I tried the Myers-Briggs personality test, and it turns out I’m an INTJ female. What does this mean and is it accurate?
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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 15 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) As an INTJ female, I am probably one of the most introverted people out there
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) I prefer working on my own or with one or two people I trust
INTJs apparently value efficiency over cooperation and that is definitely my opinion on the matter. The scattergun approach to tasks that often results from working in a large group used to stress me out no end when I worked in an office and got co-opted into a “fun” teamwork task.
So much time wasted with small talk and going down blind alleys of unsuitable solutions when you could be getting on with the task in hand! Other colleagues seemed to actively enjoy this process whereas I felt frustrated as hell — especially if I could already see an excellent solution at the outset. Why not just get straight to it without all of the dithering?
I love being self-employed when I can just decide and do.
3) Butting heads with authority figures
As I have written elsewhere, I never rebelled, or went out of my way to annoy authority or acted with malice towards it. I just have considerable difficulty with submitting to leaders I don’t respect or trust or who are constantly nit-picking and micromanaging.
I have always felt that it is moral obligation to question the status quo if it is not working or if you can think of a better way of doing things. Good bosses get this and welcome fresh ideas. Unfortunately, the bosses I had in my pretty unhappy career in regular employment were all deference-obsessed or chronically insecure about what they saw as an insubordinate assault on their authority.
Latest when I found myself being shouted at for having — in complete good faith — suggested an alternative solution to a certain problem, I concluded: girl, this is never going to work. You need to stop looking for better bosses and be your own better boss. That was 2015 and I am still proudly self-employed.
I’m never, EVER going back: I would need a shedload of Valium. Or a lobotomy. Or both.
4) The zoning out
INTJs are given to zoning out completely from their surroundings, putting on the famous “thousand-yard 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.”
5) 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.
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.
6) 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 set 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.
I am consistently perplexed at how people are taken in by flimsy, fact-poor narratives, or decide on their desired answer and rejig the facts to establish a path to it. I’ve known people write whole PhDs in this way.
Whether this is because I am an INTJ female or whether it is the result of my years in the legal sector, which requires a pretty cold, emotionless approach to the facts, I can’t say. Basically, if you’re upset and want suggestions for how to 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.
7) Babies and kids are not my thing
This is probably quite closely related to needing a lot of alone-time and inability to deal with others’ emotional incontinence.
Quite frankly, I didn’t even like kids when I was a kid. I utterly dreaded being invited to girls’ birthday parties — all that giggling and getting upset over nothing. “Girl” was a language that I just didn’t speak! It was too much to bear. Can I stay home and read my book instead?
I decided at age 12 I wasn’t ever going to be a mummy and have never wavered from that position. I could never cope with the relentlessness of parenting. The noise. The mess. The inability to think a single thought through to the end without a small human demanding snacks. The irrationality of toddler tantrums.
Huge respect to those of you who are out there in the trenches, bringing up the next generation of taxpayers. It’s definitely not for me.
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Related articles:
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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