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| Question #1219009911 | Sunday, 17-Aug-2008 |
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| Is it possible there are outgoing INTps that get easily delighted and easily disinterested? I'm trying to type a friend of mine and I'm totally at a loss. I'm sure he's a Gamma quadra, and probably not a j. On the surface, he looks like an ESFp - he's initiative and quite talkative, he likes to show off and people complain that he gets easily delighted about various projects and loses that delight just that easily. But at the same time almost everything else about him is INTp-like. Any insight on this topic would be much appreciated. -- ESFp |
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A1 Jumping from possibility to possibility, considering variants of situations and pursuing new prospects as they arise and abandoning them just as quickly is quintessential  behavior. Is this what you mean when you say he tends to be "easily delighted and easily disinterested" or is it a bit more complex than that? -- neon ghost parade |
| A2 Can you elaborate on the ways in which he is INTp-like? -- Anonymous |
| A3 Thanks for answers. A1: It's actually more simple than that, he easily expresses his interest and easily makes promises but doesn't keep them. When offered cooperation at a project, he says "wow, that's great, you know we could elaborate the details in this and this way, I'll write you next week" and he won't. He will make a beautiful speech about the student meeting he organizes, and next day he's forgotten about this delight and makes another speech on editing a great book right now. But he also made his students practice an edition of a book, and next lesson he's decided it would be great to do something completely different. Our ENTp professor was much more systematic than this. This would be perfectly normal, but somehow it doesn't correspond with other elements of his behaviour, and especially with how I used to know him 5 years ago, A2: taciturn, hard-working and interested in nothing except literature and linguistics. You could almost touch the Fi HA: he became fond of our INFj professor, not so much of him personally but the linguistic theory he teaches. He also has a favourite writer and publishes very good, long and detailed essays about him. (The writer seems to me like an INT writing about ESF topics.) These are his interests that have lasted for many years, but now he's become this unstable. What especially hurts me is that we became friends, started exchanging e-mails, got along very well, appreciated each other as our goals are quite similar, and now he's quitted answering my e-mails though I know he's read his mail many times since then. That would be nothing unusual, anything could've happened. But given the complaints from my sister who's his student, and from my colleagues, I've started wondering what his type was and what the matter with him was. -- ESFp |
| A4 I don't think trying to type him would be the best thing to do at this point, seeing how he's so unstable (which could be obscuring his true personality). He seems quite confused... maybe you should help him with that first, and then try figuring out his type. What was he like 5 years ago? -- Anonymous |
| A5 And yes there are outgoing INTps. I myself was pretty outgoing as a child. I wasn't easily delighted though, and if I was delighted, I tried not to show it. Feelings for me tend to be intense but short-lived- I could be completely enthralled about something on one day and indifferent to it the next. But I don't normally talk about my transient obessions, leading most people to think I didn't care in the first place. But I do have a number of long-standing interests that I care deeply about, linguistics being one of them. I've made quite a lot of "beautiful speeches" in my head, but I rarely care enough to write them down. So I suppose the main difference between your friend and I is that he tends to express his passing feelings while I tend not to, but that could be just a matter of personality (not personality type) differences. But I think it's odd how he acts like an ESFp even though he's supposedly an INTp. That wouldn't feel natural for me, but then, I'm not him. Why not just ask him to take the socionics test? -- A4 (INTp) |
| A6 Thanks for your insight, A4 and A5, interesting and inspiring. Someone should tell the type descriptions people that there are outgoing INTps. Quite a lot of them, actually, I suspect three more of my acquaintances of being outgoing INTps. Yet, for some reason, INTps are always portrayed as the most private type, especially at the Lithuanian site. A4: what was he like 5 years ago, I basically describe in the second half of A3. And he was also very strict, he was the only one in our class who was able to keep at bay an annoying girl whom nobody knew how to deal. - I also start to think he's an INTp acting in an ESFp way, more likely than an ESFp. There are moments when I'm afraid of meeting him, and that's basically always when I hear him talking to someone in that ESFp-like way. Maybe it's natural for him, but not for others. Maybe he changed because he entered a rock band, and in that field, you are somehow expected to act Ep-ish. - I can't ask him to take the socionics test, as we've ceased to be in contact, but in the autumn, we'll meet at work, so we'll see. -- ESFp |
