Personality Type Myth-Busting: Are Extroverts Incapable of Understanding Introverts?

29 April, 201928 April, 2019Marissa

One of the things that really irritates me when I see certain introverts talking online is how much they seem to hate extroverts. They’ll even use that word — “I hate this thing that extroverts do” or “I hate it when extroverts are like this.” Some even have lists of all the things they hate about extroverts.

We introverts have been pushing for a while now to get recognized as “normal.” Introversion is how about 50% of the population’s brains are hardwired. It’s an inborn preference for the inner world of thoughts and ideas, which is also shaped by our unique individual experiences. So stop judging us for it, okay?

What far too many of us forget is that the exact same things are true of extroversion. For about 50% of the population, being an extrovert is perfectly normal. It’s an inborn preference for the outer world of things and people. Extroverted and introverted mental “wiring” are both perfectly normal. Both are needed, and both personality types deserve respect.

So with that clarification out of the way, let’s talk about whether or not extroverts are incapable of understanding introverts. Read more →

What Do You Want Your Inner World To Look Like?

13 March, 201912 March, 2019Marissa

The world inside our minds can be a fascinating place. For some of us, it’s even more “real” than the outer world. Introverts in particular approach the world from the perspective that reality is what we bring to it from within. However, every type has an introverted and an extroverted side. Extroverts have an inner life, just like Introverts have an extroverted persona they use in the outer world. We all prefer one or the other as our starting point for conceptualizing reality, but every human being has an “inner world” of some kind.

Susan Storm’s post “The Secret World of Every Introverted Myers-Briggs® Personality Type” is what prompted today’s post. It got me thinking about how the worlds inside our own heads work, especially in connection with the Joyce Myers’ book Battlefield of the Mind that I’ve been reading. How much control do we have over the types of thoughts that we think? To what extent is our inner world shaped consciously? And if we don’t like something about the way our inner world or “thought life” is now, can we change it?

Our Minds Shape Us

The question of what our inner world looks like is probably most interesting to introverts, but I think it’s one that extroverts benefit from considering as well. None of us walk around all day with our minds a blank slate waiting for something outside us to fill out thoughts. We’re all using our inner thought life for something, even if it seems to just be running on automatic.

The Book of Proverbs tells us that as a man “thinks within himself, so is he” (Prov. 23:7, TLV). Even if you’re not a Bible-reader, it’s still a principle that we can apply. The things that we think about on the inside shape who we are and who we’re becoming on the outside. It’s impossible to separate what our inner world looks like from the reality of who we are as a whole person. Read more →

Can INFJs Be Intimidating?

17 December, 201813 November, 2019Marissa

The short answer to the question, “Can INFJs be intimidating?” is “yes.”

Of course, this partly depends on the specific INFJ and on what someone finds intimidating. Some people might be intimidated by the way INFJs people-watch. Others might find the way our minds work intimidating, or be overawed by our instinct for figuring others out.

Being intimidating can be a useful thing in some contexts. Unfortunately for INFJs, it seems like we come across as intimidating when we don’t mean to more often than when we do. INFJs are generally peaceful folk who don’t like confrontation and aren’t trying to intimidate anyone (even though the whole “good little INFJ” thing is mostly a myth).

Here are three ways that INFJs can come across as intimidating when they don’t mean to. If you’re curious about what INFJs are like when they are trying to be intimidating, click to check out my post “INFJ Dark Side.”

We Think Differently

Some people can find the way that INFJs think intimidating. We tend to be deep-thinkers and, in our own way, we’re pretty intense. Also, INFJs are a curious mixture of seemingly contradictory things and we’re hard for people to put into neat boxes. Some people find this fascinating, but others find it off-putting.

When I was finishing up my 4-year degree in college a guy at church asked me about my thesis project. So of course I waxed eloquent about how 18th century female writers used Biblical gender roles to present a solution to a “gender crisis” of their day. Not long after, this man described me as intimidating in a conversation with my father. He said that I was too well-educated and too deep thinking for any man in our church to want to marry me. Read more →

Introverts Need People Too: A Closer Look At Introversion and Social Anxiety

26 November, 201825 November, 2018Marissa

A lot of introvert-themed posts that you see around this time of year are things like “An Introverts Guide To Surviving the Holidays” or “How Not to Run In Terror From Your Extrovert Relatives.” That last one’s not an actual article, but it’s pretty close to some I’ve seen.

