Childhood exposure quadra

[consentingadult]

I grew up in the 70/80ties in blue-collar neighborhood that were largely beta in culture. This is I believe, what in part, made me hold back in social relations, and made me appear to be a shy person. But quadra differences was not the only factor in this. There are two other major factors involved:

1. IQ/intellect: the neuighborhoods I grew up in were large populated by 'simple people', if I may put it that way. Of my class mates in elementary school, about 75% went to menial-vocation type high school, about 15% to medium-level office-work high school (today's national average of these two together is 60%), and the rest largely to higher level office-work high school. Only two of them (one of them being me) ended up in pre-university level high school (today's national average is 20%, but I must hasten to add that numbers were significantly lower in the late 70ties). Needless to say that one's intellect can make you the odd person out if you differ all that much in IQ/intellect.

2. also an effect of growing up in blue collar neighbourhoods: large numbers of ST and SF people. I think the weight of socionic Clubs is actually more important in having an effect on people than quadras. It is much easier for young Delta NFs to have common experiences with Beta NFs and Alpha/Gamma NTs than to STs and SFs. This changes later in life, but when you are young, it is quite important to be with people of your own Club.

When I enrolled in university at age 19, everything changed overnight, I was no longer the odd person out, I could let my extroversion show and even take the lead in social activities. But even to this day, at age 54, most of my own family has no idea of the true me. They are not bad people, I am just beyond their comprehension.

[consentingadult]

As you grow older did you naturally gravitate towards people of your own quadra? Or you had to find them somehow to have a sense of belonging?

I certainly did not naturally gravitate to my own quadra people, but in hindsight I realize that I ran into a lot of Deltas that themselves gravitated to me. However, as I focused on trying to realize certain ideals I held (ideals that were more the result of social influences than my natural inclinations), I put all my efforts into mingling with the wrong people. In a sense, I was addicted to social stress. My ideals led me to believe these people (=Delltas), although kind and well meaning, were somewhat boring. That did not change until my midlife crisis. Socionics was a great help in this, because it provided very clear pointers as how to recognize compatible people. Mainstream psychology does not go any further than to provide some good clues, but even with psychologically healthy people from other quadras, you will not get the most out of your relationships.

Most of the good things that happened to me in the days from before my midlife crisis, happened because of the initiative other people took, mostly Deltas and to a lesser extent Gammas, not myself. Quite a few jobs I had thanks to SLIs. It started with an SLI classmate, who had influence with the manager of the local distribution office of the largest, and best paying, Dutch newspaper. It was very difficult to get a job there as paperboy, but after he introduced me, I was delivering their newspapers within a week, earning twice as much as i did delivering the other national newspapers.

On a blog I kept about 15 years ago, I once wrote: "why is it that life takes so good care of me, when I take care of life myself so badly?" The answer is: other Deltas.