Also aptly titled "Cat Makes Yet Another Vain Post About His Type"
So I know we've been through this before a few times, but once again I am plagued with doubts about my type. In light of how easy I find my relationship with my current girlfriend to be, and given that I am pretty sure she must be SEI, I feel that ITR theory would suggest I'm more likely IEE than IEI. Though I don't think ITR is the be all and end all of relationships - I don't think you *need* to marry your Dual, and I'm sure even relationships with a Conflictor can work for some people - I do think that ITR is one of the more interesting/important aspects of Socionics, so an apparent anomaly there is enough to give me some pause.
On top of that, I think at least three or four forum members (I won't tag people this time cause it feels slightly selfish, but you know who you are) have entertained the idea that I am more probably an IEE(Fi?), and though at first I dismissed those ideas as improbable, they kind of stuck with me, and I've found myself rereading Filatova and all the basics about Information Elements, temperaments, and descriptions of IEI and IEE that other theorists have written.
Now of course one possibility is that I've mistyped my girlfriend. However, I really don't think that's the case. It is abundantly clear that she is SF. For F, she's very emotionally expressive, uses lots of emojis in text, get's visibly disappointed when people give her "薄い" (weak) emotional reactions to the things she shares, and spends a lot of her free time out and about with friends or family. I could go on further, but I feel like you get the idea. She's clearly ethical. As for S, all of her activities are practical, grounded things. She's about to graduate med-school, she enjoys pretty intense and regular exercise, she likes skiing and ice skating in the winter, and she has basically no hobbies that would point to a preference for N. She's not really one to create stuff other than nicely written letters for birthdays and such, and the media she tends to watch of her own volition are funny TV series like Brooklyn 99 or popular stuff like Disney (particularly High School Musical lol). I suppose learning English to the degree she has could be interpreted as N, but the reasons she's learning it feel grounded enough to me to make that not stand out too much in my mind. Learning English is a matter of course here, especially for doctors, and her circle of close friends is full of English speakers so it's really no wonder. Additionally, she seems very appreciative when she receives random information. She seems unexpectedly interested in my (frequent) random information dumps where I just start lecturing about a topic because something reminded me of it suddenly. I often realize I'm doing it mid-lecture and get shy about it and trail off somehow, but she keeps encouraging me to share which is nice. She also says she really likes how much of a romantic I am (like in the classical sense of the word), and she seems to really like my creative side. It feels potentially very Ne-seeking to me. Also she seems clearly more of an introvert and not nearly aggressive enough to be SEE, so I really think SEI fits the best.
We're not that far into our relationship, but I'm just shocked that nothing has gone wrong yet. Usually there would've been some hiccup by now, but we've literally never argued about anything yet and living with her is the most satisfied I've ever felt. This is all beginning to feel like it points away from me being IEI unless "Business" relations can actually be this good.
I suspect also that I may have some very confused ideas about the elements that I've carried over from MBTI. Some of them seem to be nearly the opposite! For example Fe in MBTI is frequently called "Harmony" but I've gathered in my time here that "harmony" is really more the domain of Fi than anything else. I've always been convinced I was Fe because I am for sure very harmony-oriented. I don't like stirring things up, tend to hide all of my frustrations and sadness from people, and I find myself always trying to put out social fires or tensions I see growing between people in my life. I regularly council people on how to get along better and try to get them to see the other person's perspective. I'm very much oriented towards maintaining peace in relations, and even in video games I fight very hard to maintain perfect relations with every NPC. Even when their values conflict I try to navigate through the middle.
That leads me into my second possible misunderstanding. MBTI often calls Ni "Perspectives" and that was something I related to quite strongly. As I alluded to above, I find it very easy to recognize and adapt to everyone's perspectives on the fly. I very quickly see where someone is coming from and I adjust my speech and behaviour accordingly to avoid getting on their bad side or even to curry a little favour with them. I always thought that was an Ni behaviour, but I've come to think that seems perhaps closer to how Socionics describes Ne.
Other things like my love for SLEs I think can be explained via Super-ego relations. Even if I analyze my type as IEI there's still my aunt who I've always felt I got along with better than anyone else in my life. She is most definitely an SLI, and I thought I was experiencing Super-ego relations with her, but I suspect Dual makes more sense. I've always been incredibly close with her and always felt like I could really share anything and everything with her and she'd respond to it in the way I really needed.
So yeah, that was a lot I'm afraid, but this is what I've been considering lately. Sorry if I've been posting too much about my own type, but writing about it helps me clarify my thoughts and as always I am highly appreciative of y'all's!