Confused ILI or Something Else?

[may]

You strike me as an ILI.

Generally speaking, you seem to be a gamma intuitive thinker since you give priority to a realistic/longterm viewpoint on most, if not all matters. This is supported by your observation that you do not really publicly come apart at the seams, emotionally speaking. You seem to be ILI in particular, since you have a natural inclination (whether it is suppressed or not) to be truthful in conversation when it comes to relatively indisputable facts.

To give some elaboration, there are also some aspects of your communication style which stand out in favor of ILI. You have a generally neutral stance on issues combined with some adopted consideration of social convention. Adopted in the sense that they don't come naturally, and must be consciously worked on. While you are formal for the sake of accuracy in talking about issues of interest, you have an overall informal way of talking to ease conversation and as a gesture of goodwill, as you put it.

Your adaptability (due to irrationality?) combined with difficult life circumstances and a subtle appreciation of systems could make it harder to self-type. Being adaptable to circumstances can make it hard to get at the real you and knowing that manifestations of behavior patterns (in this case, type functions) can take many different forms could make it hard to pin down a particular type. Still, in my outside view I would say you are ILI.

I would like to add that I do think that ILIs have strong emotions and affections :) The form these emotions take is just not necessarily explicit to some.

Also, for various reasons, I have found video VI to be pretty helpful in making final decisions. Depending on the strength of one's internal conception of others, it might actually be easy to adopt another type's written style. Acting out a whole other type with your body is harder. Let's not argue if it's a science on either the VI or socionics level, because that's a whole other ballpark right? I can pull up a couple examples of what I think are ILIs if you'd like.

[Skepsis]

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[chemical]

I think just exploring what it means to have a irrational preference is a good idea. One of my issues with the way this is usually presented is it makes insufficient reference to information and more to other things. For instance, is the real difference between the two INT coming down to how rigid and all they are?
How rigid the man is might not have much to do with how the thought process looks. Intuitive information, when prioritized, appears more spontaneously than through deliberation. There's a reason ILI often is portrayed to have developed imaginative faculties which can proceed without considering any particular framework, data, etc necessarily in mind.

EII I'd expect to be relatively analytical in the ethical sphere, with more emphasis on Fi/Ti leading to an overall judging attitude. If your natural processes all gravitate to ethics then I'd say EII is a decent bet.

As for being artistic and so forth, this can be sooooo many things. On the one hand Gulenko describes how the N types in the socionics seem to correlate with the Big 5 openness, which tends to be related to an overall curiosity both for things like art and things like theory.
Yet we all know there are highly artistic SEI, LSI who do plenty of (logical) theorizing.

The information elements are just highly general things - they tell you roughly what sort of information someone is dealing in.

I think considering some of the dichotomies of forms of cognition is useful too. Process/result, negativist/positivist and etc.

[Skepsis]

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[chemical]

The reason I suggested deciding if you're an irrational type or not is sometimes that is just more clarifying. Jung did see the potential for you to be on the fence relatively in introversion/extraversion, so sometimes narrowing a best fit sociotype is easier to do if you focus on the many dichotomies besides these basic ones.

A ILI-Ni for instance can easily describe himself/herself as a person of deep feeling, I think.

It's good to get a big picture look at yourself and realize what you actually are deciding against: you're pretty clearly thinking of yourself (and others seeing it too) as some kind of intuitive type with strong introverted feelings, and that sounds about the most certain thing about you. So I'd check out ILI, IEE, EII for good measure.

Ne and Ni as far as I see it are really about perceiving into objects versus into your subjective states. A Ne base is very energized by almost looking outside of oneself, meeting an object face-on, and seeing its full and total potential as an object (this really requires merging the consciousness with representations of an objective nature), without much self-reference, relating back to subjective experience, and so forth. This is actually not at all easy for even Ne-creatives to do in the same way (e.g. the EII/LII actually in theory have "stronger" Ni). One hypothetical way I see this is that Ne creatives seek the crutch of a global program endorsed by the base, and then can contextualize the operation of Ne within that global program in order to let it work its magic.
Anyway, this is the real meaning of extroverting intuition. You really and truly do need to go outside of yourself to do it, and it is quite draining for real introverts to do for long periods, hence why they tend to seek a context within a program established by the base in which to sustain such activity.

[Skepsis]

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[Skepsis]

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[Skepsis]

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[Iris]

I know a pair of cousins, one of whom is EII. The other is most likely ILI. I hesitated about replying because I am not 100% sure about the ILI typing. So take this with a grain of salt. (I lean ILI for him because IP temperament is clear, and he seems to be Fe devaluing and is clearly not a sensor.)

