For a while I had some friends urging me to retake the Meyers-Briggs personality test. I hadn’t taken it since I was eighteen, a freshman in College, and some of my friends were surprised to discover that I was an INTJ. The only thing I really remembered out of it was the term “Introverted”, which I feel describes me decently well. I had to learn to be social, for the most part, in order to fulfill basic desires for human contact.

Yet the assumption seems to be that introverted people prefer to be alone. In fact, you can find a lot of illustrations out there where people try and explain what it means to be introverted. In fact, what kickstarted all of this was this illustration, rebutting a straw man argument that “introverts are weirdos” with an attempt to understand what goes on in an introvert’s head.

This is too specific, however. It’s assuming that all introverts are introverted in the same fashion. That, when presented with other people, an introvert will simply be happy by themselves. What of the introvert that is by themselves because they cannot figure out the basic patterns that define social interaction? We see it before us in that comic, where the protagonist is trying to make small-talk at the party and yet is unable. What if the other girl is an introvert? We don’t know. All we know is our protagonist has failed to somehow achieve a social bond, and the other girl is depicted as simply being bored of her company. If this is a true anecdote, then we are completely left without the other person’s story, thought process, or understanding.

Personally, I prefer this illustration explaining where introverts and extroverts get their energy from. Even so, it is still to an extreme and specific form of introvert, or at least in terms of behavior.

Just because someone is introverted does not mean they do not seek out opportunities to be with other people. This, I believe, is why a friend of mine has told me that they believe I am extroverted. This friend just so happens to be my roommate, believing himself and my brother both to be introverts. I should note that both he and my brother have been known to follow me through the house trying to speak to me, even following me to my room despite the fact that I feel my body language and curt responses are all saying “please, dear God, just please leave me alone right now I don’t want to be with other people”.

I am specifically reminded of the day after my first trip to Otakon way back when I was in high school. After spending an entire weekend at a convention meeting people, speaking with them, and expending energy, I felt mentally exhausted. I just wanted to sit at home and bugger about on the computer, play video games, or draw and make comics. Yet the day after we had come home my brother was trying to get me to hang out with my friends, one of whom was my roommate. We all interacted back then in our close circle. They wanted to hang out and chill, but I wanted to relax and have a break from socializing.

Over a decade later, living with my brother again, I would run into these problems frequently. After a day of work I might want to see anything but human faces, but my brother wanted to spend time with me. This would gradually result in conflicts and misunderstandings. This is why I believe myself to be an introvert and my brother to be an extrovert. He seems to be constantly energized with other people around, and in fact would tell me how every night when he was living in South Korea he’d go to a bar with his friends. This just wasn’t me. I didn’t want to be around people all the time.

I’d never get anything done.

This is why I find issue with how a lot of people try to identify as introvert or extrovert, or base it on certain properties. The Myers-Briggs identifications are treated like a zodiac sign for the non-superstitious populace. I imagine that my roommate believes me to be extroverted because I will make plans to go out and hang with friends, and enjoy a large circle of acquaintances. Indeed, I enjoy inviting friends over or going to enjoy activities with others. More so, I tend to enjoy watching films with company rather than watching alone.

Yet these are all habits that I developed throughout College in order to combat the feelings of loneliness nearly all humans might feel without human contact, and in order to try and manage my “productive” time with my “social” time. I am drawn to work that I can do solo. Even if it is one part of a whole, as long as I am not dependent upon someone else’s work I am happier. I still have trouble communicating with others in a professional manner, polite ways to say “I’m sorry, but you’re holding me up and it is an inconvenience”. I’ve certainly gotten better at it, especially when I was working at QVC, but it does not come naturally. It is learned.

Working by myself comes naturally. Solo activities have always come naturally, though I suppose that’s a given for just about anyone. Yet when I spend time alone, that is because it has a practical value for me. It is fulfilling, satisfying in ways that being with friends or family is not. It is fulfillment of the self, and I think that is what a lot of people do not understand when trying to define the difference between introverts and extroverts.

