In the past 24 hours, I've learned two significant things about myself: I use this blog as an emotional outlet and I tend to fall for the wrong sort of person.
These realizations came about because of visiting teaching, or rather because of the way a visiting teaching appointment turned into a sitting-around-singing, personality-test-taking visit. (It was good times, my friends. Good times.)
The gal we (my roommate and I) were visiting just adores the Myers-Briggs personality test and asked if either of us had taken it. I had recently taken the test myself, so my roommate answered a questionnaire online (based on said test) and we pored over her score and personality profile.
Then, oddly enough, the focus turned to me. I explained that I'd recently been classified as an ISFJ personality type so my companion and our visiting teachee read over the profile and would occasionally burst out with exclamations such as, "That's so you!"
One part of the conversation struck me particularly: in reading over the profile, our visiting teachee asked, "Do you use anything as an emotional outlet?" and my roommate explained about this blog. I'd never really thought of my blog as an emotional outlet, but I could suddenly see it as such. My blog is a way for me to express emotions that I would otherwise normally keep hidden. In fact, when events of emotional import happen to me, I find that I usually want to post about it. I've wondered since then why that is.
I wonder if it's partly that you, my blog readers, are mostly people to whom I'd feel okay about opening up emotionally. I know most of you pretty well, and even those of you I've never met are somehow so similar that I could see myself confiding in you without much concern.
I wonder too if it's that a blog is a way of expressing one's emotions in a slightly detached way. I tell you about all these feelings and frustrations that I have, but I do it in such a way that I'm able to sit down and think about the manner I want to express things before I actually interact with any of you. I've always found it easier to express my emotions in writing; it just seems safer somehow. And I have doubts that the habit is entirely healthy.
Anyway.
Naturally, being girls, we then decided to explore which personalities would be the best matches for each of us. To my surprise, I would apparently be best paired with either ESTP or ESFP, both extroverted personality types. Now, personally, I have a tendency to fall for introverted men; the high social energy levels of extroverted individuals have always left me feeling baffled and (frankly) inadequate. To be honest, I've always discounted such people in the past, mainly because I felt they could not possibly find me interesting. I always liked getting to know the quieter individuals, believing that they would at least understand me and not automatically assume I was boring if I didn't speak up much.
I was actually rather resistant to the idea of either one of these personality types until the visiting teachee told me that I needed someone who would be vitally interested in me; that he would find me fascinating enough to try to draw me out.
And I realized in this flash of insight with myself that I really did have that need, and that it was something that was lacking in all of the previous relationships I'd had with guys. Not that the guys I've known (or even dated) have been boorish; I don't want to give that impression. But I never felt that sense of real, genuine interest in me. I've never felt that they've tried to really delve down into the deepest inmost parts of me. Or rather, I guess I may have felt that intellectually, but never emotionally.
I'm such a private person, really. I don't feel comfortable talking about myself and if I feel the slightest decline of interest in what I'm saying I will immediately stop talking about me and try to focus the conversation on the other person. I'm always in terror that the person I'm with will become bored. And I'm always convinced that I am boring.
So. Long story short: I think that the only way I will ever fully open up to someone is if I have someone who is open and warm with me and who persistently finds me fascinating. And who persistently tries to draw me out. And is good at it.
Unfortunately, I kind of can't help thinking that I'm kind of unlikely to find that.
4 comments:
You know, that test did an amazing job of describing me, and a lousy job of describing my future husband. Since opposites supposedly attract and compliment, I was apparently going to marry an effervescent, theatre major type who would draw me out of my shell and be a source of endless fascination to my uncreative self. Right.
Instead, I married a engineer who is slightly more introverted than I am. We relate well and are comfortable together because we understand each other. I like socializing now and then, but if I had married a super-social party animal I think I would have gone nuts.
In summary, I'd take the test's future-spouse predictions with a huge grain of salt. You'll find someone who is vastly interested in you, regardless of whether they're an ESTP, a DRCY, or a FRRS. :)
As for whether writing is a healthy outlet, for me it depends on my attitude as I write. If I'm just venting, it gets me worked up. On the other hand, the process of explaining helps me sort things out in my mind, and writing my thoughts often makes me look on the bright side so I don't end my writing on a negative note.
INFJ right here. And my best friend is an ISFJ, so I think that's a pretty awesome personality to be, if I do say so myself. Which I do. GO "I"s!
I haven't taken that test (and it would be rather pointless now, wouldn't it?) But I luckily married someone who is outgoing, and it has made a big difference for me. I can't remember what class it was, but one of my teachers said that when you find the one who's rocks in his/her head fit the holes in yours - then that's the one!
It's nice when you complement each other and together you make one "balanced" whole.
My 2 cents.
Couldn't have said it better, Pat. :)
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