NTJ Female: The Rarest Person in the World
A kind way to describe me would be unusual. A Southern way would be a lil’ peculiar. An honest way would be pretty alien.
I’ve always known this to be true, though I’ve never been embarrassed by it. (However, I’m not above playing a Nice Normal Lady when it serves my goals. And I am very convincing.)
But recently, I’ve discovered that my unusual nature is not just a set of personal quirks but, rather, a measurable and statistically anomalous set of core traits.
I am, according to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) an “INTJ” female: the rarest person in the world.
If you’re not familiar with MBTI, it’s a personality test that sorts people into sixteen types based on four traits. The scientific community pish-poshes it a bit these days, but it’s worth taking for fun. The accuracy of my profile freaked me out.
What’s a normal MBTI result?
In a roomful of 200 women, you’d probably find about forty “nurturer” ISFJs and almost as many “caregiver” ESFJs. There would be twenty or so “entertainer” ESFPs and another twenty “campaigner” ENFPs.
But odds are, in a group of 200 random women, you’d probably find just one or two INTJs. Or maybe none. We’re known as the “strategist” or the “architect.” MBTI describes us this way:
INTJ: Have original minds and great drive for implementing their ideas and achieving their goals. Quickly see patterns in external events and develop long-range explanatory perspectives. Skeptical and independent, have high standards of competence and performance — for themselves and others.
In other words, we’re strategic, ambitious, stone cold killers. But we’re also people with a rich inner life, an awareness of their long-term impact on others, and a passion for original ideas.
We’re stone cold killer creatives.
So what makes the INTJ so different from other women? Here’s a few tipoffs:
You can spot an INTJ woman from a mile away
INTJ women usually avoid makeup and jewelry. We’re probably wearing dark, simple, modest clothes. Whatever women are “supposed” to look like in a given context, we don’t care. For example: at the beach, I prefer t-shirts to bikinis.
I literally do all of my shopping in a single six-foot section of Ross: I find the size 6 dresses (it’s hot where I live, pants are a hard pass) and just grab everything that isn’t flouncy. I refuse to waste my time in a mall.
But despite our simple clothing preferences, we don’t blend into the background. We take up a lot of space: we stride, we stand up tall. We make fierce eye contact.
INTJ women DNGAF what you think of us
Imagine you’re walking through a crowded airport when you trip and face-plant, spectacularly. Your skirt flies up and flashes the terminal some granny panties. Your luggage bursts open: delicates, Monistat, mustache bleach everywhere. How would you feel?
Most people would be mortified. But not me. Not at all.
This is because I’m intensely goal-oriented, and I think in the long-term. The airport is full of strangers I’ll never see again, so their opinion of me has no impact on my ability to achieve my long-term goals. Therefore, those opinions are irrelevant. I’m not going to waste a single cell of brain space on them.
But, that doesn’t mean we don’t care about you
Though I’m entirely driven by my goals, one of those goals is to improve the lives of the people around me. Which is why, if I took a nosedive in the airport, I’d genuinely think it was funny. I might even stand up and curtsy.
Watching me splat on the terminal floor, then dust myself off and grin about it, would probably add a little boost to your day — a story to tell, a shared moment with strangers, a bit of levity in a too-serious world. That gives me pleasure.
However, don’t conflate my desire to be kind with an imperative to be nice. INTJ women believe that, in order to be kind, you must sometimes be blunt. You must push people. I will tell you a hard truth, or ask you a tough question, if I think it will make your life better later on. If you like me less as a result, I can take it.
For that reason, people often misinterpret INTJ women as cold or unfeeling, when in fact we’re the opposite.
INTJ women do not want your help
I used to believe, like most INTJ women, that I could do everything myself. By now, I’ve gotten smacked in the face with my own limitations enough times to accept that this isn’t true, but I still think I can do most things on my own, and I almost always rather would. (Except take care of my children. Momma needs a break.)
Here’s how I knew my husband was perfect for me: we were on a road trip and got a flat tire. At the time, I had never had the chance to change my own tire before: I was a pretty, young, white woman in the South, so some nice gentleman always pulled over within five minutes and did it for me.
So I told my future husband that I wanted to change our flat tire myself. He nodded like this was the most normal thing in the world and sat on the curb while I pried the lug nuts loose. Men stopped and offered to help, but he waved them off for me: she’s got it.
God, I love him so much.
INTJ women don’t care about tradition or social expectations
Another husband story: he never actually proposed to me. He just said, “Oh, my dad gave me this,” and then chucked his mother’s old ring at me across the room. A few months later, after drowning in a tidal wave of bridal gowns with my teary-eyed mother, I asked to just elope, and he agreed.
It was perfect. I neither needed nor wanted anything more. And if he had gotten down on one knee and then expected me twirl in some lacy nonsense to a wedding DJ’s idea of a love song, I might have left him. There’s nothing that gets under my skin faster than forced sentimentality.
