The Hated and the Misunderstood.

After reading the insightful, validating, and quite frankly, discouraging write up by Nancy J. Barger and Linda K. Kirby about the often detested mam-i-nal of the female INTP, I've decided to snuggle up to society's disdain for my combination of gender and personality and do what any level-headed misfit might do... start a blog.

If you've made it this far, it's probably best to go ahead and read the PDF:

     http://typeandculture.org/Pages/C_papers93/9Barger_K.pdf

As you would discover if you took the time to read it, that there is evidence that Americans (men and women) dislike INTP women. Americans, and several other cultures, like their women ESFJ.

I appear to you to be the very antithesis of what you are looking for in a friend or lover. According to the paper you see me as:

• distrustful
• sulky
• evasive
• indifferent
• resentful
• defensive
• wary
• unfriendly
• and tense

You think that I could not be:

• tolerant
• appreciative
• helpful
• cooperative
• honest
• warm
• pleasant
• sincere
• sympathetic
• or understanding

And..... you'd be wrong.  The problem isn't that your experience is leading to the wrong observation (evasive, wary, tense), it's leading you to ascribe the wrong motivation (sulky, resentful, unfriendly). You are failing to understand that I seem evasive because I hate being given information I don't want and am trying not to burden you with myself, if you don't want to know. I seem wary because I already know that I am not the person you are seeking to be your friend or lover -- and am just waiting for you to discover that, hoping that you will prove me wrong. I am tense, because well... I'm in a fishbowl (research study) and folks are tapping on the glass (judging me as to whether or not they like me). I'm being watched for the sole purpose of being criticized.  Bad enough to be a group of people -- which always feels like an experiment to me..... but to actually be in one... O.O

Oddly enough the adjectives that most accurately describe me out of both lists are: wary, tense, tolerant, appreciative, helpful, honest, sincere, sympathetic, and understanding. So, stick that in your pipe and smoke it!!!! ;-)