Life as an INTP

[intuitivet]

I felt as though I was a happier little lad when I was young and everything was new and I didn't understand as much as I do now.

I agree but FAR younger. Early teens are the worst years of your life (in my opinion), later teens seem to start evening things out and you start feeling okay and get to meet better people.

 

[CoryJames]

Early teens can be pretty brutal I agree, but thats when I started smoking copious amounts of marijuana and lost my virginity so I remember them as not that bad. I will agree though, 14-15 were bad for me.

 

[durentu]

There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. - RW Emerson, Self Reliance

Be INTP, and be proud of what you make of it. I'd encourage you to read Emerson's Self Reliance. I can be very helpful.

 

[Geminii]

EDIT: I AM NOT A JAIL-BAIT, I"M NOT EVEN A FUCKING GIRL!

Technically, that doesn't matter... although admittedly the term does seem to get applied to girls more than boys.

 

[cgoodmanparker]

Hi all, I just signed up for the forum. I'm an INTP. CJ, you're definitely an INTP and what you describe is "normal." For us. I am 24, and my school days were considerably different from yours, but what you're saying about not really connecting with people? I hear that. The way you write and the fact that you identify yourself as INTP in the first place, removes practically all doubt of your type.
My (unasked-for, I know) advice to you: You're 19. 19 sucks. Things get so much better you can hardly imagine it. As an INTP, your "interior" life will become richer and richer as you gain broader experience, it's actually pretty fun.

Now, to answer your question: Yeah, sometimes I wish I wasn't INTP. It would be nice to just be able to relate to people normally or naturally, to be more aware of my physical environment and less caught up in my own thoughts, feel emotions more richly or be able to live without the constant analysis and interior monologue/dialogue. It's a trade-off, and in my opinion the benefits are mostly subjective (but totally awesome.) That being said, I wouldn't relish the thought of becoming like "other people." In a way there could be nothing scarier than losing my Specialness.

 

[ashitaria]

Doesn't mean that the older you get, the better an INTP's life becomes. It's really all subjective.

I agree, it does kind of suck to be a teenager. But that's dependent on the people you are around. If you are around people that you enjoy being with, it's not that bad (of course in my case, there's never really a conversation. I just tell really funny stories that people laugh at and I enjoy making them laugh at but I never really get a conversation. Oh well.)

 

[Mello]

I do wish it was easier to talk to people face to face, but I can just talk to you guys, right?

 

[LAM]

I am a 15 year old and I got over my problems 4+months ago. It took me like a year to finally come to be the confident optimist/realist that I am today. For some it takes up until 35s years, for some until they go to university. The defining factor seems to be upbringing in this. Many people here were disillusioned/etc had problems at home

I am extremely lucky to get to this stage of life as an INTP at my age. Everything seems so much godamn better than before. It didn't take me dumbing myself down or changing my views to be unrealistic. It feels like I accepted/realised some kind of Truth about perspective or differing reality or something like that.

 

[Subotai]

I do wish it was easier to talk to people face to face, but I can just talk to you guys, right?

No

 

[Ulysses]

This thread looks like it came straight out of a teen drama series.

 

[CoryJames]

Except I doubt any one of us would identify as the average american teenager.

 

[LAM]

Except I doubt any one of us would identify as the average american teenager.

Most of us certainly aren't using their increased knowledge of how the world works any better than the average american teenager/young adult. In fact some do worse because they can see more, which sounds contradictory but sadly true. Oh what wasted talent

 

[JUN]

This is how my life as an INTP is like.

 

[CoryJames]

Most of us certainly aren't using their increased knowledge of how the world works any better than the average american teenager/young adult. In fact some do worse because they can see more, which sounds contradictory but sadly true. Oh what wasted talent

Just because we don't use our advanced/enhanced/objective observational/reasoning abilities to create a better world doesn't mean we are the average american teenager. How many national lampoon movies are there encapsulating the plight of the INTP teen?

 

[Gather_Wanderer]

i can see some similarities between us, except i'm not nearly as accomplished in school. well....i'm not accomplished at all... i graduated...so i guess...that's...it...
anyway i've basically grown up in a world in which the only other NT i knew was my father (ENTP). one of my cousins i found out recently is an xNTJ (i think he's an INTJ, though he tested as an E) and we started hanging out late in high school. other than that, it's been mostly me adjusting myself to the personality of others. i mean no one even remotely close to me in personality.
there were a lot of fun times though. spent most of my life observing...probably why i'm a fairly adventurous person. curiosity never killed me, though it came close in the department of women. i've also probably had an above-average level of attention from women but it always seems to affect me negatively. i don't think i was made for that....

