Us INTJ-Fs are a curious bunch which can be good and not so good. Well mostly it’s good for us. And not so good for everyone else. I’ll explain.
Curiosity is good for us because we are constantly learning, and because we crave new information, and in fact sometimes it becomes addicting. We turn everything over and over and inspect it because we love to figure out how things work. In the process of doing this, we become pretty shrewd when it comes to knowing what something is about thoroughly before we involve ourselves or give someone our review and suggestion. Good for us because we tend to avoid a lot of pitfalls being so interested in researching things, so we tend to sidestep things we feel are unsafe, against our best interest, or a waste of time or money.
It’s also good for us because we are very aware of what the outcome of the products and services we use are. Seldom are we customers of a company we know nothing about, or haven’t read reviews on, or gotten firsthand suggestions about. In fact we are very wary of anything we can’t find information about that interests us or that we are getting a sales pitch from, and we’ll likely decide against a company based on their lack of available information or transparency.
This curiosity is generally not so good for others because we tend to come off as killjoys, or “too serious” as opposed to people who just jump now and figure it out later, which isn’t really something we’re wired to do. So when you seek out one of us and ask “what should I do about this?” You will almost NEVER hear “go with your heart” with a relationship question or “you can’t take it with you” with a financial question. We will always see your well being and happiness as avoiding any hurt or staying healthy longer or being financially sound if you can help it – and that doesn’t appear to be as much fun as telling you to leap without thinking about it – but we really do mean well.
Since we tend to always wonder what someone is up to when someone tells us something is good for us, or we get a compliment, or anything that plays to our feelings or sensitivities, we always want to be sure it’s genuine. Since many times it isn’t there’s good reason to suspect an agenda under what appears to be an innocent statement or comment. Generally we are born with a high intuition, but plenty of us have our actual history to draw on as well, and we start applying our empirical data to subsequent interactions at a VERY young , age. This makes us the quiet, reserved kid that keeps most things at an arm’s length, and prefers their own company. While discovering ourselves it just seems we are a lot more astute than most, so we just tend to learn things by either watching others or doing something wrong only one time.
It can be not good because we can seem distrustful to others, but we are just running what most accept freely through a set of checks and balances that we personalize to what we know we need to be vigilant about – things we know we are susceptible to because we strive to know ourselves in as much a realistic light as possible so that we can try to read everyone else better. As we get older and we can get to a place where we have access to information and can really nail something down with study and research to add to our intuition and experience, we can then master our own navigation better.
Both good and bad then is that once this becomes like breathing to us at an early age, once we become attached to those we care about and want them to be safe and out of harm also, we have a very difficult time standing back and watching them learn how to navigate things by making decisions based on feeling and not analytical process. To us that’s the hard way. Most of us would rather skip altogether or clearly map out any undertaking we’ve only watched someone else attempt if things out of their control ruin them in the process. So we try to intervene and at least warn or explain what we see as roadblocks to people we care about as they navigate their own path. Good: we want to save them time, trouble, money, heartache, pain. Bad: we are usually seen as know-it-all girls in the first place, and then when something does turn out the way we explained it might we’re avoided because we weren’t listened to – or because people plain don’t want to discuss the process after the fact, or face or admit there might have been a better way to do it had they even briefly thought it through.
In a world where going for it and hoping it works out is a trend that’s followed by what appears to be genuine confusion when the outcome falls short, we are definitely swimming against the tide. One of the most valuable things that we typically are born with and hone as a skill is the ability to take ownership of our decisions. It’s for that reason we will either clearly estimate the outcome or admit we didn’t think it through or both – but we’ll never run into something with our eyes closed only to trip and fall and break bones and then curse the universe for being hurt.
Understand that when we give advice about something we know you’re doing we are really trying to help you get the best result, or the one we know suits you best because we care. We’re not trying to make you feel stupid, or show off – it’s generally not about us at all. We are trying to use our skills to help you get what you want.
Understand that when we mull over things in a time frame that seems to be too long for you to watch us apply, we would rather do it right the first time, and if that takes longer than most – we’re more than fine with that because we know it needs to be researched well if we’re going to do it once and check it off the list. We’re not cynical, or negative, or indecisive, we’re going to come to a conclusion we can sleep with at night, even if it’s the decision not to move forward.
Rare INTJ Females: We Welcome You! 