I tried the Myers-Briggs personality test, and it turns out I’m an INTJ female. What does it mean?
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In general, I take psychological personality tests with a pinch of salt. A lot of them just seem far too vague and susceptible to confirmation bias to say anything of real value. Plus, how can even a more extensive test using 50, even 100 questions capture anything as complex as a human being? My (uneducated) guess is that it can’t and that you should approach these things with a healthy dollop of scepticism.
On the other hand, I have had good experiences with them. Back in 2008, I decided that I was ready for a relationship and that an online dating platform was the best way of going about the search for a compatible partner. This decision had multiple motivations, including the fact that — left to my own devices — I continually ran after the wrong guys. Outsourcing the task to a platform which would match me up with compatible partners based on a “scientific” personality test? Well, anything had to be better than my own poor judgment, so I gave it a whirl.
Four months later, I got together with The Other Half, who is still by my side after 17 years. For two pretty strong-willed people, we have a very harmonious relationship. Our personalities mesh more or less exactly in the way that the personality test had predicted. And we aren’t the only ones: the more people we tell about the origins of our relationship, the more couples in our circle of acquaintances admit to having met on the same platform.
So, despite the scepticism, there might be something in these personality tests after all.
So, I’m an INTJ female
Anyway, I was at a loose end one rainy Sunday afternoon and decided to try out the Myers-Briggs test to see which one of the 16 personality types it would categorise me as.
An INTJ, as it turns out. The first thing that they tell you about this personality type is that it is the rarest of all among the general population. And INTJ females are especially rare, coming to less than 1% of the population.
There are two possible reactions to this:
1) Ohmigod! I’m an INTJ female! I am amazing! I’m a unicorn! I’m an amazing unicorn!
OR:
2) Right, so I’m — supposedly — an INTJ female. Fine. What does this mean? Does it mean anything? What am I supposed to do with this information? (Answer: write and publish a blog article).
I’ll take Option 2, thanks.
Reading through the masses of online literature about this — there are quite a few things which are spot on with the categorisation.
Here are some of the things that got me nodding and feeling understood…
1) INTJ females: introverted is an understatement
Very true. I’ve always been more than happy with my own company and need a lot of alone time in order to be able to cope with the outside world. I have my best ideas and do my most creative and constructive work when I’m on my own and can fully hear my own voice inside my head, free of external interference or interruption.
I once read that, in 18th century England, rich people used to have “decorative hermits” in their gardens, as a kind of novelty feature to show off to visitors. It is a damned shame that this has fallen out of fashion because I think I’d be really good at it.
It’s exceedingly rare for me to feel fully comfortable/at ease with someone I just met or don’t know well. When it does happen, I feel like I just saw Halley’s comet and think: I HAVE TO KEEP THIS INDIVIDUAL IN MY LIFE SOMEHOW (in a non-stalky way, obviously).
Finally – please can we all acknowledge that being introverted and being anti-social are not the same thing? Being introverted doesn’t mean that you don’t like people per se – it just means that being around other people tends to consume, rather than give you, energy. This is why we introverts need to go back to our quiet spaces for a while after socialising: we need to recover and replenish our energy supplies before taking on the world again.
2) The zoning out
INTJs are given to zoning out completely from their surroundings, putting on the famous “death stare” and seeming to withdraw to a whole other dimension.
Guilty as charged: I often find myself sinking into my own thoughts so deeply that I stop noticing what’s going on around me or how time is passing. Mostly, it’s completely involuntary. I’ll be sitting at my desk trying to get something done for work, stop to consider something and suddenly half an hour has passed. Other times, I do it on purpose. I might be in a long queue, a waiting room or even a tedious social situation. Then, the ability to slip away and climb into my own head is very useful indeed.
My partner laughs about it. He refers to these little episodes as “waking comas” and is convinced that tumbleweed is blowing around in my head during them. “I’m thinking!” I always tell him indignantly. It might not look like it from the outside, but there is still a lot going on in my head when I do that.
3) A rather utilitarian approach to fashion
“INTJs tend to treat fashion as a means to an end.”
Exactly! It’s not that I don’t care how I look – it’s just that what I wear on a day-to-day basis isn’t dictated by what’s in fashion right now or what label the clothes have sewn into the lining.
My clothes choices are driven primarily by practical considerations. The most important thing is that they are comfortable and durable – I’m too damned busy thinking and getting stuff done to be distracted by too-tight waistbands or superficial straps or frills.
The same goes for shoes. I was never the kind of woman who would stand outside a shoe shop window drooling over the Manolos and Louboutins. To me, those high heels looked like the 9th circle of sartorial hell. Flat shoes, please – my footwear is there to help me get from A to B efficiently and shouldn’t bother me on the way. Gabor ballerina flats are my go-to. I discovered them about 10 years ago and have been going through them at the rate of one pair per year ever since. I simply walk the soles right off them.