 

[nexion]

Hell no. INTP is my favorite type on the list, and I love everything about it. If an INTP sees nonsociability as a problem, then they probably aren't truly INTP or they have barely any introversion at all.

 

[Mondorius]

Hell no. INTP is my favorite type on the list, and I love everything about it. If an INTP sees nonsociability as a problem, then they probably aren't truly INTP or they have barely any introversion at all.

Honestly, I just don't like people going "you're not an INTP if...", but I'll take your post at face value. You do realise that not all INTPs are the same, right?

A major concern for INTPs is the haunting sense of impending failure. They spend considerable time second-guessing themselves. The open-endedness (from Perceiving) conjoined with the need for competence (NT) is expressed in a sense that one's conclusion may well be met by an equally plausible alternative solution, and that, after all, one may very well have overlooked some critical bit of data.

My point is, an INTP might think lack of social skills as a problem, for multiple reasons. A very simple reason is that I can hardly imagine any country or culture where loners are seen as role models. Heck, with the advent of sites like Facebook, some people even feel better about themselves simply becomes of the number of contacts they have.

Another easy point would be how numbers is strenght in many, many things.

Sure, an INTP might not feel like having poor social skills is a problem, but it's easy to imagine how one could conclude rationally that it is. Hell, I think it's a problem. I do however enjoy the fact that I don't need to be constantly surrounded by people who approve me to be happy with myself, but the fact that I have a hard time connecting with people, even if they interest me, is definetely not a good thing.

I agree but FAR younger. Early teens are the worst years of your life (in my opinion), later teens seem to start evening things out and you start feeling okay and get to meet better people.

I felt as though I was a happier little lad when I was young and everything was new and I didn't understand as much as I do now.

Agreed and agreed. In my case, I would justify this the simple fact that you're dumber, or rather the human thought process is incomplete and flawed at that age coupled with the fact that I thrive on discovering new things and that everything becomes boring the moment I feel I have a good grasp on it, so yeah, when you have everything to learn, the world is sure a happy place to be in. And why would early teens be the INTP equivalent of hell? Another easy one, teens are obsessed with facade and appearance. Teens also almost live and die by the tiny universe that revolves around them, their friend and what they think the world thinks of them, because they think the world is watching them. And small talk.

I also agree that it gets better as you grow up, or at least, it should. It depends on you and how you grow. You can choose to make things interesting for yourself, but I can also imagine how someone could get really bored and maybe frustrated with life as an INTP.

So, to answer the original question, I guess I do happen to wish I wasn't an INTP sometimes, but it's not like I wished to be any other type. I wish to be perfect.

I'm surprised at just how revealing you are good sir.

I found this little bit interesting. I can easily remember the days when I would hardly say anything about myself and everything I did say was vague or left me with an emergency exit.

But now, it's different. I wouldn't mind typing out all my life on these very forums for little to no reason and I've been talking about myself a lot to people I meet for a few years now. And the reason I've become so open about myself is that I did realise that I have a hard time connecting with people, and people have a very hard time "figuring me out". This often leads to them attempting to wrongly label or try to guess you. Many people don't like the unknown, opening up puts many of these people at ease.

One tip I feel like throwing out there for people who have trouble opening up or consider trying it is to say what you do and what you actually think, and not how you think you are.

 

[Reptillian]

And why would early teens be the INTP equivalent of hell? Another easy one, teens are obsessed with facade and appearance. Teens also almost live and die by the tiny universe that revolves around them, their friend and what they think the world thinks of them, because they think the world is watching them.

Actually, teenagers are often rebellious due to their nature and they are constantly being influenced by adults while being in control of adults. I can understand that their feelings of the world being around them. What I can't understand is why they should care of how the world thinks of them and I'm one of the INTP teenager who clearly don't give a shit about the rest of the world while being separated from the masses.

 

[Mondorius]

@Reptillian: I'll assume you don't mind my long posts since you bothered to reply to my previous one.

Actually, teenagers are often rebellious due to their nature and they are constantly being influenced by adults while being in control of adults.

This isn't universally true. Not all teens rebel. Also, it's more common in societies with a strong sense of achievement, success and emphasis on performance. Reason is that in your teens, you tend to be more judgemental and observe more.

Also, when you reach your teens, you also begin creating your identity. All this together leads you to notice your parent's flaws, the world's flaws and so on. And you want to be better. Thus you rebel.

Teens do this by looking for what's better. What they deem better becomes their norm and they usually group with other teens who come to like similar things and reject everything else as inferior. Everything else includes other teens who are different from them, which leads to bullying among other things. Grouping also strenghtens the feel of superiority due to the support the group provides.

