Behind every personality there’s a person…
a human being who may be complicated, simple, both at the same time…
who sometimes gets forgotten because they or others are focused on the outside rather than the inside.
We can get so involved with ‘typing’ people (or ourselves) that we can forget they’re (we’re) people first and the type of people they (we) are is a secondary matter…
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this is something which made me laugh because that word like so many words when broken into parts can be…
funny?
it also made me scream a bit because trying to find who created something on the internet once it gets shared and altered (as this has been) can be frustrating.
My apologies for not linking to source or crediting creator, but I had to share anyway.
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Don’t you find it frustrating when people label you and then won’t change that label even when they’ve got it wrong and you could prove it if they would just give you a chance but they won’t because they’ve labeled you, dismissed you because of that label and moved on?
So… why would you do that to someone else if you don’t like it when others do it to you?
Do you like it when the first thing someone else says to you is a criticism of you?
If no… then why would the first words you say by way of an introduction of yourself to another person be critical of them?
If someone did that to you, what would you think of them and what they had said? Would it be a good first impression? Would you go all mea culpa and bow down to them all I’m not worthy or have a different reaction?
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this made me go hmmm… and while hmmm-ing look the source of that quote up online because I wanted to know who had said this and why (as in was their philosophy a lived it and lived in it one)
I ended up reading a couple of articles about the creators and propagators of the Laws of Attraction and what the death of one of them from cancer meant for the movement to those who followed it and believed in it.
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When you think someone is wrong and tell them they’re wrong… what exactly do you expect them to do?
Will they disappoint your expectation… and will that disappointment satisfy another expectation?
Do you expect them to react positively to your negative statement because for you your negative statement is right therefore positive?
Do you want them to change themselves for you?
Or do you just want an apology from them wherein they admit their wrongful wrongness for being wrong and an acknowledgement of your righteous rightness for being right?
If that’s all you want…
you may need to be patient, empathic, and compassionate to an extreme degree…
kind of in the same way those who are expecting you to admit and acknowledge such things will need to be with you (what’s that? They’re wrong and you’re right so you ain’t gonna give them nothing…
might want to apply that to others when you’re on the other side).
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this made me smile because… astrology may be some nonsense made up by humans for whatever reason many ages ago, it’s an old human thingy, been around awhile, and around the block many times (enough to survive your opinion of it), but sometimes what it says randomly about your sign without knowing you personally… ha bloody ha, that was weirdly spot on!
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Someone recently introduced themselves to me by calling me out on something I said sometime ago.
They didn’t say much, but enough.
You know me… I’m going to share things here so you can make up your own mind…
This is the post – The Worst Thing To Do To a Narcissist
this is the recent comment:
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this is what I said in that post which is what I think they’re focusing upon (there was a helluva a lot more said in that post but obviously nothing else was relevant):
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Someone awhile back commented to tell me that my blog was okay and they quite liked my posts but they couldn’t read the blog and posts because of the font being in grey and if I wanted them to keep reading it I should make the font black. It’s still grey… because I blog for free and like this theme and I accept what I can get when things are free.
Fairly certain that I didn’t say that all INFJ’s or INFP’s (or HSP’s) are narcissists – that would be a ridiculous statement to make, and while as an INTP ridiculous statements often come out of our mouths (usually while we’re in the process of exploring perspectives)… what I said here was that those who are narcissists may use the results (which they’ve most likely gotten from taking an online personality test – their persona took that test and got results for that persona) they get in a test to pressure others into being and behaving a certain way with them – the way they want others to be and behave for them to be and behave how they please (somethign like that).
Fairly certain I also answered someone else who previously called me out on this same issue and that comment is right underneath the new one…
Here’s the previous comment and reply just before the new comment and call out:
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These sort of things make me both want to apologise and scream, and eventually cry… from frustration due to miscommunication (which is too frequent to blame on a seasonal Mercury retrograde).
Apparently ALL (of the few and rare) INTP’s find being misunderstood the most painful experience of human existence… thank goodness our type is few and rare because from the sounds of it other MBTI’s find us really awkwardly annoying.
Saw something amusing about that somewhere… but I feel too lackadaisical to bother re-finding it and sharing it (deleted my history, can’t recall what I was exploring which found it… some other MBTI type said trying to explain an INTP gave them a headache, it was funny, probably also true).