The EII is pretty proactive about maintaining her relationships and has done a good job over the years, despite having made several moves all over the country. The ILI has only lived in one city and yet has almost no close friends, despite being a pleasant person. He has complained privately to me about his friends never reaching out to him to do things. Never mind that he does NOTHING to reach out to anyone. He mostly sits at home watching TV in his spare time. But you can tell that he wants close friends, and will sometimes imagine a closeness that doesn't exist except in a fantasy world in his head. Like thinking he should be included in a relative's wedding when he hasn't spoken to that relative in years.

[Skepsis]

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[Iris]

He has had some success in these areas:
- arranging a reunion for the guys in his family once a year where they hunt and eat and drink and play poker
- once a month there is a target practice at lunch for some guys that he knows

But he can't really get on an intimate level with any of these guys. He usually finds something to be critical about. He doesnt really get deep even with the SEEs that he knows. There are some ESEs that pursue friendship with him, but he is privately critical about them. The friendships exist because the ILI minds his manners and the ESEs are putting all of the effort into reaching out.

[Amber]

I think he would be apt to misread signs of a woman being interested in him and has probably embarrassed himself a number of times and has learned how to avoid being humiliated by following a procedure aimed at optimizing his chances of scoring. After watching him for ten minutes, it became clear to me that his formulaic approach to dating in not only boring, but requires way too much effort.

that's why I'm sure you're Fi ego, among other things ...since you don't go around smashing people's heads, with Ne.
**just a comment on your type, not changing my opinion on dude.

[Skepsis]

that's why I'm sure you're Fi ego, among other things ...since you don't go around smashing people's heads, with Ne.
**just a comment on your type, not changing my opinion on dude.

Sometimes I think I may be Fi ego, and there is no doubt now that Fi is an important function to me. The trouble with Fi being my ego, is that I am much more interested in solving problems of an impersonal nature than those of a personal nature. When I solve a problem at home or at work, my primary desire is that I do what makes the most logical sense and not how people feel about the facts. I consider people secondary to the facts. I will spend hours working on a problem until it is solved. It is a primary motivator and I get great satisfaction out of it. Not only that, but I prefer to remove myself from people when I'm working on a problem because they can be distracting to me.

I do think my age and life experiences weigh heavily in how I may appear online. I am on here to socialize and learn about myself and others. I have years of developing people skills at work and I have a family, which all require that I be considerate of others.

While I would consider myself moderately empathetic, it is not what is right or wrong that occupies my mind, but "how can I understand this better?"

Feel free to PM me if you would like to discuss this some more. I just don't want to clutter up other people's threads with my type, even if I began to clutter it up myself.

[Esaman]

@Sienna, @Jimmers, fyi "ego" is the first 2 functions so you exchange made no sense. "Base" or "leading" is what you probably meant.

[Amber]

@Esaman, I think that was an older exchange in a time when Jimmers was publicly considering ILI as a type. I was telling him my opinion of him is Fi ego (I'm still not sure if EII-Ne or IEE-Fi). In any case he appears to need to try out new types quite often ...in a way Ne base (as Ep) usually does ime.

[Skepsis]

Yes, that is what I meant.

I still think that Ni leading makes more sense for me than Ne or Fi, but I can't exactly dismiss what other members have brought to my attention either, mainly because I don't think I know enough about the theory to adequately criticize it. But, I am interested in what other people think in an attempt to keep an open mind about typology until I think I've understood enough about it to debate it or criticize it. Maybe if I understand more, I wouldn't have the same objections. But, please keep in mind that I am incredibly skeptical of Jung, Socionics, and MBTI. They are all examples of pseudoscience. There isn't any way to falsify the theories and there is significant confirmation bias in the typing process. For instance, a person who practices socionics observes a person that is highly skeptical of socionics and calls the whole thing bullshit. Since, ILIs can be identified for their ability to recognize inconsistencies within systems of thought, or theories, as well as being skeptical in general, the socionist types that person as ILI. The more that person objects to the theory, the more the socionist sees evidence for that person being ILI, which gives them more "evidence" that Socionics is a sound theory. Essentially you can't argue unless you have time to go in one large circle over and over again.

