the INTP and his/her siblings

[shoeless]

(put this in INTP instead of human relationships because, well, i really only want answers from INTPs here. feel free to move if necessary.)

for those of you with brothers and sisters (older or younger -- please specify your chronological positions), how do you find yourself relating to them? (prompted by a thought i had in my phototyping thread.)

my older brother who is *supposedly* an INTP is a douche to me -- treats me like my opinions are frivolous and ultimately irrelevant, but it makes me wonder if that means he could be a different personality type or if it's just because i'm his little sister. he's still number three (out of four) in the line, and i know he was sort of... well, picked on, by my oldest ESTJ brother, a lot, so he could also just be taking some of that anger out on me. because of this strained relationship, i really don't know him well enough to say with any definitiveness whether he's an INTP or not, but he doesn't strike me as one; i just don't know if that's him, or me.

myself, being the youngest and the only female, and an INTP, don't relate to my brothers at all -- in their company, i feel like they're mere acquaintances, and tend to withdraw from conversation. when i'm with them one-on-one, i keep my answers brief and concise and let them do most of the talking. i don't know if that's the age gap (my youngest brother is six year older than me; oldest brother is eleven years older than me) or my INTPness, which is why i'd like fellow INTP's input.

 

[jsibley1]

for those of you with brothers and sisters (older or younger -- please specify your chronological positions), how do you find yourself relating to them? (prompted by a thought i had in my phototyping thread.)

I am the oldest child out of three. The younger two are females. At the moment, I am 25. My sisters are 22 and 15. As both me and my oldest sister get older, I am slowly able to relate more and more with her. But, this relating isn't anything real. My two sisters get along as you would expect... best friends on minute and the next wanting to murder each other. Generally, the way I intereact with them is always in a joking manner. I'd do something funny, point out dumb things they did, etc. But, I cannot find myself to "connect" with them, offer advice, etc.

Well, I gave my little sister some advice on some shit that happened one night... but, I was also drunk, too. If I had been sober, I would have been confused as to what I should do.

myself, being the youngest and the only female, and an INTP, don't relate to my brothers at all -- in their company, i feel like they're mere acquaintances, and tend to withdraw from conversation.

Yea, I feel like I don't really know my family all that well. They all tend to talk to one another and share stuff... but.. I don't... and they don't ask me anything (probably because they know I don't like to talk about feelings or whatnot). I love them... but I don'tknow how to share it in a way that "is me." Everyso often I imagine what it would be like if my dad died today. I'd be mortified... but also stiffly immobile. And I realize during these "exercises" that I don't have a very strong urge to cry... just to stare at a wall and try to intellectualize the whole thing. When my dad had a heartattack almost a year ago... I was shocked and went to go see him. I didn't cry but I kept finding myself trying to understand it... I did research on heart attacks and how stints work. I watched the surgical video over and over.. being amazed at how blood flows when the clog is removed.

 

[Loki]

My view on siblings:

Having a good relationship with your siblings should be effortless. If it requires effort to have an good relationship with your siblings, then take it from me, it's not worth the effort.

 

[Agent Intellect]

Older brother is ISTP. I've always gotten along decently with him, but I think that's because we've both always had fairly similar interests (he's a much bigger gamer then I am though), and we've stayed out of each others way. We both have a similar sense of humor, which usually consists of saying the meanest things we can think of to each other. Sometimes I think that he has no conscience though, he doesn't seem to care much about the plight of other people and really enjoys his schadenfreude.

Younger sister is ESFJ. I don't see her often because she is always out at parties or hanging out with friends. She doesn't like being around me and my brother much when we're together because of our harsh sense of humor (she takes everything very personally). She's strongly liberal and atheist (contrary to the SJ stereotype). I more or less get along with her (although we didn't as much when younger) but our personalities are just so different that there isn't much common ground - so it's strange that she's dating an ENTP who's really cool because him an I get into discussions about science (he's majoring in astrophysics) and so forth.

 

[ProxyAmenRa]

My twin brother's personality type is enfp. He and I are extremely different but look similar.


