Monday, September 14, 2009

the way you sip your tea

I have a friend who shares the same personality type I do. It is quite amusing to see the male manifestation of myself. Apparently, I'm buff. I'm tough. I'm a big teddy bear. And I have a tattoo. Everybody wants to be me.

Now this guy's wife has the polar opposite personality type of her husband and I. You'd think the two of us would really gang up on her and want to claw her eyes out. But we don't. We find her rather fascinating. She's quite amusing. Then again, so are we. She's ubercool. We are too. She's smart. Yeah, us too. I could go on, but I don't want to embarrass myself. I do have to continue writing, you know.

My point, and I do have one, is this: Perhaps the reason her husband and I find her so riveting is that she's different. Well, she's different than he is for obvious reasons. Ahem. But she's also different than the both us for other reasons. And we find ourselves standing back, shaking our heads and smiling to ourselves in that knowing way. You know, "Oh, there she goes again."

This is where it gets particularly compelling to me. The personality is the thing. Well, at least for me, that's the attraction. I mean, he, no doubt, has these uncontrollable urges to kiss her, and I just don't. It'd be all wrong. For one thing, she's entirely too tall for me. (Oh, I amuse myself.)

At any rate, discounting all else, if you zone in on the personality gig, you start to wonder what exactly it is that makes different personalities want to come together in the first place. This is what I want to understand. How does all this work? What makes us tick? How are we different, and how are we the same?

Speaking of the same, my hubby and I have strikingly similar personalities 'cept he's more spontaneous than I. I guess that makes me the boring one. Shirley, you jest.

Are you thinking what I'm thinking? Cuz I got a surprise for you. You may be able to figure out what it is about you that makes you do what you do. And grab your peeps because they may want to do this too.

There's this thing called a Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. There is also this other thing called a Jung Typology Test. Fancy names for a personality test. Don't worry. It can be fun. Just take it and see what you get. Then armed with your personality type, see what it means.

Now I won't be so bold as to tell you that what you read about yourself will be 100% accurate. It may feel like your personality profile fits you like yesterday's underwear. But it will raise your eyebrows a few times. I guarantee. And you'll probably laugh in spite of yourself if you know what's good for you.

Step One: Take this free online test. HumanMetrics
Step Two: Given your personality type, see what it means. Personality Type Portraits

Give it a whirl. Hopefully you'll be glad you did. Here, I'll show you mine, and you can show me yours if you like. I'm an ISTJ. See, that wasn't so hard, now was it?

link: ella and louis