The reason teens care so much about what other think of them is because they, themselves are more judgemental and notice lots of things about others. They think everyone does the same with them and since they want to be superior, better, the opinion of others matter a lot. I mean, if you are better, shouldn't you be recognised as such?

This can be observed by a couple of typical teen behaviors. Insult a teenager. He will either insult you back, trying to "win" the insult war or somehow find a way to dismiss your opinion because you are inferior. This isn't the mark of someone who doesn't care. Teen relationships are also largely defined by reputation. You might find a girl attractive, but if your peers say she's ugly, chances are you'll never consider going out with that girl.

Continuing on the subject of relationships. Teenagers start being attracted by others. Lack of experience and the fact that it is easy to judge others by their looks make appearances very important to teens.

Now, why would all this make it hard on INTPs? Well, you can't help the changes that growing up pushes unto you. The fact that INTPs are fewer than other types doesn't help you finding people to share with and unless you were gifted a beautiful body, getting into a relationship as a teen INTP can be hard and depressing, for reasons you can't figure out, because the need for a relationship is not logical, but chemical and emotionnal. And I say relationship, but just making friends is going to be hard unless there's somehow a lot of easily spotted INTPs around you, because many others will reject you because of your difference.

Now, I don't like making assumptions, so I'll use myself as an example. When I was in my early teens, I had very few friends. In a way, I was my one man group with my own norms and I was definetely looking to be better than others. I took pride in how easily I managed to get good grades compared to others, all the while being bored by it. And I proved my own superiority by dismissing others as dumber than me. But logically, I couldn't figure out why somehow I wasn't perceived as superior. Of course, I thought relationships were trivial, as I concluded that there was no future with a girl met in high school. Yet at the same time, I couldn't help feeling attracted to some of them. I couldn't rationalize it.

Bottom line, high school was boring and relationships were frustrating because I couldn't logically see why I'd need it, but I somehow I still wanted it.

 

[nexion]

However, I have realized something many many years ago; being intelligent is nothing special. Just as being physically attractive and fit. Stealing a quote from a movie 'we are the all singing, all dancing, crap of the world'.

Your inabilities in the emotional sphere do not stem from your "high intelligence". In all circumstances they stem from your insecurities about yourself. What are you insecure about?

I disagree with you. Intelligence is far more important than anything else in the world. What does looking good get you? Temporary fame, money, and paparazzi. What are those things worth? Does it matter if you fit in and people like you? Is money truly that important? It seems important because we live in a capitalistic, greedy society in which money and the love of it dominates mind and soul, but it's truthfully not that important. It's just paper with numbers on it. We need it to live off of, only because our society demands it, but no one, and I am using an absolute statement, no single person needs billions upon billions of dollars for any reason.

But intelligence, that is a beautiful thing. Truthfully, money is worthless, and no amount of it could pay for intelligence. It the most important thing a man could have. Empires were built by the strategic genius of generals, technology created by pure ingenuity. The world was shaken when it was discovered that something could not be made out of nothing, when it was discovered that the world is not less than 10000 years old, when Einstein proposed the general theory of relativity that changed the landscape of how we view physics and the world, when Oppenheimer successfully created the first atomic bomb. People who are intelligent rewrite history, and are at the forefront of it. Do you think good looks or money has ever fixed any of the problems in the world? Oh, I suppose money, true, but it requires intelligence to know how and what to use it for.

Honestly, I just don't like people going "you're not an INTP if...", but I'll take your post at face value. You do realise that not all INTPs are the same, right?
My point is, an INTP might think lack of social skills as a problem, for multiple reasons. A very simple reason is that I can hardly imagine any country or culture where loners are seen as role models. Heck, with the advent of sites like Facebook, some people even feel better about themselves simply becomes of the number of contacts they have.

Another easy point would be how numbers is strenght in many, many things.

Sure, an INTP might not feel like having poor social skills is a problem, but it's easy to imagine how one could conclude rationally that it is. Hell, I think it's a problem. I do however enjoy the fact that I don't need to be constantly surrounded by people who approve me to be happy with myself, but the fact that I have a hard time connecting with people, even if they interest me, is definetely not a good thing.

Yeah, I understand perfectly what you're saying. I truly don't perceive my lack of desire and inability to form meaningful relationships a very bad thing. And I don't think it will cause me any problems down the road. But we shall see.

My nature revolves around being nonsocial. I am not good with people, I get anxious whenever I am around too many, and I am better at writing than talking. So I just don't see it as a problem and it works well with me. I don't even really want a relationship. Even among other INTP's, though, I'm sure that notion is very odd. However, I'm sure there are a few like that. Or maybe I have some sort of nonsocial mental disorder. Whatever.

