014

With all of this Myers-Briggs stuff going around Tumblr lately, I’m wondering if I’m the only one who isn’t sure about my type. I’m very sure on the I and fairly sure on the J, but the other two are confusing. I used to think I was N, but now I’m not so sure. And heaven knows the T/F distinction trips me up.

And yes, I have taken the online tests, and gotten practically everything under the sun, though always with I and usually with J.

If I had to take a gander at just one type I’d probably say INTJ, but I’m not entirely sure. Or maybe I’m just resisting being the most popular type among sociopaths?

You’re not the only person.

I’ve tested as pretty much everything with an I and a P in it.

I usually just say ISFP because that’s what I most recently and consistently test as, but I’ve also tested as ISTP, INTP, and INFP. And occasionally something with a J in it, but that’s rare.

I don’t think it’s that meaningful anyway. It relies on false dichotomies for pretty much everything.

I particularly don’t like N vs. S, especially because I feel like, if you’re going to put N on one side, and S on another side, I would be another letter, as far past S as S is past N. N and S look, to me, just like two different levels of the same basic kind of thinking, and my own kind of thinking is not even represented.

And F vs. T – those aren’t opposites at all. Not in their colloquial meanings, and not in the specialized meanings of the MBTI either. I’ve actually spent quite a lot of time studying the MBTI, so I’m not just throwing these ideas out there without understanding them.

People who do believe in this stuff seem to believe that these things are “obvious” and obviously real. I don’t get it.

I also don’t like the complex way that they’ve come up with, over the years, to explain what happens when someone actually has traits that are from outside their type. And they have come up with plenty of ways to explain that. Of course.

Anyway, I’m not “sure of my type” at all, I don’t think I have a type (or that anyone does). I just write ISFP because it’s the last one I consistently tested as and I’m sick of taking the test, it no longer holds even morbid fascination the way it used to.

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