Temperament, of Slytherins

I had an unfair advantage to the study of the MBTI. I get, in the most socially acceptable terms, bored during the summer months, so I must find ways to distract myself until school begins again. This past summer, my obsession was personality profiling. I had discovered and researched the topic to death, then laid it to rest when my friends began complaining. Internship class gave me an excuse to renew my studies and annoy my friends once more. However, I knew I was an INTP long before I had to read What Color Is Your Parachute or taken the MBTI test.

INTP: I am an Introverted Intuitive Thinking Perceiver. According to the general consensus of the internet, I have the reclusive and bohemian personality of a Socrates or Einstein (intelligence levels not necessarily following). I should be an assassin, but never babysit children (assassins should never babysit anyone, so that should be an obvious leap). Or I could be a mortician; or an archaeologist; or scholar; or perpetual hobo. I am logical to the point of ignoring emotions, hence not "Feeling" my decisions, but that does not mean I am without emotions: I only seem like an assassin-like robot or cold fish to the others who could never be a Spock if they tried. Intuitive leanings though protesting, I shall trace each descriptor in a straight line.

I am Introverted. I am quiet, I think on the inside rather than obnoxiously out loud, and other sentients do not know who or precisely what I am until I let them in, and then only through a series of hazings (they do not know they're being hazed). My type of Introversion––at least through my eyes––comes out as a sort of sociopathic anti-social people-hate. I get along well with INTJs, for we anti-socials must people-hate together.

Intuitive: the State should never have let me have a license. I drive (and drive well), but twenty minutes on the road, I wake up and realize I do not know how I got to that point. I had been driving on automatic, while my mind was off in an alternate dimension brewing over philosophy or story ideas. Except for the anti-social tendencies, I could possibly make a spectacular absent-minded professor, since I often have no idea what is going on around me. My brain is spastic and makes the oddest of associations. I should probably move to the UK, where off-the-wall humor is slightly more appreciated than straight-on, American slapstick.

As a Thinker, I should not be a female. I have actually been told that women are not logical, only emotional. I wanted to dump a series of thoughts, as if they were water in a bucket, on that person's head so he could realize that whatever it is I say and think has a logical basis, not only random, off-the-wall associations. In any case, whether I be assassin or Sherlock . . . I have accepted I'm weird.

I am not sure what Perceiving means. I do not think that anyone does. I know what its opposite––Judging––is, but knowing the opposite does not necessitate that the thing itself is known. The best I can gather is that Perceiving means I am a natural procrastinator, since I want to gather all facts before I make a decision––at least, that's what we tell ourselves in justification. We Perceivers out-clever ourselves there. How subversive of us.

In conclusion, I enjoy personality typing to a fault. One interesting trait of INTPs described on the world wide web was our tendency to over-research topics that interest us. We become obsessed. As Hufflepuffs are to finding things, so are INTPs to holing ourselves into a small hole with our relevant books until we have found The Answer for which we search. Retaining the answer is another question, since once we know we can accomplish or find something, we no longer feel the need to ever look at it again. However, INTPs are definitely not the law-abiding Hufflepuffs, if driving records, drug addiction rehab clinics, or anyone who notices general rule-breakers have any say on the matter. We are Slytherins or closet Ravenclaws. I leave the analysis there.