 

[nexion]

Now, I don't like making assumptions, so I'll use myself as an example. When I was in my early teens, I had very few friends. In a way, I was my one man group with my own norms and I was definetely looking to be better than others. I took pride in how easily I managed to get good grades compared to others, all the while being bored by it. And I proved my own superiority by dismissing others as dumber than me. But logically, I couldn't figure out why somehow I wasn't perceived as superior.

I understand this perfectly.

That last sentence, though, did you ever figure that out?

 

[Reptillian]

@Reptillian: I'll assume you don't mind my long posts since you bothered to reply to my previous one.

This isn't universally true. Not all teens rebel. Also, it's more common in societies with a strong sense of achievement, success and emphasis on performance. Reason is that in your teens, you tend to be more judgemental and observe more.

You can write a wall of text which is over 7000 words and I won't mind reading it.

I never even bother stating that all teenagers rebel, but I was talking about those who find themselves to be in a different viewpoints than the conflicting side which influences their own life. The brain do actually changes from pre-teen to teenagers as observed in neurological studies which leads into a more developed brain which is closer to adult brain as they age which means they start to have more complex thinking as they aged. In general, some teenager's brain often develops healthy when the brain isn't affected by substances which may hinder the development strongly such as alcohol and drug. That's the main reason why teenagers tends to be more judgmental and more observant of their world.

The reason teens care so much about what other think of them is because they, themselves are more judgemental and notice lots of things about others. They think everyone does the same with them and since they want to be superior, better, the opinion of others matter a lot. I mean, if you are better, shouldn't you be recognised as such?

I can only agree to a extent of teenagers look into the other viewpoints as a reference for developing their viewpoints. Each people belongs into different group as they are developing their own viewpoint using other people as a guide to developing a unique viewpoint of a certain subject. By group, I mean by clique or a culture or even a subculture. A lot of them do think that majority does the same with them, but certainly some of them actually think differently to a point where they don't actually conform to the mainstream act. It has to do with their own experience and partly on neurological development which many influenced their own way of viewing the world.

This can be observed by a couple of typical teen behaviors. Insult a teenager. He will either insult you back, trying to "win" the insult war or somehow find a way to dismiss your opinion because you are inferior. This isn't the mark of someone who doesn't care. Teen relationships are also largely defined by reputation. You might find a girl attractive, but if your peers say she's ugly, chances are you'll never consider going out with that girl.

Then again, I can agree to an extent of a group of teenagers. At least some teenagers do have other ways to deal with situations such as being insulted or seeing other people disapprove of their choices.

Now, why would all this make it hard on INTPs? Well, you can't help the changes that growing up pushes unto you. The fact that INTPs are fewer than other types doesn't help you finding people to share with and unless you were gifted a beautiful body, getting into a relationship as a teen INTP can be hard and depressing, for reasons you can't figure out, because the need for a relationship is not logical, but chemical and emotionnal. And I say relationship, but just making friends is going to be hard unless there's somehow a lot of easily spotted INTPs around you, because many others will reject you because of your difference

Mostly agreeable. Making friends isn't that hard when other people still bothers you forcing you to try to communicate with them. I been there and they haven't reject me even though I'm INTP willing to avoid people. It's get annoying at time.

Now, I don't like making assumptions, so I'll use myself as an example. When I was in my early teens, I had very few friends. In a way, I was my one man group with my own norms and I was definetely looking to be better than others. I took pride in how easily I managed to get good grades compared to others, all the while being bored by it. And I proved my own superiority by dismissing others as dumber than me. But logically, I couldn't figure out why somehow I wasn't perceived as superior. Of course, I thought relationships were trivial, as I concluded that there was no future with a girl met in high school. Yet at the same time, I couldn't help feeling attracted to some of them. I couldn't rationalize it.

I used to be like that when I was around in 5th grade myself, but I kinda changed my habits as soon as I realize that grades are not entirely objective and grades aren't a reflection of intellectual abilities.

 

[chaomon]

I have a lots of friend but I dont feel the connection w/ them. I dont actually consider myself friendly.. its like I just attracts people.. In my freshman year at college I am so worried that I would be eating alone,(I hate eating alone in a public area) etc. but After my 1st class ended I just saw them waiting for me..

 

[Soledad]

You are supergorgeous for being an INTP. F*ck school, be a rock star

 

[basickatie]

i guess for me, i just want to accept and be happy with myself. my biggest problem is looking back to the past and still analyzing?agonizing. with relayionships i over analyze everything, sometimes good...idk...it's made me stay in bad relationships forever. but at the same time, i love thinking, i can't help it, i value my intelligence and beliefs more than anything, and from that, i get alot of pleasure.so idk... i guess it's fair. lol.....(thinking about it)