@Agent Intellect, Nice fight club display pic.

 

[merzbau]

i have one older brother, an ESTP. to be sure things were rough early on, around the teen years, but we get along famously now.
we have a similar sense of humour, and there's a sort of mutual admiration for each other's strengths. i admire his independence and ability to motivate people and get things done. he really lives life to the fullest, travels constantly, is his own boss, likes nature & bush walking.. he's also quite smart, though he would deny it. he maintains that he can't "do" maths, yet he can memorise a book full of plant species.

among all our friends, he's always the decisive one who will act first, and get people off their arses. he can get stroppy sometimes, though, when people don't reciprocate, which is understandable i suppose.

so your siblings may be douches now, but that can change as you get older.

 

[Ombat]

I have a 23 year old sister (six years older than me) and I love her more than anyone.

She really is an enigma. I'd describe her as one of the most capable people I know. She's smart and can do any task in front of her. And she has a "no effing around" attitude that earns her a lot of respect. On the other hand, she can be frustratingly immature. She complains incessantly and has a breakdown if there's nobody to play with her. She can also be very spontaneous and silly and constantly needs to be around people, which is the one thing I never understood.

What always brings us together, though, are our cynical, sarcastic comments, and our overall sense of humor. Other than that we may as well be polar opposites. She's the definition of "cool" around people: Laid back, in style, and always able to entertain while still keeping the "But I don't really give a fuck" attitude. I dont know how we came from the same planet.

We've become close in the five years since she left for college. We like the same music and movies, so we always go to concerts and have something to talk about. I think she trusts me, which is why we get along so well. She never hesitates to ask me for advice or for my opinion, and I admire her in many ways, so it's a good bond between us. We each have what the other lacks, in many ways.

 

[Adymus]

I am the youngest of three. My older sister is seven years my senior and an ENFP, my brother is about a year and a half older than me and an ENTP.

The relationship between myself and my brother, for the most part sounded like it was similar between, you and your INTP brother, Shoeless. His perspective of me was a naiive, simple-minded, immature, spoiled cry baby, who got all the breaks, and all the attention. Looking back in retrospect, there are some grains of truth to this, but I wouldn't say that justifies him being a complete asshole to me. I certainly did get most of the breaks by being our Mom's favorite, and the nitches I played in the family, kind of fucked up my psychological growth, you could say. Since the roles of being super intelligent, creative, and independant where taken by my brother, it kind of left me with the over emotional/cries to get what he wants nitch. So I didn't really bloom into what I think an INTP is supposed to be until some time after highschool, interestingly enough, when I started seeing less of my brother. It kind of sucked totally living in his shadow too, he was hit with his teachers and aquiantences, and then they meet me expecting the same, only to find an Anti-social wreck.
Currently however, it is clear how similar we are in personality, now that I am much more developed. The only thing is, we still have kind of an alienating persona when we are around eachother. We don't talk much, and we certainly don't act like we are very close, probably because we are not. It's pretty fucked up, I wish it wasn't, and I can't help but wonder if he wishes the same.

I was and always have been much closer to my sister. She didn't really like my brother very much either as we were growing up. She thought he was arrogant, and he thought, or rather, 'thinks' she is a complete idiot. So maybe our closeness started as a "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" sort of relationship. But yeah, she and I actually appear to be siblings, as opposed to strangers.

 

[Zero]

My younger bro (by 18months) is probably a ISTP. It's hard to tell. I kind of suck at typing people close to me. He's got the friend nit thing and likes consistencies, so he might be a F I guess. Not a J, plans not and is messy as hell. Anyway, we get along really well. People think it's freaky.

They're just jealous (I'm not just saying that, their families and lives suck). For how annoying family can be, mine's pretty awesome.

 

[NET]

Hey Shoeless, your posts' questions have been tempting me to go out of my lurking streak for a while, so here goes my first post.

