About Who I Am

Recently I just took part in personality test that uses the Myer-Briggs Type Indicator (yes, I take random tests for leisure) and the result provided me with a profound understanding about why I feel the way I feel and why I react the way I react to situations.

MBTI characterizes people into sixteen personality types by evaluating how people perceive the world and make decisions. The test result placed me into the INTJ type, which stands for Introversion - Intuition -Thinking - Judgment. According to research, INTJ is one of the rarest of the sixteen personality types, and account for about 1–4% of the population.

Excerpted from a Wikipedia article, INTJs are described as:
I – Introversion preferred to extraversion: INTJs tend to be quiet and reserved. They generally prefer interacting with a few close friends rather than a wide circle of acquaintances, and they expend energy in social situations (whereas extraverts gain energy).
N – Intuition preferred to sensing: INTJs tend to be more abstract than concrete. They focus their attention on the big picture rather than the details and on future possibilities rather than immediate realities.
T – Thinking preferred to feeling: INTJs tend to value objective criteria above personal preference. When making decisions they generally give more weight to logic than to social considerations.
J – Judgment preferred to perception: INTJs tend to plan their activities and make decisions early. They derive a sense of control through predictability, which to perceptive types may seem limiting.

Those characteristics above describe me to the letter, with all dots on the i’s and dashes on the t’s. They might as well using me as model example of INTJs when describing the personality!

My personal tendencies are the epitomes of INTJ type. Back in college, a friend of mine in a passing remark told me that she thought I tend to avoid interactions with people. At that time, I don’t think too much of what she said, although somehow I was slightly offended. Never did I guess how true is her perception until I took the MBTI test. I am not the most sociable and easy going person. Yes, human interactions actually drain me. That is why meeting new people on daily basis gives me the butterflies. I just don’t know what to talk to strangers. And I hate talking and chatting through phone with someone I don’t know that well. I hate going to parties, albeit wedding parties, birthday bashes or family reunions. I am comfortable being alone with my own thoughts and gain energy by spending my time alone.

Do not get me wrong. Introversion does not equal to shyness. I am not always shy. I am quite comfortable doing public speaking. At times, I can be a ‘situational extrovert’. For example, I just love, love traveling solo where I need to interact with strangers, even to share life stories with them. In my recent trip alone to a remote island, my latent extroversion came out and I become easygoing, approachable and make friend easily. It’s the fact that people I met in the journey will mostly remain strangers that makes me not worrying about putting both of my feet in my mouth.

As an INTJ, I am analytical, pragmatic, logical and creative. I tend to look at the bigger pictures, that is why I lack in attention to details. I am a planner and tend to look to the future instead of the current situation. I am easily frustrated with inefficiencies and people who can’t make sense of themselves. I am highly independent. I work best when given autonomy and creative freedom. I can also be up to the task in groupwork, and even am prepared to lead if the situation requires. I don’t need to always be the leader but if the group does not have direction where to go, I just cannot stop myself from initiating necessary actions.

INTJs value their privacy and personal space. That is why my energy is so easily depleted in my workplace because it is set in cubicles in open, crowded spaces with dozens of other people - virtually no privacy and never be quiet. In contradiction, my previous workplace is a closed office - with lockable doors - that I share with only a colleague of mine. That is why my old workplace is such a comfort zone for me: a smaller organization with less people and my own personal space.

I am more successful in professional interpersonal relationships than in personal life, also a characteristic of INTJs. In forming relationships, INTJs tend to seek out others with similar character traits and ideologies. I can be demanding in my expectations and tend to disappoint easily if others do not meet those expectations. As a result, INTJs may not always respond to a spontaneous infatuation - but wait for a mate who better fits their set criteria. I guard my heart very carefully. I don’t fall in love easily and neither I am apt in expressing emotional reactions. But because INTJs are dedicated and loyal, when I fall in love, I fall deeply and when brokenhearted, I will not easily move on.

At times, INTJs seem cold, reserved, and unresponsive. I have been told that this is how people see me while in fact I am almost hypersensitive to signals of rejection from those I care for and having a high pride does not help the case either. I tend to hide my feelings but it is not because I am not feeling. I just don’t know how to express them properly.

I am also hard to know because I am awkward towards strangers. Perhaps this is why I still remain single (but still happy to be one!). It is basically because I haven’t found the right guy who I am comfortable to be with and shares the same ideas of life. Well, I do believe, though, that out there somewhere, there a warm lagoon (not the open sea, please!) with white sand beaches where a guy fish is swimming reservedly, a fellow introvert!