Sometimes I just want to give up, delete myself and go where INTP’s and Capricorns go when they’ve just had enough… and have deleted themselves but somehow still exist (even if it is only in their own minds).
But then the ‘Larry’s’ of this world come along and leave a comment which blows the mind, recharges depleted energy and makes a human remember why they love being a part of humanity.
If you need a bit of Larry, you can find him in comment form on my last post – A Zone of Noise etc… – his comment is great, my reply… yeah well yeah… focus on his comment, ignore my reply.
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this made me smile… I love personality tests, they’re fun (particularly the what mythological character are you ones… still trying to figure it out…) but they’re a frigging nightmare because you’re the one taking it and you’re a nightmare of simple and complicated all rolled into one!
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At the end of the day…
whatever your personality is,
you’re a person within that structure and that structure may or may not suit the person living within it…
kind of like where you’re living now…
this is home for this moment
it may change… or not…
have fun with labels but don’t make them the decider of who you are, whether you’re the one applying them or someone else is.
Probably haven’t explained this properly either… I’ll wait until you call me out before formulating an apology (please be aware that I’m really, really, really, really, etc, bored of apologising for existing and doing and being while existing).
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this made me…
via Elements – Experiments in character design
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If you do a search online for – why do people criticise – there’s a lot of posts, articles, blah blah, etc, about it… apparently it’s a thing we all do and we all find it annoying, painful, traumatic, in need of assistance and labels, when others do it directed at us but not when we direct it at others…
shrugs… dislocates shoulder while shrugging… seeks someone else to blame for this… or just someone to take personal pain out on…
laughs… because I’m stupid for doing that
Bye!
An Upturned Soul 
My word! You hit the nail on the head about being misunderstood as an INTP. I actually made an entire post about this today, how people perceive us. I’ve gotten aloof, cold, methodological, cruel — so, as a general rule, I try to be polite and kind to everyone, to a fault. In my mind, it saves me from having to go over every social interaction in my head, ad nauseum, to figure out what I did wrong and how I could have fixed it when there is a problem. I can go to my default –I treated them as politely and kindly as I could. If they take offense, its their fault. It sort of saves me having to do mental gymnastics to rationalize everything and keeps me on the moral high ground. Because when I do have to do bad or rotten things, for one reason or another, it eats at me and I take it apart and put it together in my head over and over to find different eventualities — what could be done better with available resources.
But being misunderstood — I was training a new employee, being my default overly kind and polite while doing what my boss told me. And this girl thought my politeness was sarcasm and back handedness, that I was being inttentionally condescending. Then having to explain to this person my intentions, when they already formed this negative opinion of me. Can’t win ’em all. There is a quote said by Jean Luc Picard from Star Trek about failing with never having made any mistakes — that’s life.
Mind you, I’m not a paragon of human interaction; I dont make myself out to be– quite opposite. I envy those who can communicate easily and let it flow without having to have little dialogues and set topics that are safe and easy to discuss with the different tiers I delegate people in my life to. Maybe I just over think it. Probably.
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Thank you 🙂
Since you’re an INTP you’re definitely overthinking it, it’s what our type does, it’s what we’re supposed to do, seeing the same thing from as many varied angles as possible, analysing the data we pick up, researching options, alternatives and alternate universes within this one.
It’s worth taking on board the perspective of others – as in the view of the girl you were training thinking your ‘kind and polite’ was ‘sarcasm’ – she may be wrong and that may be frustrating but it’s still a slice of the whole picture pie. It’s her perspective and this shows you her view not just of view but of herself and her place in the world.
There is positive within the negative as there is negative within the positive.
And just as others get us wrong, we may be getting others wrong too, thus experiencing it first hand from one side can inform us about the other side too.
Sounds like that girl may have been projecting her own insecurities onto you, when people are learning something new in a new environment with new people they feel vulnerable and may defend themselves with negativity, or maybe she was ascribing to you how she would have behaved in your position to someone in her position, perhaps she expects people in authority to be a-holes so she turned you into one because she needed you to be one for her version of reality to be complete. Perhaps she sees herself as nice but she can only be the nice person when she surrounds herself with not nice people – so she turns other nice people into not nice ones.
There are many variations and they’re fun to explore once the screaming arghs and groaning ughs have been gotten out of the system and way of clear thinking.
