So, continuing with the theme as to why and how INTJs are the best at everything, this week, I'm going to cover...
That's right. Some of you may be calling me a filthy liar stating, "INTJs are terrible at social interactions and completely clueless when it comes to romance! You gotta be sh*ttin' me!" Well, I'm not sh*ttin' you in the least. Believe it or not, some of us are quite skilled with romance and social functions. It's like I keep saying, there's nothing an INTJ can't do. But this of course raises the question how are we able to beat our stereotype and actually be good with such things? And how come the stereotype exists in the first place? The answer to the first one is quite simple; perhaps you picked up on it in the title.
Ace Is High, INTJs Are Wild
Ante up, ladies! We do it through gambling! Wait, no; that's not quite right. But, it does have something to do with acing things. What sort of things? Things like tests and classes. It's no mystery that INTJs are smart and good in school. We're life-long students, constantly absorbing information about every little thing on the planet. In fact, according to the analysis on 16Personalities, they say that if a subject can be taught, an INTJ can learn it.
Now, some may argue that you can't learn romance and how to act properly in a social engagement. To which I say, oh yeah? Then how is it we know which fork to use for salad and which spoon is for soup? How come people don't fart when meeting someone new? How is it that relationships often get better with time rather than worse? Could it be that all these things are learned behavior, or in the case of a relationship, we learn how to deal with our significant other?
All of the above are learned. No one knows that stuff right off the bat. And, there are even books and classes on this stuff. There are etiquette classes one can take, you can buy a book called The Psychology of Likability, and there are tons of books and classes out there on how to pick up chicks and date them successfully. Hell, there are YouTube vids and entire channels devoted to this kind of stuff. It's because of a YouTube channel called Marni Your Personal Wing Girl that I discovered that I was actually afraid to talk to women (sometimes). So, if it can be learned, an INTJ can master it.
But, there's more proof than this. I, for instance, can be quite the charming fellow. Really. But you have to catch me in the right mood. Like a lot of guys, I suffer from that mind-cock blocker where when talking to a girl you really like, you screw up, but when talking to a girl you know you have no chance with or when talking to a girl you don't want to date, you're the smoothest mother f*cker in the land. One time, I was in a flirtationship with an older woman. Well, it's actually happened to me more than once, but in this particular flirtationship, I didn't know the woman was married. I assumed she was because she had children, but I went ahead and flirted with her. Not big flirts with sexual innuendos, but the kind of flirting that is fun and approachable. What happened? Well, she of course blushed from the attention and quite enjoyed it, and once she even called me a "bad boy." I've never been called a bad boy before or since. I'm pretty sure no INTJ has. That might be a world's first.
I have also had real romantic relationships. And they were quite romantic indeed. I dated like four or five girls in 2012, don't ask me how as I've never been able to duplicate that success, but I did. And three of those girls, I cuddled with, two of which happened on the first date. Two of them I even made out with, one of which happened on the first date. And you don't get girls to make out with you when you're weird and anti-social. But, I'm not here to brag, I'm trying to argue that INTJs can dominate romance just as easily as they dominate the ethereal and theoretical. How did I get those girls to make out with me? I was suave and calculating which is very INTJ, but I learned to be that way from observing romantic situations in real life, movies, TV shows, my rare personal experiences, and following my intuition. It's as simple as "I'm going to turn my face toward her when she kisses my cheek so she'll actually kiss my lips," or "I know I'm pretty good with massage, what would happen if I massaged her neck while I kissed her?"
Another source, an article from Thought Catalog, even suggests that INTJs can be great in bed because we see it as another opportunity to prove how exceptional we are. But! All this proof begs an important question: how is it that INTJs got their socially awkward stereotype if they're the coolest people in the world?
Old Habits Die Hard
For starters, INTJs aren't naturally suave. Sure, we can learn how to be suave and how to leverage a situation to our favor, but it's not in our comfort zone. INTJs prefer to be direct. You've probably heard that everyone wears a mask in public, that no one really shows who they are. For INTJs, this isn't true--we do show who we really are out in public, or at the least, we have the thinnest masks. What you see is pretty damn close to what you get. And while we can be suave, we'd rather just tell you what we're really thinking. We can maneuver, but the fastest way to any destination is a straight line. So, we're not prone to "playing the game" regardless of whether it's in romance or at social functions.
Add to this, we spend a lot of time by ourselves. Being in the company of other people does get annoying after a while and we just prefer to be alone. So, there are times when we find ourselves at a social function, and we're just not in the mood. This is probably where people get the idea that we're jerks or douchebags; we're not, we just don't have the patience or energy to pretend otherwise.
For my part, it's not so much that I'm socially awkward, it's more that I don't care or that I prefer to lurk in the background/shadows and observe. And depending on the function, it can be difficult to get a word in edgewise, so it's just easier not to bother and let someone else start the conversation. And when some people do engage me, it's typically in the minutia or the flotsam and jetsam of life, like how I'm doing. Social protocol dictates I don't answer this 100% honestly because I shouldn't burden other people with my problems, but because there are no pertinent follow-up questions to what I say, I don't volunteer any information besides. It's amazing how some conversations just flow when I watch others interact, but when they involve me, it quickly ends. Some people would describe this is as socially awkward. I don't because I don't feel awkward in these situations. If you feel awkward, that's your problem--you deal with it.
Conclusion
And that's really about it. To be honest, I just can't think of anything else to say on this topic. I maintain my stance that INTJs can do anything so long as we can study it and even test it out in a safe environment like a classroom. But, we have to be in the mood to put up with such things. Now, with really close friends, family, and even romantic interests, our patience and effort does go a little further, as is true for everyone, but generally, we're very much into our own ways of doing things.
Next week, I think I'll go over five more ways I buck the INTJ stereotype. The first one I did was quite popular. It's become the most popular article on my blog. What's supposed to be a blog about writing might evolve into a blog all about INTJ junk because, to be honest, ain't no one reading my writing blogs. But anyway, until next week.
Keep writing, my friends.
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