A7 I wonder how much of the interest he expresses in various projects proceeds from genuine excitement. Maybe these short-term displays of enthusiasm are just his idea of showing tact and trying to be accommodating towards others. That could account for his behavior to a certain degree. Aside from that, I think you're correct in assuming that your friend is *probably* an irrational type. I'm not sure whether his particular brand of irrationality of of the variety or not though. I initially thought an ENTp typing would help resolve some of the contradictory aspects of his behavior - specifically his INTp-like qualities with his talkativeness and ease drawing attention to himself, traits which are usually associated with extroversion (the latter more so than the former). I'm guessing though by the way you sort of contrasted him with your ENTp professor that... this doesn't seem very likely to you?  Anyway, with all of that said, I pretty much agree with A4 that people should be typed on the basis of their *stable* characteristics. I think this is a very important point, too. Describing your friend as he was when you first met him would indeed be helpful. And... I think I'll wait for your response before I start babbling away about the irrational functions. -- neon ghost parade |
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A8 oh yeah i'm like that. i'll get obsessed with something & then within a few days i'll be on to something else. lol  [Ne] -- Uhlesshuh |
| A9 Thanks again, you guys are being so helpful. A7: He might actually be just showing tact and polite interest in his own way... yeah. Typing him as an ENTp would solve everything, but the problem is 1) he's showing Ni and Te traits, like being demanding of his students (the ENTp professor is more encouraging than demanding), or writing his articles about issues like trying to find the truth and looking at it from different angles. 2) the VI. He looks pretty serious even when joking, while the ENps I know like to smile and be "naughty". I don't want to post his photo but he looks similar to Johnny Depp. 3) I can tell a Super-Ego relation when I'm in one, and this isn't the case. - What he was like exactly when I first met him I don't know because we first met back in 2001 when we started the same linguistic class together but I don't recollect him at all. He probably didn't either speak or do anything because then I would've noticed him (Se) in a small class like ours. I just remember he was seriously interested in liguistics and nothing else, how he scolded the annoying girl, and in 2004, probably, he made detailed notes of the Syntax course that everyone was afraid of and sent it to all students; I was the only one to thank him back and only recently, we became friends on the basis of this. - Ehm, I'm not sure if I answered your question, is that what you wanted to know? -- ESFp |
A10 Flightiness, impulsiveness, and spontaneity: these are all traits that may be ascribed to someone who is an irrational type. However, as I read into what you've written more, this impression of your friend begins to fade a bit. It's quite easy for also me to conceive of his quickly fizzling enthusiasm and unkept promises as the result of him trying to apply his good intentions towards others in a socially clumsy and inappropriate manner, which is simply attributable to strong logic and weak ethics. This creates a perception of flightiness and unreliability that, based on the disparity between how you've always known him and others *present* reactions to him seems to be exacerbated by situational, transient factors (whatever those may be). ENTp is, in my mind, the best fit for what for what you are describing about him. You give the example of him writing articles about "trying to find the truth and looking at it from different angels" as being indicative of his  and  characteristics, but in my understanding of socionics, the willingness to completely overhaul one's perspective and continuously adopt new paradigmatic viewpoints corresponds very closely to qualities. Socionics *is* however, primarily a typology of relationships and consequently the intertype relations theory supersedes a lot of other factors when typing oneself or others. If you are absolutely confident that you're an ESFp, then either of two conditions seem likely: 1)Your friend is, as suggested in A5, an unusually outgoing, dynamic INTp. 2)Your friend is an ENTj whose p-like qualities can be explained away by the reasons I gave above. Personally, I prefer the option that I came up with myself! What do you think? -- neon blah blah |
| A11 A10: "Personally, I prefer the option that I came up with myself" I've been thinking about him being an ENTj. It would explain certain extroversion elements and that outspoken delight. But in other aspects, it doesn't seem to fit. First, even with all the outbursts of enthusiasm, he's basically calm, often sort of reassuring, which doesn't look like a hyperactive ENTj. Second, until recently when he started being flighty and delighted about projects as I described, he had been very quiet - as I wrote, I didn't notice him for 3 years. The ENTjs I know are extremely talkative. Third, I think that an ENTj and an Activity relation are for me the easiest to recognize. It feels certain way, as we click instantly with ENTjs, but somehow too intensely, if you know what I mean. And this isn't the case. -- ESFp |
A12 Hmm, how indubitably perplexing. It really is quite a pity you've lost contact with this individual for the moment - both for yourself and for our typing purposes.  Hopefully when you meet him again in the fall the renewed contact will allow you to gain fresh insight and perspective into the situation. More vital and vivid impressions invariably conduce to stronger, more definite typings. -- neon ghost parade |
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