Ever wonder why something you thought was perfectly innocent annoyed your INTJ friend? Or why you, as an INTJ, find certain things that other people don’t worry about the most vexing part of your day?

Our Myers-Briggs® personality types describe how our minds work. It’s a description of the mental processes that we use most comfortably, which come together in unique ways for each personality type. Because of the special way our brains are “hardwired” to function, each type has different things that they typically find very annoying.

Of course, even if a group of people share a personality type there are going to be plenty of individual differences between them. Some INTJs might, for example, enjoy being hugged or not find emotional conversations all that annoying. In general, though, most INTJs will find the 10 things on this list extremely vexing.

1) Anything Illogical

INTJs approach the outer world using a mental function called Extroverted Thinking. It’s a highly logical way of making decisions and evaluating information. If something doesn’t make sense, can’t be measured, doesn’t work, and isn’t based on impersonal criteria then it’s clearly not the right choice. But other people don’t always see things that way, which can be frustrating and annoying for INTJs.

2) Inefficiency They Can’t Fix

INTJs aren’t just interested in arriving at decisions that make sense. They also want to come up with solutions that work long-term. Something that isn’t efficient irritates them as being out of place and ineffective. This annoyance can make them very productive when they’re driven to streamline processes and bring order to chaos. If for some reason they can’t fix the inefficiency, however, it becomes a continual source of annoyance.

3) Inaccurate “Facts”

Few things annoy an INTJ faster than someone presenting blatantly inaccurate statements as if they were facts. If someone giving a presentation says that the sky is blue because it reflects the blue ocean, an INTJ who knows earth’s atmosphere scatters blue light more than the other colors will find the entire presentation irritating. You’ll lose credibility quickly with INTJs if you can’t get your facts straight. Not only that, you’ll annoy them with your lack of accuracy.

4) Unnecessary Rules

INTJs aren’t the only personality type that believe rules were made for people stupider than themselves, but this is a common belief of the type. Many INTJs think they are perfectly capable of self-government and it’s annoying when an outside authority steps in and makes a bunch of rules to try and keep them in line when they’re perfectly capable of making decisions for themselves. While INTJs recognize that rules play a role in creating a functioning society (and keeping the illogical under control), they hate feeling trapped by rules that they don’t think are necessary.

5) Unexpected Incompetence

A mature INTJ can exercise patience and understanding with people who haven’t yet developed skills in a certain area. But if someone is supposed to be competent already and isn’t, that gets annoying quickly. An INTJ will be much more irritated by someone who said they were good at something and isn’t than with someone who was up-front about their strengths and weaknesses. This also means that INTJs are particularly irritated by incompetent authority figures, who they believe should have met certain basic criteria to earn their power.

6) Ignoring the Big Picture

As a type that leads with Introverted Intuition as their favorite mental process, INTJs are big-picture thinkers. It’s perfectly natural to INTJs to see things from multiple perspectives, to notice patterns, and project into the future. It makes no sense to them that people would ignore the broader perspective or focus only on short-term decisions. And it can get very annoying if people who the INTJ has a professional or personal relationship with persist in ignoring the big picture.

7) Rejecting an Asked-for Opinion

INTJs enjoy solving problems and pride themselves on coming up with good solutions. They love it when you ask them for advice or for their opinion. What’s annoying is when you ask them for advice and then ignore it, or ask them for their opinion and then get offended when they share it. You asked! Why would you throw a fit about the answer you got? It doesn’t make sense and it’s irritating to an INTJ.

8) Random Touch

Many INTJs are uncomfortable with physical touch. Touch isn’t typically an INTJ’s favorite method of connecting with people. If they do enjoy touch, it’s usually only with people they’re close to and whom they trust. They’re not usually the people you’ll find offering to hug a new acquaintance or casually touching their friend’s arm during a conversation. Random touch or an invasion or their personal space by someone they’re not close to is annoying, irritating, confusing, and possibly even threatening.

9) Sudden Emotional Outbursts

Contrary to popular belief, INTJs are not emotionless robots. They actually feel things deeply, but prefer to keep their emotions inside and in-check, which is where they think feelings belong. So when other people have random, sudden emotional outbursts (especially if there’s no apparent context for this emotion), INTJs often find it both puzzling and annoying.

10) People Who Misjudge Them

INTJs are used to being underestimated and misunderstood, but that doesn’t mean it won’t get annoying. It irritates INTJs if they have to constantly correct people or practice damage-control regarding the ways other have misjudged the INTJ. This is especially irritating for INTJs when it comes from people who say they care about the INTJ. If you understand them as well as you say you do, then maybe you wouldn’t misinterpret, misjudge, and underestimate them so often.

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What are the things that annoy you most as an INTJ? Let us know in the comments!

 

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