I have an INTJ brother who is 5 years my senior. As kids our relationships was like any other brother and sister I guess. He picked on me and I pulled his hair, long hours playing made up stories and don't tell mom secrets. Once he grew older we became more involved in our own thing and didn't say much towards each other. It wasn't until his senior year of high school and on that we started to understand each other. We really started talking and discovered how similar we viewed the world. We would discuss for hours over the issues or ideas we had been pondering. Of course he was more asserting in his ideas and opinions and I often told him he was taking things to seriously. We share lots of similar interests and a very misunderstood sense of humor.

 

[Adymus]

Hey Shoeless, your posts' questions have been tempting me to go out of my lurking streak for a while, so here goes my first post.

*throws a net over you*
GOT'CHA!

The old inquiry bait trap, works every time.

 

[ckm]

I have one sister who is two and a bit year younger than me. She is probably SF, but I can't say any more with even a hint of confidence. She can be confusing.

We spent our childhoods playing imaginary games together. That died out over the years and now that she's a young teenager she's kind of gone her own way down the road of conformity. I wasn't that different when I was fourteen I suppose. I spend a lot of time worrying about her, but when it comes to actually acting on that concern in a compassionate way it usually comes out as anger. Sometimes we talk a lot, and we're usually united in our fear of our mother's raging mood swings. We're different and we're similar. It's hard to explain.

 

[spockguy]

Having 2 older siblings 10 and 15 years apart from me was a big disconnect, especially for my sister and I, her being 15 years older. When I was growing up as a child, she, being ESFJ, would always be out and about with friends, would hardly find her in the house. She eventually moved on, got married, now has 4 kids, and we scarcely speak.

My brother (Tested and verified as INFJ), on the other hand, is a completely different story. I was put into his room and remained his roommate for the first 8 or so years of my life. Early on in these years I don't remember much, but I would always be interested in everything he was, the latest video games hes been playing, new music, his guitar playing/writing, et cetera. As we grew older, we would probe a wide variety of topics: society, politics, government, theology, philosophy, but we both had a special fondness for music and games. By the time I was 15, he moved out on his own, and that summer I would move in with him for a couple months, mostly in hopes to find my center (My life felt, and still sometimes does feel unbalanced). Afterward, up until this point in time (I'm currently 18, 19 in a month), we have gone our separate ways, but he always finds ways to keep in touch by buying concert tickets, or planning trips for us, and each time we are reunited, that same spark that was there is usually struck again.

My brother, beyond any doubt in my mind, is the biggest influence of my life up to this point.

 

[Ex-User (979)]

I have two older brothers the oldest is 23 and the other one is 17 and they are both
enfps. As I was young when the oldest lived here he thought I was annoying but know he and I have a connection we both like to theorize and talk about things that we both like. acctaully I am going to fly over and see him in two days. My other brother are only 2 years apart so we always would do stuff togeather and we would get into verbal fights alot. he still treats me like any thought or idea for something like installing a program he would get angry and say thats not how you do it or call me stupid or put me down. of course I am usally right . but he is more often than not nice and we often think alike.

 

[tashi]

I have one 9 year old brother, and infant sister who I've never met, and anouther infant sister on the way (my parents are divorced, so they're half sisters).
So I haven't the slightest idea how the two sister thing is going to work out, but regarding my existing sibling who I live with, I rarely have any form of comunication with him other then telling him to quiet down, or stop something that he's doing that I find obnoxious.

 

[chaos85652]

I'm 6 years younger than my only brother

I hated him, wished him dead, but now I see it's better to put energy in creating a good life for your own than putting negative energy in something less rewarding

He was (is?) addicted to heroin, that's the main reason for hating him

 

[Irishpenguin]

Holy crap I've actually wanted to answer this question ever since I found this forum, just couldn't find a comfortable way. So thanks for the thread first of all.

Okay. I only have a brother who is 7 years older than me. when he took the test I'm pretty sure it said he was an INFP, which was the same as me at the time and I don't know the percentages, so it could be different.