Mind you when an INTP does ‘nice and polite’ we tend to do it in awkward robot manner because we really don’t understand social niceties, small talk, and such, no matter how hard we try to. We get it intellectually, may even know the roots of it historically, and perceive its purpose in civilisation, but no amount of thinking about it, observing how others do it, investigating it like an animal in its natural environment, attempting to replicate it, is ever going to change the fact that INTP’s view that kind of behaviour as bizarre and rather mysterious, an alien ritual.
I do that going over every social interaction multiple times from different angles thing. It is an INTP hobby to do that, but other types do it too for varying reasons, it’s an Introvert thing, it’s also a human thing. But we’re only aware of ourselves doing it because we can’t overhear the thoughts of others (unless we want to, but that’s trespassing). Just remember you’re not the only one agonising over something you did or said yesterday or several years ago and trying to figure out how it could have been misunderstood, misinterpreted.
At the end of the day if someone is going to take umbrage, get upset, offended, misunderstand you, etc, then they’re going to do that because that’s what they want, need, are looking for, are programmed to do, etc, it’s part of their flow just as it’s part of ours when we do that kind of thing. We’re not exempt from getting things wrong about others and maybe that’s what others getting things wrong about us is teaching us.
It’s worth remembering that when we think we’re on top or on the bottom, we live on a spherical planet which spins 😉
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So true! What’s really funny, is that my social circle doesn’t have any INTPs in it, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It allows me to get out of my shell. But actually getting to converse with another female INTP and have my own thought processes echoed back at me is, for a lack of a better word, delightful. It’s like, I’ve talked with this person through the computer a few times, a fellow INTP… and… just wow… it’s uncanny.
And I bet you’ve felt it… not being able to connect with people on certain levels and having to explain, not ideas, but thought processes to people so they can understand how your mind works and how you come to conclusions — that you are not being mean or aloof. You actually have to tell people, especially those who don’t know you well, how you feel.
And different eventualities — that one is my favorite. I can go over in my head dozens of eventualities based on dozens of actions… the cliche butterfly effect. One of my absolute favorite ways to describe things is Schrodinger’s cat — how things can be two or multiple things at once until directly observed — the double slit experiment too. I always thought I should go into physicis, but I’m mathphobic lol.
There’s a film you should check out — Frequencies (2014). It may still be on Netflix — the female character is very INTP. And it struck me — you see the personality type played out greatly with men characters, like Benedict Cumberbatch’s portrayal of Alan Turing in “The Imitation Game”, but it is rare to see female characters portrayed like that, and usually when they are, the only way the actress can play the character is to be bitchy or cold. And that’s so far from the truth.
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Yep, the whole different eventualities thing… fun but also exhausting and makes making a decision really hard sometimes, even if all you’re trying to decide is what to have for dinner 😉
An action has consequences, consequences lead to more actions which create more consequences, which create more actions and more consequences, etc, variables apply, human factors need to be factored in, including the random and unexpected, like someone not following a predictable route which they usually follow, all of this and more needs to be considered… and all you thought you wanted was ice cream and you just weren’t sure which flavour, but then you realised that one simple insignificant detail can alter the course of human history.
I’ve been watching the TV series Traveler over the past couple of nights – cool concept, a bit like Fringe, although a bit clumsy with peripheral characters (relies a bit too much on tropes), but it’s fun and offers food for thought for an INTP mind.
I haven’t seen Frequencies, sounds interesting! UK Netflix is slightly different from USA Netflix in what it shows, however since this is a Brit film it’s probably available and I’ll definitely check it out.
There has been a trend recently in entertainment of having more intellectual female characters, going a bit more off the beaten track to bring diversity and change things up, but they often make those characters a bit too ‘special’. However that’s typical of TV and film, and they do that with the male characters too.
I’m thinking you might enjoy Utopia (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2384811/) it’s a weird UK TV series from awhile ago, a bit Comic-Con and Anime, none of the characters are ‘typical’. How females are portrayed in UK TV and film is more varied, it’s more about the individual person rather than a stereotype of a gender.
Anything Scandinavian – their female characters tend to be slightly INTP, usually it’s the males who are emotional messes. Best one is The Bridge (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1733785/) female lead character has Aspergers. She is awesome! Totally related with her and her social awkwardness.
