in a thread the other day somebody asked me what type i was and i responded, essentially, that i was unsure between ILI and LII. i was asked by someone to elaborate on why i keep doubting my type so strongly from the generally accepted typing here, which is ILI (although obviously several people have differing opinions). this post is an attempt to do that.
basically, there are a lot of aspects of LIIs that seem to fit me quite well, and in some cases, explain deficiencies or inconsistencies in terms of my being ILI. some of these differences are more obvious than others. the fact is, that, in my own perception of what the functions are, neither ILI nor LII is really consistent with the way i behave.
perhaps the single factor which most heavily contributes to my indecision is my perception that i use quite a lot of Ti. this is not a new issue. from the first day that i have spent here on the forum, people have claimed that my thought processes are Ti for a variety of different reasons, including that i try to maintain a logically consistent perception of the world around me. in fact, expat's recent thread about Ti being equivalent to an ever-unfinished encyclopedia of logical consistency makes a reasonable amount of sense. (what makes somewhat less sense is the suggestion that the material based in this encyclopedia is based on pure Ne-esque speculation with no connection to the outside world, in addition to the suggestion that it is intended to effect some sort of change for the benefit of mankind or for the benefit of others in terms of creating a logically correct system of thought.)
my interests can also be said to line up with a very Ti-based perspective; obviously, the emphasis on science and mathematics, as well as everything to do with computer gaming and the internet, lack of socialization. many of these line up well with NiTe as well, but not so much certain things like a fervent interest in academia (mostly manifesting myself as a great deal of thought put into things like my choice of college) and other esoteric and frankly inexplicable nonsense (ie, a fascination with trains; it strikes me that this sort of thing is not type related).
this is not necessarily to say that i don't use Te; because i have seen enough evidence in myself of a desire to get things done in a Te-related fashion, in addition to the concerns about efficiency which often characterizes Te types.
the other major area of uncertainty is that of relations with others. obviously, in a discussion of relationships with others my word on their types is law; otherwise the whole thing is completely meaningless.
this qualification aside, my relations with other people based on their types vary greatly. as a general rule, in most situations where my direct participation is not required (as in every social situation, always), i find that people mostly ignore me as the weird, quiet kid with the bizarre appearance who never says anything. this suits me perfectly fine. nevertheless, however unfortunate it may be, the world cannot escape from me entirely. i have had rather poor relations with representatives all of the SF types (although these have manifested themselves in a variety of different ways), but especially ESEs and ESIs.
my experience with ESEs has been essentially negative, though it varies. i will spare UDP another rant about my grandmother, who is the most intellectually braindead and insanely overprotective person ever to exist. i cannot possibly imagine her as anything but an ESE.
my health teacher last term is another effective example of conflict with extroverted SF types. i am really undecided as to whether SEE or ESE is better; at different points i typed her differently because my perception of my own type changed. a few things i am absolutely sure of: she was NOT my dual. she was definitely my conflictor. she had an IQ of about .03. she was obese as hell (though this is irrelevant to my perception of her, it is rather relevant in evaluating her position because everybody else in my school discriminates against her for being the most unhealthy health teacher imaginable; i rather discriminate against her for having the aforementioned IQ). i argued with her about the way that she was teaching her class (which was extremely lax, as well as uninformative) about every day. this is probably not very useful information. i will move on.
alpha SFs in general seem to give me a hard time. my SEI spanish teacher, for example, runs a similarly lax class as the one above, inciting my complaint and my opinion that he's doing nothing at all to teach. nonetheless, i get along with him, sort of.
ESIs, on the other hand, have posed a problem. one ESI family member (of sorts), who i had formerly mistyped as ESE for this reason (this was when i had first joined the site and believed myself to be ILI) has real problems with my "uncivil" demeanor, in that i don't say hello, or show common courtesy because i find these actions to be completely stupid; i would prefer largely that people just ignore me and let me be instead of insisting on engaging me in small talk. ESIs like her and some others have largely doused me in criticism for not respecting them or others, largely for the sort of inertial behavior described above and for times in which i am acting in a silly fashion and being intentionally lazy or stupid. to be honest, this criticism often really unnerves me, which is how i imagine an LII might react (sometimes, if i think the criticism is really unfair, it doesn't bother me as much and i just ignore it).
i have had some good relations with SEEs, but in general they seem distant and uninterested in me. one example of a reasonably good experience i had with one was my lab partner last term, which was a situation in which we didn't have the opportunity to choose our own partners or interact voluntarily. he never did anything (he's not really a very smart guy) and i always ended up doing the labs myself, but in general we joked frequently and got along pretty well. it wasn't really much to speak of in terms of an actual relationship between the two of us.
other relations can be fairly interesting. an SLE who i interact with on the baseball team (and, yes, i am on the baseball team at my school, though i don't play very often) epitomizes my confusion, because he essentially treats me like he would his supervisee. i don't feel supervised at all by him, but he clearly thinks i'm a pathetic wimp with no experience in the real world, much like most SLEs might seem to feel about LIIs.
other basic reasons that i have continued to doubt my type are the confusion as to whether Ni is really my dominant function, and instances in which i have felt that Se makes sense as my polr and Si makes minimal sense as a role function, although the latter category i do not consider to be very influential.
in brief, there are some aspects of Ni which i do not identify with very well and really never have. i think that the whole thing that Ni is a psychic prophet that can predict the future is way overblown, although there is unquestionably some merit as to Ni's ability to read the likely consequences of an action. the emphasis of Ni on imagery i have never really understood (although some people i have talked to on this forum agree that Ni is not necessarily defined by imagery). despite this and probably one or two other areas i'm forgetting, Ni obviously does fit very well as a dominant function in a myriad of ways: pondering about the future and past, complete torpor, an interest in mystical thought (in my case, mostly manifested as philosophy, and definitely not in the Ti sense of philosophy, which is just stupid), a relaxed and completely unconcerned demeanor, etc.
a final word: please don't comment if you have nothing to say but "niffweed you are ILI because i have always imagined you to be ILI and you fit very well with that perception," as so many of you seem to do. obviously, your observation of me is limited to an internet forum and a photograph. this might change for the 3-day conference in august, but even that is a mere 3 days, in which all participants will undoubtedly be thinking about a number of socionic-related matters other than observing other people's types. if you can show me some real information of my habits here or analyze something in this post or others, then by all means do so, but leave out the mundane nonsense.