Growing up I was always jealous of him and thought he was the coolest dude around. Of course he picked on me a little but it always seemed like he cared in the way he would have deep conversations with me. To be honest he has been the most influential person in my entire life. Me looking up to him is the reason why I decided to not conform to anyone before I even knew the meaning of the word.

He lives out of the house now with three pretty cool roommates. I go visit him every know and then and every time it's been pretty nice. One of the times that was kind of recently me and him were on the porch for literally 4 to 5 hours talking about a story that I'm trying to write. With him giving very good constructive criticism throughout the discussion. After that discussion, we started talking about the universe, planets and stars gravitational pull, UFO's and other sorts of physics.

I have concluded that I was very lucky when it comes to family, and try not to take if for granted.

 

[severus]

My sister, who is 17 years old than I, is an ISFP. I think. The only one I'm really sure of is the I. We are not close at all, but that might be due to the age difference and the fact that she had children. Still though, we don't really click in any sort of "special family" way.

My one brother is 15 years older than I, and he is an ENTP. (Tested and checked against description.) We are very similar, but I don't see him very often. He is more of a party-er, and I do not like that aspect of him. I like him more than my sister, but we still don't have a real bond.

My other brother is 13 years older than I. I think he is an ISTP, or maybe INTP too. I'm not great at typing people.... We have similar tastes in about everything: humour, music, clothes, etc. Apparently he loved me when I was a baby, and I hated him when I was a child. Now I really like him, but it's kind of from a distance. I think we will connect better when I'm older.

Of course, They say that after a 5+ -year gap, it's like a different family. No arguments from me. The rest of them all grew up together, fought with each other, went on road trips together, stuffed the youngest brother into a box full of fallen leaves 'til he had an asthma attack.... They have their own little group (even if they are not actually close to each other now), and I cannot relate to it.

 

[Infinite Regress]

My sister is 9 years younger and is an ESFP. We get along very well, but the funny thing is she tends to socialize mainly with E's and finds introverts "frustrating". I personally feel family is important regardless of personality type, and even more so with INTP's as we generally don't get to form very close meaningful relationships, but rather more surface acquaintances.

 

[bananaphallus]

As I was reading this thread the following exchange took place between my older brother (by two years, lone sibling) and I:

brother: [two new articles of clothing in hand] "Look at these new shirts I got, twenty bucks each" [clearly pleased with price/quality ratio]

me: Wow [feigning interest]

brother: Yeah, I got em' at Zoo York in Atlantic City.

me: Where's that, on the 'walk' [an outdoor shopping area] or something?

brother: Yeah.

me: Wow.

This is about as deep as conversations between my brother and I get. From time to time, I feel like we're both repressing this intense hatred of each other, while other times we do a bang-up job of tolerating each other, bordering on non-reproach. I'm not sure what he would be as far as MBTI typing, the 'I' is for certain, but aside from that, I've got no clue. We were never close, and our relationship has really always been pretty superficial, never anything even close to 'brotherly-love'. The perplexing thing is that we share quite a few common interests and have somewhat similar senses of humor, but his passive-aggressiveness (drives me whacko-nuts) and my detachedness/seeming disinterest in all things family related have kept us at a distance, or at least that's the wildly misguided conclusion I've come to while writing this.

 

[Ermine]

I'm the oldest (18) of 4, 2 sisters, 1 brother.

My next oldest sister is 16, and virtually untypable as she has autism and is nonverbal. The next sister is 15, and an INFP, if I had to guess. She's significantly more extraverted than me, but at the same time requires almost as much recharge time as I do. She's also less N than me. We can only have deep conversation for so long. While I'm totally engrossed in whatever we're talking about, she ends up pulling back and says "Whoa...That's deep." and withdraws to do something more "normal". It's funny to watch. She's a total F, and significantly more P than me. We've been the best of friends as long as we can remember. While I can't be my entire self around her, we have a lot of fun going Ne-crazy together, and just introverting together.