I’m trying to remember films I’ve seen where the female lead has been more on the INTP side, but I can never remember anything when I try to… Mumblecore as a genre is a good place to find offbeat characters.
I’ll probably recall loads later on 😉
It is intriguing to meet other INTP’s!
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Great post. 🙂
I recently had an experience where I was badly hurt, and the questions you raise around those types of issues are spot on. I really wanted an apology of the sort where the person gets that their actions may have been hurtful but explains that they were also unintentional. Even though I knew that this wasn’t the case, I clung to that notion for a bit. I’ve had to end the relationship. A hard thing to do and I’m mourning what I thought it was. I did wonder briefly if I was being a righteous, unreasonable ass, but I’m certain that I’m not.
I love your description of INTP social action. I always feel like a fake, an awkward gumby doll turning myself into a social pretzel. I’m definitely not what Malcolm Gladwell refers to as a “connector.” And small talk? Yuck. I find it painful. I also find it difficult to stop going over these situations in my head. Arrrrgh.
And laugh, cry, scream? In my recent upset, I found myself crying, laughing and then crying again; it was an unusual reaction for me and surprised me and scared me a bit, too.
You did an excellent post on the “getting back at a narcissist” search – I just re-read it – and you handled the comments well, too. 🙂
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Thank you 🙂
I feel you (even though INTP’s aren’t supposed to do feeling). That moment when you have to admit to yourself that who you thought someone was isn’t who they actually are (at least not anymore if they ever were). That moment when you realise they’re not ever going to be sorry for what they did (probably because they think they’re righteous and you’re wrongteous). That moment when you have to do the hardest thing you don’t ever want to do (because you know it’ll hurt both them and you, and you, and you). That moment when you stop shelving your feelings to stay in a relationship with someone who expects you to keep shelving your feelings…
Hurts like hell, and that kind of hurt always surprises and subsequent reactions continue giving surprises.
Breakdown leading to breakthrough… breakthrough leading to breakdown. Why do things have to break? Why do people have to break?
I try to be fair when writing posts but sometimes I’m not going to be fair. I’m human, so are others – hard to remember and hard to forget.
Be gentle with yourself!
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Thank you. 🙂 I did take care of myself and it also helped that those whom I love gave support. I am feeling better (but not less hurt – I don’t think that ever goes away; it eventually becomes part of the you that makes you be you) about the whole thing.
Yes – I think that I had a sort of breakdownish breakthrough. And more yes – why do people have to break? As you’ve said so often (including here), we’re human, despite our feverish imaginings and attempts to hurry ourselves up into better and better. The push for diverless cars and pilotless airplanes – hey! Look what I did and how much money I can make by making things be less! Maybe we will soon have peopleless people.
I think that you are fair. One of the most fair people I’ve ever had the privilege of “meeting.” I think that people can expect too much, and then they forget that it’s a real human, not a character in a movie or book.
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The image of peopleless people is a powerful one. Reading those words my mind did what it does when it spots a piece of a puzzle, a spark glinted but it’ll be awhile before I figure out what it was I saw.
Perhaps hurt is what stops us from becoming peopleless people, although it can also be what makes us want to become that.
It’s always a strange poetry when someone hurts us we often find those who heal us, it’s as though we need the reminding of one to access the other. 🙂
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Yes. 🙂 I am reminded of the series “Humans.” (I was intrigued by the idea of it but didn’t find the series itself to be that good.) The androids, who are supposed to be automatons, can become more human than the humans, and then there’s a power struggle. The insatiable human need to best each other, the threat of someone else being better. It all goes round and round and makes my head hurt.
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One of the things I like to try and figure out is – when did something begin and why. As in when did we start competing with each other and why? And why does it keep going? Is it something we can change by changing our programming or is it something intrinsic to the human race?
Apparently INTP’s are considered to be the warmest robots (that was on a funny meme about MBTI). 😉
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Hahaha. 🙂 I can get emotional sometimes so not always a robot. 😉
Yes, I like to try to figure out the beginnings and reasons as well, but I can get distracted along the way sometimes & lose any sense of direction. The incident I mentioned above really took me by surprise & I got very muddled in every way. Am still sorting, but the pile is smaller now.
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Sometimes losing our sense of direction is how we find where we really are 😉
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Yes, and also what’s important.
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