My traits?

  Thousands of thoughts were invading my mind and I couldn’t keep up with all those rather intriguing and weird ideas. I was writing down one thing and thinking about the next argument at the same time. Analysing movies, plays, and controversial characters has always been one of my guilty pleasures. Aggressively tapping my leg, I was watching one of my favourite musicals and meticulously taking notes for my new essay when my dog started barking distractingly. I frowned, got up, rushed to the door, let my dog out, and came back to my seat. I looked at my laptop for a second. The recording froze on probably one of the most unlikeable characters ever written in a musical. He was the one who would stir up drama just for fun and make the worst choices when it comes to his social interactions. Everyone who listens to him for more than 3 minutes immediately decides that he is the human embodiment of contradictions and sarcasm. And yet, I’ve always found the character appealing, almost likable. I stared at the frozen picture and two massive questions crossed my mind. “Do I only like the character because he reminds me of myself? Is this what being a certain type means?”  

   That was the first time I have ever taken a personality test. I’ve always loved researching and paying attention to details no one seemed to care about. After 70 questions I found out that I was an INTJ according to the MBTI test. Unlike the many Buzzfeed quizzes, I took in order to see if I’m more like Tony Stark or Steve Rogers, this test actually made sense. I felt a weird responsibility to agree with everything the website was saying. The people who created it most certainly know better than me. A cold shiver crossed my shoulders. The test seemed trustworthy but I still wanted to close the tab and try again. Maybe I could've done better. I quickly found myself trapped in dozens of articles about personality traits and why I am an INTJ. I call this act “self discovery through some-what mediocre YouTube videos made by random people who definitely know better than me”. But with every new essay I read, I became more and more invested in the subject. I knew that I had a low agreeability level, but I never thought that it correlates to my other traits. Not being able to focus around many talkative people didn’t just mean that I’m antisocial(Finally. I’m not antisocial. I’m ‘asocial’. I don’t even know the difference). After taking the BigFive personality test I had the urge to erase the freakishly real image these quizzes painted. Even though I was nodding along while reading these results, I sensed that they ultimately described a shape and not a real human. I wasn't a perfect hexagon. All these explanations were grounding and enticing me while simultaneously making me nervous and insecure. I wanted to do something in order to discover these weird traits and work on my flaws at the same time. I needed a new, interactive, creative activity that would throw me out of my comfort zone. An activity that would fix me.

   In less than 3 days, I enrolled in an online improvisation class. Speaking in front of a group of strangers was a daunting task. I didn’t know anyone, I didn’t trust them and my inner self was devastated every time I had to say a word. Even the instructor, a performer I had been admiring for a couple of months had to earn my trust and respect. I wasn’t going to take those things for granted no matter the authority figure. You can fight me over this.  I played improvisation games and checked different boxes in my head. I needed to work more. There were always different people taking the class, something that I couldn’t agree with from the start. This kind of spontaneous behaviour was ruining the patterns in my mind and I felt frustrated and excited at the same time. "I will finally be able to get rid of this overly analytical approach," I thought. But as much as I tried to change those instincts, the more flaws I'd find. I was fixing one thing and another issue would appear. In the last session, I got the chance to speak with the instructor himself. I was nervous and awkward but he didn't seem to care. "That's actually a really great idea," he told me at some point. I’ve never put a lot of effort into fitting in and frankly, I realised that none of those students cared about it. Everyone seemed to have a particular distaste for sheep-like behaviour.

   Although these weekly classes made me come to an agreement with all the weird quirks, I still couldn’t quite wrap my mind around some traits I seemed to have. I quite like being the Sherlock of the group but that title comes with a lot of traits people seemed to not quite enjoy. Being arrogant and always telling right off the bat what I think makes people rather angry. I also found myself in various situations when I was accused of not taking into consideration any emotion the other person might have regarding a certain subject or belief. Apparently, people don’t like to argue as much as I do. Funnily enough, after replaying in my head a very intense debate with my brother about people’s likability, I realized that quirks are not the same thing as flaws. Being your unapologetic self doesn’t mean stop working on yourself.(Although being more like Iron Man is flattering.)

   With this in mind, I started shaping a more thoughtful yet realistic me. Not for fitting in, since I still don’t care about that, but for quietly competing with other versions of myself(I’m always keeping a tablescore in my head for fun). At some point, someone won't take my overly critical comments just because I can’t keep them to myself (I really like to share. I’m a thoughtful giver). Telling people things they need to hear, instead of saying the harsh, cold truth will sometimes help. A hybrid of the two is probably the best solution. After all, I can't just close the website and retake the quiz for a better response. I can just keep dancing like no one’s watching and work on my moves at the same time.