The relationship with my little brother has been interesting. He's 10, and I think he's an ENTP. That's subject to change, since he's still young and moldable. At first, he used to drive me up the wall. He just had to keep pushing my buttons long after I found it funny. He always had to ask "why?" even after he knew I didn't know, or even though the "why" was besides the point. However, after looking into the MBTI and coming to understand myself a bit better a couple years ago, he wasn't annoying to me anymore. After that, I kept seeing myself in him every time he asked "why" for the millionth time, or had a bit of an S/N clash with our parents, or every time he kept following me around asking random questions. He really is a male version of me from 8 years ago. It's uncanny watching him go through life with this knowledge. Now, we're pretty close, as close as you can get with an 8 year age difference. We're video game buddies.

 

[Reverse Transcriptase]

introverting together

waaaa? oxymoron?

j/k I know what you mean. Nice phrase... I'm going to try to use it more.

 

[chaomon]

I'm the oldest I'm 17 years old, I have 3 siblings 2 girls and 1 lad.
My sister next to me is 16, means just a 1 year gap, she's a ENFJ (she told me that). I treat her like my mortal enemy, I never really like her as much as possible I want to stay away from her, being w/ her makes me crazy. She's stupid, she never respect me. That's why I never show any love for her the way I care about my other siblings specially to my little brother. I think they see me as a brutal sister, I am brutal, my mother describe as a person who is so hard, well they make me like this.

We never really get along. I hate her stupidity, although sometimes we talk as if were close at the end of the day we always fight. She always ask me questions that the answer our pretty obvious, and when she ask a question that is worth answering for she hardly get what I just explained to her, although her grades were much much better than me I dont think that she's smart at all she was just gifted for having such a good memory. I always makes her feel stupid I want her to feel that so she wont act smart its disgusting! have encounter a idiot person act as if they are smarter than you? Its annoying. But sometimes I feel bad for being such a mean sister, I always criticize her the way she dress, she thinks everything! except when it comes into music she is so damn better than me on it. I criticize her for her improvement I dont know if its the right way? But she also criticize me but I dont care at all.


I am 7 years older to my brother, I can say his my favorite. I can feel his pain, in my family he is the one being laugh at. he is very skinny, some thinks he's gay because he is so lousy, but he's not. I think he's a INTP too but he was too young to know. He's smart although he doesn't excel in academics. He ask me a lot of question about things he is so eager to know everything about the certain topic that caught he's interest. Although I am also brute to him I didnt mean that, or maybe I mean that but I have to if I dont he wont change, my mom doesnt discipline my siblings as much she discipline me.

My youngest sister is 8 years old, so I am 9 years older. I'm nice to her too, although most of the times I joke that she is adapted, but of course she's not! I am really scared about her future she is so different among the 3 of us, she's not afraid on anything maybe bcoz she is my moms fav daughter, she's really sweet unlike us, that why she's the favorite one. My youngest sister is so weird I am so afraid that she's get pregnant at the age of 16, she's kinda you know. argh! I'm not sure but I think when she grew old she's a very sexual person. Her friends knows a lot of sexual term that a child shouldn't knew. I told my mom a couple of times that she should guide Nichola and be more strict. When my sister is 8th month old I was the one who's taking care at her, but when she turns two my mom resign at her job so she doing a moms role but she doesnt do good I think? My sister prefer to be w/ me before and she really afraid doing a wrong things, now she doesnt care coz she knows that my mom will protect her from me.

 

[JoeJoe]

I have one sister, who is 3 years my senior, who is an ENFJ. As children we had a very close relationship, then over puberty we drifted somewhat apart and now we're very close again. She's intelligent and funny so we can have decent talks and we joke around a lot.

Now recently, my mother's partner moved in and with him his son, who is 19 (2 years older than me) and I suspect ESTP. He isn't really that much of a douche to me but he kind of has an asshole attitude. For example, he throws cigarette stubs on the street because "there are people, whose job it is to clean them away". His integrity is also extremely low I find. So yeah, I try to avoid too much contact with him.

 

[shadowdrums4]

I'm the eldest of 3 siblings. I'm 18 brother is 16 sister is 15.