Often, writers of articles like this assume introverts don’t like people, that they’re always overwhelmed in social situations, and that they hate parties. But being on-edge in social situations, panicking when you have to interact with people, and going out of your way to avoid places where people gather aren’t actually signs of introversion. Those things are more a part of social anxiety.

Definition Conundrums

Part of the reason for this confusion is that people don’t understand what being an introvert actually means. For example, (despite numerous complaints and petitions) if you Google “introvert definition” the first thing that comes up is “a shy, reticent person.” Only if you expand the Google result to see translations, word origin, and other definitions do you finally get something a little closer to the correct result: “a person predominantly concerned with their own thoughts and feelings rather than with external things.”

Being an introvert doesn’t make you socially awkward. It doesn’t mean you hate people. Being an introvert means that you’re born with a trait that gives you a preference for the internal world. It also means you re-charge better in quiet, low-stimulation environments (usually alone, but not always). Introverts might avoid parties, but if so they do it because they’d rather be somewhere else (like at home reading or hanging our with a small group of friends), not because they’re inherently shy or scared of interacting with others. Read more →

10 Things INTJs Need In A Friendship

17 September, 201819 August, 2019Marissa

Ever wonder how to be friends with an INTJ? People with this personality type have a reputation for being intelligent and aloof loners, but like many stereotypes this isn’t really all that accurate. INTJs put a high value on friendships and they can make wonderful friends.

As someone with an INTJ best friend who also happens to be my sister, I find it puzzling when I hear people talk about INTJs as unfeeling or robotic. I’ve laughed out-loud a few times (thankfully not during an in-person conversion) to see people say INTJs don’t care about their friends or have no emotions. That couldn’t be farther from the truth. If an INTJ comes across as uncaring it was most likely by accident (and if not they’ll probably be honest enough to let you know).

If you’re not yet sure why you’d want an INTJ friend, check out this article: “7 Reasons Why You Need an INTJ Friend in Your Life.” Since you’re reading today’s article, though, I’m going to assume you either want to make friends with an INTJ or you want to be a better friend to the INTJs in your life. And so, without further ado, here are 10 things INTJs need in a friendship.

Looking for a test that can help you discover your personality type? I recommend the free test from Personality Hacker (click here to take it). Please note that this is an affiliate link, which means if you make a purchase after taking the test I’ll receive a small commission at no additional cost to you.

1) Loyalty

INTJs are fiercely loyal once they care about you. After you earn their trust and they consider you a friend, you can bet they’ll expect the same kind of loyalty from you that you’re getting from them. Betraying an INTJ is the fastest way to end the friendship. You’ve heard of INFJ doorslams, right? INTJs can be just as bad, or even worse. If you get doorslamed by an INTJ you might as well not exist anymore. Read more →

How To Communicate More Comfortably As An Introvert

11 September, 201810 September, 2018Marissa

Talking can be hard for introverts. Get us in just the right setting and you might have trouble making us shut up, but in most everyday conversations we struggle to come up with anything to talk about. As I wrote about last week, many introverts struggle to talk about personal things. Beyond that, we struggle with knowing what to talk about at all.

We often assume most people don’t want to hear about the things we care about. We think it sounds boring to answer, “What did you do last weekend?” by saying “Stayed home with my cat and watched Netflix.” Or we worry that we sound uninteresting if we answer, “What do you like to do?” with “Read, contemplate life, hide in a blanket fort … you know, exciting stuff like that.”

The Kind Of Talking We Don’t Like

About 50% of the population is introverted so there’s actually a good chance of you finding other people who think what you enjoy is perfectly normal because they also enjoy similar things. But for those of us in the United States, and other cultures that tend to have more “extroverted” values, we might still feel pressure to not be “weird” and stick with “normal” topics of conversation. Read more →