A question and introduction
Alright. I've said once on this forum that I've recently doubted my type. I thought I might as well open it up to the forum and see what you make of it. This will also serve as my introduction to this forum.
I will try to keep this as unbiased as possible, since I might feel inclined to rationalize my type.
Also, CAUTION. This is hella long.
The first thing to know about me is that I've been a dweeb for most of my life. You know the guy that always sat in class and listened to the teacher so that he could correct the teacher's every mistake? That was me. Back in elementary school, I even probably had the annoying squeeky voice to go along with the stereotype.
This geek persona reappears with great frequency throughout my life. I remember the first MBTI test that I took for an assignment in high school health class. I ended up testing as INTP twice and INTJ once (because the questions were not as clear as I would have liked so I took the test three times for accuracy). My apartment is or used to be littered with junk that was the result of my many hobbies; one thing about me is that I seemingly cannot maintain focus on one thing for a continuous stretch of time.
I have also always felt older than my peers. My best relationships were rarely with those my age and, more often than not, with elderly people. I'm still waiting to reach the age when people seriously talk about politics or philosophy or literature. Truthfully, I already realize there is no such age and people will continue to talk about fashion, sports, how buzzed they got last night, and how much they love to vote for the party of their parents' choice.
I remember reading Dostoevsky in sixth grade and reading Sartre during the summer of eighth grade. I interpreted Sartre as thinking that people should stop doing what they do not want to do and I followed that advice. I withdrew from people. To this day, I'm not good with forging connections with people, or keeping them for that matter. My family is essentially made up of a bunch of members that are never up front with others and talk behind their backs. I might have grown up thinking that keeping people at arms distance kept the relationship straightforward and honest.
I change in only the worst of ways. I might also have an inferiority complex. However, I do know when I began to change from a geek who was good in his studies to a geek who was useless. The root of what I became might have been my sixth grade class finding out I like to listen and rap along with Eminem. (The Marshall Mathers LP was as popular in my neighborhood as the Second Amendment is in the Midwest.) The change probably occurred with the start of seventh grade, when I transferred to a new school and figured out that I hate the day-to-day task of studying. This is also when I started picking up more negative and wasteful hobbies. Maybe the change could have happened the summer before seventh grade, where I found someone who accepted me for who I was.
My dirty secret to this day is that I like spending time dreaming. When I was five, I decided to make my own superhero and that superhero needed a world and adventures. Over the years, I have given up a large number of designs due to simple childishness - the heroes were too strong or too powerful. I continuously searched for a balance. I centered in on a story and, in many modified versions and evolutions, this story has played in my head for twelve years now. I have only told the story once during that summer and I am not likely to tell it again. I remember it, not perfectly, but much better than I remember with what this story started with. I do not know if I will tell the story ever again, but it took me the whole summer, devoting about two hours each day to telling it. My current world is astronomical in size.
I often think I have psychic powers. Sometimes, when I'm alone, I will suddenly feel emotionally affected (the most memorable instance was one of sadness/grief) and notice that someone behind me is feeling that emotion, which got transferred to me, somehow. Normally, I'm in very good control of my emotions, and have recently found out that I make quite a good Shakespearean actor.
I do not need a joyous or fun-loving environment. I may even avoid such things. That is not true, as remembering back to those environments that I liked, I cannot say they were not fun-loving and exciting. I enjoyed drinking beer with friends on the rooftop of a twelve story building with no guard rails (after we hauled enough furniture to fill an apartment up there). I enjoyed playing cops and robbers. I enjoyed doing crazy shit with my high school friends. In contrast to that, I have never even been at a party in college (although I go to pretty much a frat school) nor have I wanted to go. My family constantly pesters me about getting friends, but why would I get friends I do not want in the first place?
That said, my memories of my friends and close ones are filled with gangs. When I was three, three kids stole a toy gun from me and the kids around the neighborhood roughed them up. When I moved in to a new apartment, the next-door neighbor who became one of my best friends in the neighborhood also ran a gang. It is sad that a geek like me had street cred. In junior high school, I hung out in a circle of people who were normal, aside from not hanging out with anybody else. In high school, I had two circles of acquaintances: the foozball junkies and the role-playing/card game nerds, which combined into one circle when the nerds got kicked out from their part of the school and migrated to where I played foozball.
So, I’m friends with gangs and old geezers. I feel so much better about myself.
I'm also not exceptionally technologically savvy and prefer antiques to novelties. I have however found that I can imagine an object three dimensionally in my head and that I can fix a lot of things by tinkering with them. My father taught me carpentry from an early age, so I like wood (do not quote this or take it out of context) and working with wood.
Actually, I do not know what else to write about. If you have any further questions, ask away.
EDIT: Turned out to be not as long as I thought.
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Originally Posted by Jarno