I've never really considered myself close to them. In fact growing up I especially hated my brother. He's an ENFP. He's good at pretty much everything he tries and he always had lots of friends around him. He was a center of attention kid. He had to have everyone tell him how awesome he was. When we were really little I liked him, but I think when I was about 12 (and he was 10) we started growing apart. We basically ignored each other. I thought he was a stuck up attention whore and he thought I was a freak. I had a bunch of crap happen to me and that was wrong with me, he had a perfect life. "He was born lucky, I was lucky to be born." then he started screwing up in middle school and still is to an extent. He was grounded for a summer and I caught him in the backyard some mornings watching the sunrise. After an extensive talk, we became close and have been close ever since. I come with some of his friends and usually look out for him, and he makes sure to give me my alone time. His girlfriend helped chill him out a little. She's an INFP and she's really cool.

My little sister is an INTJ. You'd think we'd be close and we are somewhat, but I'm never sure where I really stand with her. We pick on each other constantly with friendly banter. I guess our closeness has never really changed. We were close as kids, close besides some sibling rivalry growing up, and we're close now. We basically stay out of each other's way because we know each can take care of themself.

I guess we are all pretty close to an extent, but I'm much closer to the friends I consider family. I guess I'm kind of proof that type doesn't matter as much as the individual.

 

[Chronomar]

for those of you with brothers and sisters (older or younger -- please specify your chronological positions), how do you find yourself relating to them? (prompted by a thought i had in my phototyping thread.).

My sister, 2 years younger.

We get along quite well, with the occasional periods of extreme animosity/full-out war. Usually over something trivial, and terminated once one of us sees whatever irony there is to be had in the situation and starts laughing.

She's an INTP (for which I thank my lucky stars), though a little more extraverted than I, and we both have the same sense of humor that no-one else (not even other INTPs we've met) seems to fully understand.

I'll miss her once the school year starts up again and I leave.
(a sidenote--where is the unhappy smiley? Because I am unhappy smiley-ing here.)

my older brother who is *supposedly* an INTP is a douche to me -- treats me like my opinions are frivolous and ultimately irrelevant, but it makes me wonder if that means he could be a different personality type or if it's just because i'm his little sister. he's still number three (out of four) in the line, and i know he was sort of... well, picked on, by my oldest ESTJ brother, a lot, so he could also just be taking some of that anger out on me. because of this strained relationship, i really don't know him well enough to say with any definitiveness whether he's an INTP or not, but he doesn't strike me as one; i just don't know if that's him, or me.

myself, being the youngest and the only female, and an INTP, don't relate to my brothers at all -- in their company, i feel like they're mere acquaintances, and tend to withdraw from conversation. when i'm with them one-on-one, i keep my answers brief and concise and let them do most of the talking. i don't know if that's the age gap (my youngest brother is six year older than me; oldest brother is eleven years older than me) or my INTPness, which is why i'd like fellow INTP's input.

Your brother likely doesn't even realize how he is affecting you. And, being an INTP yourself you probably haven't "expressed your feelings" on the issue in a way he understands.

I don’t know about him being an INTP, obviously knowing him even less than you. Probably an Introvert, though.

Your problems with your brothers are understandable, given the age gap (I can barely imagine how my sister and I's relationship would be were we separated by 6 years, or more), gender difference, and tensions between your brothers themselves.

My recommendation (though being completely unqualified to make a recommendation) is that you (tentatively) bring up your concerns to your brother NOT in the presence of the others (because when you potentially affront someone in "public" they are much more likely to be defensive and reactionary). First, discern within your mind exactly what your feelings are...as they may be elusive. Then decide (given your knowledge of your brother's personality) what would be best to tell him. Then lose all fear and go for it.

Another thing....humor is often the best thing for siblings to bond over. I don't know why, but this is very true in my family (and, as can be seen, for many others who posted as well)

I don't know how, but create some quality in-jokes.
Or style of humor (sarcastic, sardonic, upbeat, ironic, dead-pan...).
Or bond over ridiculous accents, or silly hats, silly walks, etc.