Keeping it classic
Fabrics in classic block colours like black, grey and navy are in. My clothes must be easy-care (why waste precious lifetime doing bloody handwashing?) and still look good after they’ve been folded in a suitcase or rucksack.
Just like many others in my generation and younger for whom living space is expensive and limited, the volume of clothes I have is partially determined by the space available to store them. I have one moderately-sized wardrobe and a Billy shelf for my clothes and that’s it. Therefore: everything I buy has to go with about 5 or 6 different other things. With shoes – if the new pair isn’t serving an entirely new purpose, it’s a case of “one-pair-in, one-pair-out”.
INTJ ladies like me are the original purveyors of the capsule wardrobe.
4) You just can’t stop your brain from analysing. Every. Single. Thing.
INTJs are known to be extremely analytical and strategic thinkers. They are natural problem-solvers who are constantly looking to see how existing systems, processes and situations can be improved. Phrases like “efficiency gains” and “streamlining” are probably going to get them quite excited.
Everything – and I really mean everything – gets put through the mental strainer of rationalisation in their minds. And only the pure distillate that’s left behind qualifies as relevant and worthy of further attention.
In short: INTJs read the world around them through the icy prism of hard analytics. It’s a brutal process that shears away all extraneous details and emotions to get at the essence and the principles of things.
And this process never stops. My brain grabs onto any and all situations with that analytics programme running at a thousand miles an hour before I can even draw breath.
Which is just fine and dandy if it’s a situation which can be explained in logical terms. But many aren’t, and then it’s not so fine – see point 5.
5) Emotions are irrational and therefore scary
I’m not very good at dealing with feelings, either my own or those of others. I also have trouble understanding why people remain stuck in thought patterns that are plainly driven by emotions instead of applying logic to the situation to rationalise it. Feelings can be powerful, but they are not facts.
I think it is absolutely human to experience a brief rush of emotion and irrationality when a difficult situation suddenly presents itself. I know I do. But then logical, rational thinking and analysis should kick in pretty soon after as you try and get a grip on the situation and develop an appropriate response. So many people never manage that switch.
Whether this drive to cold analysis is because I am an INTJ female or whether it is the result of my years in the legal sector, which requires a pretty emotionless approach to the facts, I can’t say. In any case, if you’re upset and want suggestions for how to analyse or solve your problems, I’m your gal. If, on the other hand, you’re looking for rich tea, sympathy and lots of hugs and hand-holding – walk on by.
6) While we’re on emotions – I do have them, they just don’t make it to the surface that often
I recently went through a period of mild depression and decided to seek help from a professional to stop the situation getting worse. Not a small step for me, as I hate talking about my emotions to anyone – even if that is the declared purpose of me going to see them.
And in this case it really was a bad idea: within a minute of sitting down in the therapist’s office, I decided I distrusted and disliked her and that this was not going to go any further than the one session. I’ll analyse myself, thank you very much.
Anyway, a week after this ill-fated visit, I received the therapist’s report. In her observations, she wrote that I had “very limited emotional expression in either direction”. Meaning presumably that I don’t show much emotion, either positive or negative. There, she had a point.
INTJ or just…British?
Now, this might very well be cultural: the British, especially those over a certain age, are notoriously reserved when it comes to our feelings (if we even acknowledge their existence). But it’s also a key trait of INTJs, who are apparently the Darth Vaders of the personality test world.
Which isn’t to say I don’t have any emotions. I totally do. They just don’t manifest themselves to the outside to the degree (or in the way) which others might expect. And I am often misunderstood because of it, which is annoying.
7) Babies and kids? Hmm, no thanks
I decided at age 12 I wasn’t ever going to be a mummy and never wavered from that position. As I’ve already mentioned, I need a lot of alone time and can’t deal with irrationality and tears. Kids are not compatible with either of those requirements, so my decision to stay child-free isn’t surprising at all.
But even before I knew myself that well, I had an aversion to the idea of motherhood which was so deep-rooted and sure that I knew I would never change course. It was a conviction that sealed me off into a whole other sphere of female existence where my biological clock didn’t just fail to tick – it simply wasn’t there.
When I was 37, a friend of many years suddenly turned to me while we were riding the tram and said to me with utter clarity and single-minded purpose: “I really want a baby”. The first thought that went through my mind was “Oh wow – what’s that like?” She could just as well have said “I want to go out and murder dozens of people in cold blood” – so little could I relate to that unstoppable urge to procreate.
There is literally no strand of my being – neither physical, nor hormonal, nor social, nor emotional – that connects to the world of motherhood. And at 43, it’s more or less become a past hypothetical anyway. It is with utter indifference that I have moved to consider the option closed.
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Confessions of an awkward woman
The vein on my arm and the unconscious need to be ladylike
Man! I feel like a woman! Or maybe I don’t…?
10 things all girls with curly hair will relate to
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