The INTP — INTJ interface

I'm completely unfamiliar with the Myers-Briggs inventory, but have friends who use these blasted initials all the time to explain what on earth is going on between people (or between them and me). Another model.  And, well, I am a model-junkie.  Any model that helps explain human behavior is okay in my book, as long as it doesn't pathologize everything in sight.  Insight, however, is welcome.

And as a result of my first contact and thinking (of course, thinking, what else would it be) about the model and four-letter reductionism, I came up with (not intentionally) my first joke ever.


INTP:  I don't know what I feel —

INTJ:  I don't know why I'm crying —

Both:  Let's analyze it!


This, essentially, (in slightly more words, pretty much) was real (so I guess I didn't make it up).  But I do recognize that it is funny, at least.  Which keeps it from being tragic, perhaps.

Or not.  The point is, I now believe that it's just not so terrible to not know what you're feeling or why you're feeling it.  With the help of Myers-Briggs, I can now just think of it as 'just' another pattern worth exploring.  No pathology. No self-recrimination. No blaming the other.

Just something to explore.

And another came to me about this Myers-Briggs thing, apart from worrying that I might have spelled it wrong.  And that is:

Why are all my friends Introverts?

That part kind of sucks.

I'll have to analyze it.