I decided to try taking another Meyers-Briggs personality test, but you cannot take the test without paying money for it. This is usually why people will get their results through College or work. The College tries to help you learn more about yourself, the corporation tries to figure out how to better implement your talents and abilities.

Yet the greatest problem when I was eighteen still seems to persist in the free knock-offs, the sort that my friends have chosen to take and adhere to so rigidly. Every question is not only a “yes” or a “no”, but it is asking what you, specifically, think you are.

I cannot think of a greater liar than ourselves. We deceive ourselves constantly into who we believe we are, be it a product of pride or broken spirit. When you ask a simple yes-or-no question, or rather a statement, such as “You are more interested in a general idea than in the details of its realization”, you’re not going to answer honestly. You’re going to answer based on what you expect of yourself.

The test I took in College was a bit better, being an official test. It at least had more situational questions, but it was still much the same. “What do you do in this scenario?”

If you really want to understand whether someone is an introvert or an extrovert, you need to understand more than the “what”, you need to understand the “why” and “when”. You need to provide a scenario and ask for the thought process in addition to the actions. Yet you cannot standardize that. You cannot then take the results, tabulate them, and then stick them in a box whilst saying “these are the percentages that you fulfill these traits”.

I started writing this blog because one of these tests “asked” if I spend my leisure time actively socializing with a group of people, then asking “yes” or “no”. This is not a simple answer for me, as there are many factors. On some weekends I am actively seeking other people out. On others, I want to just shut the world out and enjoy my time alone, to take the opportunity to simply enjoy video games, television, or even doing household chores, without the possible interference of other people. It all depends on how I’m feeling. This is also exclusively on weekends, as weekdays I typically already feel burnt out being around people at work. If I interact with my roommates, it is sometimes just bare minimum conversation, or is the simple act of watching the television in each other’s company. These are also the people I’m most willing to speak with, that I am most comfortable with, and therefore I require the least amount of energy to be around.

Yet I am also not actively seeking them out. Unless I am asking to watch a movie in their presence, which requires minimal social interaction, I am not often asking to do things with them. Nothing that counts as actively socializing.

On the weekend, however, things change.

This question, this entire exam, is faulty. Even more so because I know what each answer means. If I answer “yes”, it believes me an extrovert. If I answer “no”, it believes me an anti-social introvert. It ignores why I might be seeking to socialize, or when I may choose to be by myself. It is putting me in a box for a basic behavior that is dependent upon a shifting mood. Using the logic of this test, I am clearly bipolar because my mood is always shifting, even if my reasoning, feelings, and results have been consistent for my entire life.

So, what does the free Meyers-Briggs test make of me? Well, I answered the questions as best and honestly as I could, weighing not only the reasoning, but previous examples of both behaviors, in my mind and determining which came more naturally, which required more thought, and which occurred more often. The result is that I am an ISTJ now, though the breakdown is perhaps more interesting.

• You have slight preference of Introversion over Extraversion (22%)
• You have marginal or no preference of Sensing over Intuition (1%)
• You have marginal or no preference of Thinking over Feeling (1%)
• You have slight preference of Judging over Perceiving (22%)

To me, this either means I sit firmly in the middle of all of these behaviors, that I am barely one over the other, or the more likely chance that my responses were inconsistent. Which, as I answered, I knew they would be. I said that I actively seek out social interaction on my leisure time, and later confirmed that it leaves me exhausted. Neither of these are wrong, but according to the test I am both introverted and extroverted.

I do believe myself to be introverted, yes, but only in that being around people leaves my mind and spirit exhausted in a capacity that no gym or exercise has ever left my body. That I so much more prefer my alone time, my time spent to get work done or enjoy my favorite hobbies without the presence of another (ideally). It does not mean that I do not prize my friends, or actively choose to make time for them either.

But the fact that I must make time for friends speaks volumes. Everything else comes naturally. Yet I must plan time for friends, as otherwise, they are a disruption. That is why I’m an introvert, and none of these quizzes has ever tried to understand that about me.