In MBTI I typed INTJ, but I noticed that I just wasn't as direct as many of the online INTJs. Many of them come across as rather dickish and arrogant. So I did some research and stumbled on some information that many INTJs online are mistyped. Okay, so which ones? How do you know the real ones from the fake ones? What is an objective way to tell? At some point, I settled on MBTI INFJ. INFJs seemed like a reasonable alternative to INTJ and since I identified with Ni more than any other function, it didn't really matter to me either way. Hanging out with a bunch of INFJs online actually made me more sociable and more outwardly friendly and open to ideas that I used to easily dismiss as bullshit, like collective consciousness, New Age spirituality, and mysticism. Three years ago, I would've smugly mocked such beliefs. I still think they're bull, but I'm much more tolerant of people who believe in them and now I like to toy around with the ideas in the beliefs themselves without actually believing in them. For the most part, I just keep my mouth shut when people state their beliefs because I have found it unproductive to criticize them. It is unlikely that I could change their beliefs anyways. In my head, I'm very, very skeptical of unscientific and supernatural claims, while remaining open to them at the same time.

So for the longest time I thought of myself as an INTJ/INTP that just liked hanging out with INFJs. This is all MBTI of course. The confusion for me was when I started to get into socionics. The descriptions of the functions between MBTI and Socionics do not match each other exactly, so which description of the functions were correct? This led to increased skepticism as well as confusion. I initially thought IEI because functionally, they're supposed to line up with MBTI's INFJ, but the quadras introduced another layer to typology. I cannot be IEI mainly because I don't try to influence others emotionally. I would probably die before trying to influence a group emotionally. People using their emotions to try and get me to do something is something that I do not tolerate well. I try and stay away from such people in real life. So I don't use Fe that much at all, and try to avoid it.

I can be observed using Fi, but it has taken me time to see why that is so. When I first enter a new social situation, like an online forum, I observe first for a while and make little in the way of contributing. I do this to learn as much as I can. With socionics, I was silent for a long time because I did not understand it enough to discuss it. I discovered that when I feel less competent at something than those I think are more knowledgeable, I tend to submit a little and assume they know much more than I do. It is in moments of insecurity that my Fi actually comes out and I focus on "fitting in".

I have flipped back and forth between a few types because I've been skeptical as well as confused about certain aspects of the theory. I think this has more to do with socionics being a pseudoscience than me demonstrating being any particular type. I would even go as far as to say that while socionics(or MBTI) claim that each person has one of 16 basic personalities, most people wouldn't fall into any of those because the 16 personalities are actually 16 unbalanced personality types. With such a view, no wonder I flip back and forth. Maybe I'm just balanced, as many people are, and can't be placed into any of the personality types available.

[Alomoes]

Well, the idea of it is that half of you all are IEIs, and the few people trying to solve the problem are ILIs. Because of the way IEI works, you'll then begin to stalk me. I'm out now. <---- This is for the people who actually want to make a difference.

[Alomoes]

You strike me as an ILI.

Generally speaking, you seem to be a gamma intuitive thinker since you give priority to a realistic/longterm viewpoint on most, if not all matters. This is supported by your observation that you do not really publicly come apart at the seams, emotionally speaking. You seem to be ILI in particular, since you have a natural inclination (whether it is suppressed or not) to be truthful in conversation when it comes to relatively indisputable facts.

To give some elaboration, there are also some aspects of your communication style which stand out in favor of ILI. You have a generally neutral stance on issues combined with some adopted consideration of social convention. Adopted in the sense that they don't come naturally, and must be consciously worked on. While you are formal for the sake of accuracy in talking about issues of interest, you have an overall informal way of talking to ease conversation and as a gesture of goodwill, as you put it.

Your adaptability (due to irrationality?) combined with difficult life circumstances and a subtle appreciation of systems could make it harder to self-type. Being adaptable to circumstances can make it hard to get at the real you and knowing that manifestations of behavior patterns (in this case, type functions) can take many different forms could make it hard to pin down a particular type. Still, in my outside view I would say you are ILI.

I would like to add that I do think that ILIs have strong emotions and affections The form these emotions take is just not necessarily explicit to some.

Also, for various reasons, I have found video VI to be pretty helpful in making final decisions. Depending on the strength of one's internal conception of others, it might actually be easy to adopt another type's written style. Acting out a whole other type with your body is harder. Let's not argue if it's a science on either the VI or socionics level, because that's a whole other ballpark right? I can pull up a couple examples of what I think are ILIs if you'd like.

Why do you have to lie? If you aren't, then do not leave. Debate me. If you are, you need no debate, for you are lying.

[may]

Alomoes, that's a different thread. I'm not really obligated to help you more with your typing?

I know my posts there weren't the most useful to you, and I'm sorry about that. But those are just the comments I had and I don't have any more for you right now.